Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Page 23

  CHAPTER IV.

  The author leaves Laputa; is conveyed to Balnibarbi; arrives at themetropolis. A description of the metropolis, and the country adjoining.The author hospitably received by a great lord. His conversation withthat lord.

  Although I cannot say that I was ill treated in this island, yet I mustconfess I thought myself too much neglected, not without some degree ofcontempt; for neither prince nor people appeared to be curious in anypart of knowledge, except mathematics and music, wherein I was far theirinferior, and upon that account very little regarded.

  On the other side, after having seen all the curiosities of the island, Iwas very desirous to leave it, being heartily weary of those people.They were indeed excellent in two sciences for which I have great esteem,and wherein I am not unversed; but, at the same time, so abstracted andinvolved in speculation, that I never met with such disagreeablecompanions. I conversed only with women, tradesmen, flappers, andcourt-pages, during two months of my abode there; by which, at last, Irendered myself extremely contemptible; yet these were the only peoplefrom whom I could ever receive a reasonable answer.

  I had obtained, by hard study, a good degree of knowledge in theirlanguage: I was weary of being confined to an island where I received solittle countenance, and resolved to leave it with the first opportunity.

  There was a great lord at court, nearly related to the king, and for thatreason alone used with respect. He was universally reckoned the mostignorant and stupid person among them. He had performed many eminentservices for the crown, had great natural and acquired parts, adornedwith integrity and honour; but so ill an ear for music, that hisdetractors reported, "he had been often known to beat time in the wrongplace;" neither could his tutors, without extreme difficulty, teach himto demonstrate the most easy proposition in the mathematics. He waspleased to show me many marks of favour, often did me the honour of avisit, desired to be informed in the affairs of Europe, the laws andcustoms, the manners and learning of the several countries where I hadtravelled. He listened to me with great attention, and made very wiseobservations on all I spoke. He had two flappers attending him forstate, but never made use of them, except at court and in visits ofceremony, and would always command them to withdraw, when we were alonetogether.

  I entreated this illustrious person, to intercede in my behalf with hismajesty, for leave to depart; which he accordingly did, as he was pleasedto tell me, with regret: for indeed he had made me several offers veryadvantageous, which, however, I refused, with expressions of the highestacknowledgment.

  On the 16th of February I took leave of his majesty and the court. Theking made me a present to the value of about two hundred pounds English,and my protector, his kinsman, as much more, together with a letter ofrecommendation to a friend of his in Lagado, the metropolis. The islandbeing then hovering over a mountain about two miles from it, I was letdown from the lowest gallery, in the same manner as I had been taken up.

  The continent, as far as it is subject to the monarch of the flyingisland, passes under the general name of _Balnibarbi_; and themetropolis, as I said before, is called _Lagado_. I felt some littlesatisfaction in finding myself on firm ground. I walked to the citywithout any concern, being clad like one of the natives, and sufficientlyinstructed to converse with them. I soon found out the person's house towhom I was recommended, presented my letter from his friend the grandeein the island, and was received with much kindness. This great lord,whose name was Munodi, ordered me an apartment in his own house, where Icontinued during my stay, and was entertained in a most hospitablemanner.

  The next morning after my arrival, he took me in his chariot to see thetown, which is about half the bigness of London; but the houses verystrangely built, and most of them out of repair. The people in thestreets walked fast, looked wild, their eyes fixed, and were generally inrags. We passed through one of the town gates, and went about threemiles into the country, where I saw many labourers working with severalsorts of tools in the ground, but was not able to conjecture what theywere about: neither did observe any expectation either of corn or grass,although the soil appeared to be excellent. I could not forbear admiringat these odd appearances, both in town and country; and I made bold todesire my conductor, that he would be pleased to explain to me, whatcould be meant by so many busy heads, hands, and faces, both in thestreets and the fields, because I did not discover any good effects theyproduced; but, on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappilycultivated, houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people whosecountenances and habit expressed so much misery and want.

  This lord Munodi was a person of the first rank, and had been some yearsgovernor of Lagado; but, by a cabal of ministers, was discharged forinsufficiency. However, the king treated him with tenderness, as awell-meaning man, but of a low contemptible understanding.

