Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/261

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TO LAPUTA, ETC.
235

CHAP. IX.


The author returns to Maldonada. Sails to the kingdom of Luggnagg. The author confined. He is sent for to court. The manner of his admittance. The king's great lenity to his subjects.


THE day of our departure being come, I took leave of his highness, the governour of Glubbdubdribb, and returned with my two companions to Maldonada, where after a fortnight's waiting, a ship was ready to sail for Luggnagg. The two gentlemen, and some others, were so generous and kind as to furnish me with provisions, and see me on board. I was a month in this voyage. We had one violent storm, and were under a necessity of steering westward to get into the trade-wind, which holds for above sixty leagues. On the 21st of April, 1708, we sailed into the river of Clumegnig, which is a seaport town, at the south-east point of Luggnagg. We cast anchor within a league of the town, and made a signal for a pilot. Two of them came on board in less than half an hour, by whom we were guided between certain shoals and rocks, which are very dangerous in the passage, to a large basin, where a fleet may ride in safety, within a cable's length of the town-wall.

Some of our sailors, whether out of treachery or inadvertence, had informed the pilots that I was a stranger, and a great traveller; whereof these gave

notice