ch, allowing
for the difference between the size of those people and us in Europe, is
no great matter for admiration, nor at all equal in proportion (if I
rightly remember) to Salisbury steeple. But, not to detract from a
nation, to which, during my life, I shall acknowledge myself extremely
obliged, it must be allowed, that whatever this famous tower wants in
height, is amply made up in beauty and strength: for the walls are near a
hundred feet thick, built of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet
square, and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and emperors, cut
in marble, larger than the life, placed in their several niches. I
measured a little finger which had fallen down from one of these statues,
and lay unperceived among some rubbish, and found it exactly four feet
and an inch in length. Glumdalclitch wrapped it up in her handkerchief,
and carried it home in her pocket, to keep among other trinkets, of which
the girl was very fond, as children at her age usually are.

The king's kitchen is indeed a noble building, vaulted at top, and about
six hundred feet high. The great oven is not so wide, by ten paces, as
the cupola at St. Paul's: for I measured the latter on purpose, after my
return. But if I should describe the kitchen grate, the prodigious pots
and kettles, the joints of meat turning on the spits, with many other
particulars, perhaps I should be hardly believed; at least a severe
critic would be apt to think I enlarged a little, as travellers are often
suspected to do. To avoid which censure I fear I have run too much into
the other extreme; and that if this treatise should happen to be
translated into the language of Brobdingnag (which is the general name of
that kingdom,) and transmitted thither, the king and his people would
have reason to complain that I had done them an injury, by a false and
diminutive representation.

His majesty seldom keeps above six hundred horses in his stables: they
are generally from fifty-four to sixty feet high. But, when he goes
abroad on solemn days, he is attended, for state, by a military guard of
five hundred horse, which, indeed, I thought was the most splendid sight
that could be ever beheld, till I saw part of his army in battalia,
whereof I shall find another occasion to speak.

CHAPTER V.

Several adventurers that happened to the author. The execution of a
criminal. The author shows his skill in navigation.

I should have lived happy