Chapter-4
As the days passed by, everyone near the farmer’s house came to know that my master had found a strange animal in the fields. Its features and behaviour resembled a human being. It could speak in a strange language, walk on two legs, was tame and gentle, obeyed commands, and was very fair-complexioned. People started visiting my master’s house to see me. One day, one of my master’s close friend, who lived nearby, came to visit him. He was an old man and had poor eyesight. He had to put his glasses on to see me. They were very thick glasses and his eyes looked huge to me. They looked like moons shining through two windows. I could not control myself and laughed very loudly. When everyone understood why I laughed, they laughed too. The old man got very annoyed with me.
I was immediately placed upon a table. My master asked me to do several things which I did as follows-firstly, I walked very smartly, and then I took out my sword, waved it around and put it back again. I made a bow to the guest, asked him in his own language how he did, and told him that he was welcome.
That friend of my master was a great miser. He took my master aside and told him, “Why don’t you take him to the market the next time you go? You can show him to people and earn money.”
Next morning, Glumdalclitch came to me. She was in a very sad mood. When I asked her about the reason, she told me the whole thing. “My mother gave you to me. And now they are taking you away. Earlier, they had done the same thing. They gave me a lamb and said it was mine but then, they sold it to a butcher,” said the little girl.
She was crying with shame and grief. She treated me as her personal plaything. Moreover, she was afraid that some rude and vulgar man from amongst the spectators might squeeze me to death or break one of my limbs. She also felt that a public show might hurt my self-respect. But she was helpless and could not convince her father, who had decided to carry me to the town the next market-day. But, I was not so unhappy as Glumdalclitch because I hoped that somehow I could find a way to get away from them and go back to England.
The next market-day, my master took me in a box to the neighbouring town. My little nurse accompanied us. She had put her doll’s quilt into the box for me to lie down on. In spite of that, the journey shook me terribly. The horse jumped about forty feet with every step. Every time it jumped, it was like the rise and fall of a ship in a great storm. The journey took only about half an hour. During that short period, every part of my body was paining. My master stopped at an inn. After talking to the inn-keeper for a while, he hired a loudspeaker to announce the news that he had a strange creature to show. It was also announced that the unusual creature was like a human being but of a very small size. He could speak many words and perform many tricks.
Afterwards, I was placed on a large table in the largest room of the inn. It was about three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on a low stool close to the table to take care of me and to direct me in what I should do. People stormed in from all sides after hearing the announcement. To control the crowd, my master allowed only thirty people at a time to see me. I performed as I had been performing for the last few days before the visitors from the neighbourhood. That day, I had to perform twelve shows, as a result of which I was very exhausted. When we reached home, I was totally exhausted. I could not even stand on my feet for three days after that. Even at home, the shows continued because people from hundred miles thronged the place. My master was getting more and more greedy every day. He started demanding the rate of a full room even when he had to show me to a single family. I hardly had any rest, except on Wednesdays which was a kind of holiday for them. My master decided to show me in all the big towns of the kingdom.
About two months after my arrival to Brobdingnag on the 17th of August, 1703, my master decided to visit the capical city. My little nurse accompanied us. She carried me on her lap in a box which she had tied about her waist. The girl had lined the box on all sides with the softest cloth she could get. She even put her doll’s well-quilted bed. In that way, she had prepared my box and made it as comfortable as she could. The capital-city was situated near the middle of that empire, about three thousand miles away from our house. My master showed me in all the towns on the way to the capital-city. We made short journeys covering not more than one hundred and sixty miles in a day. My little nurse understood my feelings. When she realized that I was tired and needed some rest, she would pretend to be tired. Then she would often take me out of the box so that I might enjoy the fresh air. Many a time, she also showed me the country. We passed over five or six rivers many times broader and deeper than the Nile or the Ganges. The journey took ten weeks during which I was shown in eighteen big towns and many villages.
On the 26th of October, we arrived at the capital-city called Lorbrulgrud or the ‘Pride of the Universe’. My master carried on his usual routine. He hired a big room and displayed posters describing my physical parts and tricks. Very soon, I became the hottest topic of discussion in the town. People were excited and enthusiastic to see a strange human being like me. Finally, I was shown to people in the town. My master became greedier day by day and organized shows ten times a day. As a result of so much exertion, my health started deteriorating, but my master was least bothered about this. He was busy making money out of me. People gazed at me when they saw me performing the tricks. By then, I was able to speak their language quite well and understood every word that was spoken to me.
All that hard work day in and day out affected my health a great deal. I grew thinner day by day. Though my master had noticed it yet he was least bothered as he wanted to earn as much out of me as he could before I died.