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_ CHAPTER IV
[The author leaves Laputa; is conveyed to Balnibarbi; arrives at
the metropolis. A description of the metropolis, and the country
adjoining. The author hospitably received by a great lord. His
conversation with that lord.]
Although I cannot say that I was ill treated in this island, yet I
must confess I thought myself too much neglected, not without some
degree of contempt; for neither prince nor people appeared to be
curious in any part of knowledge, except mathematics and music,
wherein I was far their inferior, and upon that account very little
regarded.
On the other side, after having seen all the curiosities of the
island, I was 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 and involved in speculation, that I never
met with such disagreeable companions. I conversed only with
women, tradesmen, flappers, and court-pages, during two months of
my abode there; by which, at last, I rendered myself extremely
contemptible; yet these were the only people from whom I could ever
receive a reasonable answer.
I had obtained, by hard study, a good degree of knowledge in their
language: I was weary of being confined to an island where I
received so little countenance, and resolved to leave it with the
first opportunity.
There was a great lord at court, nearly related to the king, and
for that reason alone used with respect. He was universally
reckoned the most ignorant and stupid person among them. He had
performed many eminent services for the crown, had great natural
and acquired parts, adorned with integrity and honour; but so ill
an ear for music, that his detractors reported, "he had been often
known to beat time in the wrong place;" neither could his tutors,
without extreme difficulty, teach him to demonstrate the most easy
proposition in the mathematics. He was pleased to show me many
marks of favour, often did me the honour of a visit, desired to be
informed in the affairs of Europe, the laws and customs, the
manners and learning of the several countries where I had
travelled. He listened to me with great attention, and made very
wise observations on all I spoke. He had two flappers attending
him for state, but never made use of them, except at court and in
visits of ceremony, and would always command them to withdraw, when
we were alone together.
I entreated this illustrious person, to intercede in my behalf with
his majesty, for leave to depart; which he accordingly did, as he
was pleased to tell me, with regret: for indeed he had made me
several offers very advantageous, which, however, I refused, with
expressions of the highest acknowledgment.
On the 16th of February I took leave of his majesty and the court.
The king 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 of recommendation to a friend of his in Lagado, the
metropolis. The island being then hovering over a mountain about
two miles from it, I was let down 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 flying
island, passes under the general name of Balnibarbi; and the
metropolis, as I said before, is called Lagado. I felt some little
satisfaction in finding myself on firm ground. I walked to the
city without any concern, being clad like one of the natives, and
sufficiently instructed to converse with them. I soon found out
the person's house to whom I was recommended, presented my letter
from his friend the grandee in the island, and was received with
much kindness. This great lord, whose name was Munodi, ordered me
an apartment in his own house, where I continued during my stay,
and was entertained in a most hospitable manner.
The next morning after my arrival, he took me in his chariot to see
the town, which is about half the bigness of London; but the houses
very strangely built, and most of them out of repair. The people
in the streets walked fast, looked wild, their eyes fixed, and were
generally in rags. We passed through one of the town gates, and
went about three miles into the country, where I saw many labourers
working with several sorts of tools in the ground, but was not able
to conjecture what they were about: neither did observe any
expectation either of corn or grass, although the soil appeared to
be excellent. I could not forbear admiring at these odd
appearances, both in town and country; and I made bold to desire my
conductor, that he would be pleased to explain to me, what could be
meant by so many busy heads, hands, and faces, both in the streets
and the fields, because I did not discover any good effects they
produced; but, on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappily
cultivated, houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people
whose countenances and habit expressed so much misery and want.
This lord Munodi was a person of the first rank, and had been some
years governor of Lagado; but, by a cabal of ministers, was
discharged for insufficiency. However, the king treated him with
tenderness, as a well-meaning man, but of a low contemptible
understanding.
When I gave that free censure of the country and its inhabitants,
he made no further answer than by telling me, "that I had not been
long enough among them to form a judgment; and that the different
nations of the world had different customs;" with other common
topics to the same purpose. But, when we returned to his palace,
he asked me "how I liked the building, what absurdities I observed,
and what quarrel I had with the dress or looks of his domestics?"
This he might safely do; because every thing about him was
magnificent, regular, and polite. I answered, "that his
excellency's prudence, quality, and fortune, had exempted him from
those defects, which folly and beggary had produced in others." He
said, "if I would go with him to his country-house, about twenty
miles distant, where his estate lay, there would be more leisure
for this kind of conversation." I told his excellency "that I was
entirely at his disposal;" and accordingly we set out next morning.
During our journey he made me observe the several methods used by
farmers in managing their lands, which to me were wholly
unaccountable; for, except in some very few places, I could not
discover one ear of corn or blade of grass. But, in three hours
travelling, the scene was wholly altered; we came into a most
beautiful country; farmers' houses, at small distances, neatly
built; the fields enclosed, containing vineyards, corn-grounds, and
meadows. Neither do I remember to have seen a more delightful
prospect. His excellency observed my countenance to clear up; he
told me, with a sigh, "that there his estate began, and would
continue the same, till we should come to his house: that his
countrymen ridiculed and despised him, for managing his affairs no
better, and for setting so ill 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,
built according to the best rules of ancient architecture. The
fountains, gardens, walks, avenues, and groves, were all disposed
with exact judgment and taste. I gave due praises to every thing I
saw, whereof his excellency took not the least notice till after
supper; when, there being no third companion, he told me with a
very melancholy air "that he doubted he must throw down his houses
in town and country, to rebuild them after the present mode;
destroy all his plantations, and cast others into such a form as
modern usage required, and give the same directions to all his
tenants, unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride,
singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps increase
his majesty's displeasure; that the admiration I appeared to be
under would cease or diminish, when he had informed me of some
particulars which, probably, I never heard of at court, the people
there being too much taken up in their own speculations, to have
regard to what passed here below."
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 little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits
acquired in that airy region: that these persons, upon their
return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and
fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and
mechanics, upon a new foot. To this end, they procured a royal
patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado; and the
humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that there is not a
town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy. In
these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of
agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all
trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall
do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials
so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits
of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit
to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at
present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only
inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to
perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably
waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes.
By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times
more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally
on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an
enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to
live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in
every part of life, without innovation: that some few other
persons of quality and gentry had done 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, preferring their own ease and sloth
before the general improvement of their country."
His lordship added, "That he would not, by any further particulars,
prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in viewing the grand
academy, whither he was resolved I should go." He only desired me
to observe a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about
three miles distant, of which he gave me this account: "That he
had a very convenient mill within half a mile of his house, turned
by a current from a large river, and sufficient for his own family,
as well as a great number of his tenants; that about seven years
ago, a club of those projectors came to him with proposals to
destroy this mill, and build another on the side of that mountain,
on the long ridge whereof a long canal must be cut, for a
repository of water, to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to
supply the mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated
the water, and thereby made it fitter for motion, and because the
water, descending down a declivity, would turn the mill with half
the current of a river whose course is more upon a level." He
said, "that being then not very well with the court, and pressed by
many of his friends, he complied with the proposal; and after
employing a hundred men for two years, the work miscarried, 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
the bad character he had in the academy, would not go with me
himself, but recommended me to a friend of his, to bear me company
thither. My lord was pleased to represent me as a great admirer of
projects, and a person of much curiosity and easy belief; which,
indeed, was not without truth; for I had myself been a sort of
projector in my younger days.
_____
Content of PART III - A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN CHAPTER IV [Jonathan Swift's novel: Gulliver's Travels] _
Read next: PART III - A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN: CHAPTER V
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