  When I gave that free censure of the country and its inhabitants, he madeno further answer than by telling me, "that I had not been long enoughamong them to form a judgment; and that the different nations of theworld had different customs;" with other common topics to the samepurpose. But, when we returned to his palace, he asked me "how I likedthe building, what absurdities I observed, and what quarrel I had withthe dress or looks of his domestics?" This he might safely do; becauseevery thing about him was magnificent, regular, and polite. I answered,"that his excellency's prudence, quality, and fortune, had exempted himfrom those defects, which folly and beggary had produced in others." Hesaid, "if I would go with him to his country-house, about twenty milesdistant, where his estate lay, there would be more leisure for this kindof conversation." I told his excellency "that I was entirely at hisdisposal;" and accordingly we set out next morning.

  During our journey he made me observe the several methods used by farmersin managing their lands, which to me were wholly unaccountable; for,except in some very few places, I could not discover one ear of corn orblade of grass. But, in three hours travelling, the scene was whollyaltered; we came into a most beautiful country; farmers' houses, at smalldistances, neatly built; the fields enclosed, containing vineyards,corn-grounds, and meadows. Neither do I remember to have seen a moredelightful prospect. His excellency observed my countenance to clear up;he told me, with a sigh, "that there his estate began, and would continuethe same, till we should come to his house: that his countrymen ridiculedand despised him, for managing his affairs no better, and for setting soill an example to the kingdom; which, however, was followed by very few,such as were old, and wilful, and weak like himself."

  We came at length to the house, which was indeed a noble structure, builtaccording to the best rules of ancient architecture. The fountains,gardens, walks, avenues, and groves, were all disposed with exactjudgment and taste. I gave due praises to every thing I saw, whereof hisexcellency took not the least notice till after supper; when, there beingno third companion, he told me with a very melancholy air "that hedoubted he must throw down his houses in town and country, to rebuildthem after the present mode; destroy all his plantations, and cast othersinto such a form as modern usage required, and give the same directionsto all his tenants, unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride,singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps increase hismajesty's displeasure; that the admiration I appeared to be under wouldcease or diminish, when he had informed me of some particulars which,probably, I never heard of at court, the people there being too muchtaken up in their own speculations, to have regard to what passed herebelow."

  The sum of his discourse was to this effect: "That about forty years ago,certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion,and, after five months continuance, came back with a very littlesmattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in thatairy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike themanagement of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting allarts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot. To this end,they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy of projec
tors inLagado; and the humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that thereis not a town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy.In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods ofagriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all tradesand manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the workof ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as tolast for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall cometo maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase ahundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happyproposals. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects areyet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country liesmiserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food orclothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fiftytimes more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equallyon by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprisingspirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houseshis ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life,without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry haddone the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will,as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth's men, preferringtheir own ease and sloth before the general improvement of theircountry."

  His lordship added, "That he would not, by any further particulars,prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in viewing the grandacademy, whither he was resolved I should go." He only desired me toobserve a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about three milesdistant, of which he gave me this account: "That he had a very convenientmill within half a mile of his house, turned by a current from a largeriver, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number ofhis tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of those projectors cameto him with proposals to destroy this mill, and build another on the sideof that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a long canal must be cut, fora repository of water, to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to supplythe mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated the water, andthereby made it fitter for motion, and because the water, descending downa declivity, would turn the mill with half the current of a river whosecourse is more upon a level." He said, "that being then not very wellwith the court, and pressed by many of his friends, he complied with theproposal; and after employing a hundred men for two years, the workmiscarried, the projectors went off, laying the blame entirely upon him,railing at him ever since, and putting others upon the same experiment,with equal assurance of success, as well as equal disappointment."

  In a few days we came back to town; and his excellency, considering thebad character he had in the academy, would not go with me himself, butrecommended me to a friend of his, to bear me company thither. My lordwas pleased to represent me as a great admirer of projects, and a personof much curiosity and easy belief; which, indeed, was not without truth;for I had myself been a sort of projector in my younger days.