ovide a place for me to sail in. The fellow was an ingenious
workman, and by my instructions, in ten days finished a pleasure boat,
with all its tackling, able conveniently to hold eight Europeans. When
it was finished the queen was so delighted that she ran with it in her
lap to the king, who ordered it to be put in a cistern full of water,
with me in it, by way of trial; where I could not manage my two
sculls, or little oars, for want of room. But the queen had before
contrived another project. She ordered the joiner to make a wooden
trough of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep; which
being well pitched to prevent leaking, was placed on the floor along
the wall, in an outer room of the palace. It had a cock near the
bottom to let out the water when it began to grow stale; and two
servants could easily fill it in half an hour. Here I often used to
row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies,
who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility.
Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then my business was only to
steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans; and when they
were weary, some of the pages would blow my sail forward with their
breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard or larboard as I
pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat
into her closet, and hung it on a nail to dry.

In this exercise I once met an accident which had like to have cost me
my life; for, one of the pages having put my boat into the trough, the
governess who attended Glumdalclitch very officiously lifted me up, to
place me in the boat; but I happened to slip through her fingers, and
should infallibly have fallen down forty feet, upon the floor, if, by
the luckiest chance in the world, I had not been stopped by a
corking-pin that stuck in the good gentlewoman's stomacher; the head
of the pin passed between my shirt and the waistband of my breeches,
and thus I was held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch ran
to my relief.

Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my
trough every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let a
huge frog (not perceiving it) slip out of his pail. The frog lay
concealed till I was put into my boat, but then, seeing a
resting-place, climbed up and made it lean so much on one side that I
was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to prevent
overturning. When the