Chapter 1 Before I begin my story, I would like to tell you a little about my early life. I was born on a large farm in the middle of england, the third of five sons, and my father called me Lemuel Gulliver. After I finished school, I studied in Cambridge for three years ad then became an apprentice to a surgeon in London. The surgeon, Mr Bates, was a very good one, and I worked with him for four years. However, I always wanted to travel, so in my free time I learned how to sail so that one day I could leave England and explore the world. Mr Bates knew all about my desire to travel, so when I had finished my studies, he helped me to get work as a surgeon on s a ship called The Swallow. For three and a half years, I worked for Captain Abraham Pannel on his ship as it travelled round the eastern seas. Once back in England, I met a kind of women called Mary Burton and we soon got married. I decided to stay in London with my new wife for a few years, But although Mr Bates did al he could to help me,work was not easy to find. A year later, Mr Bates sadly died and i knew that my life would only become more difficult; we had only just enough money to live on. " There's little work for a surgeon in London, but my friend's tell me I should be able to find work on a ship," I said to marry one day. She thought long and hard before saying, " I don't want you to go, but if that's the only way we can earn enough to live well, then so be it." My friend's were right, because I quickly found another job as a ship's surgeon, and for six years I travelled around the world. I earned good money, and as a surgeon is not always needed on a ship, I also had plenty of time to myself. I did not waste this time but used it well: I read books and taught my self to speak several languages. My life changed after I got a new job on a ship called The Antelope. We left England in may and we had been at sea for about two months when The Antelope was hit by a violent storm. he ship was soon blown far away from our chosen route and we did not know where we were. The sea was so violent that we lost some of our crew even before the ship was suddenly blown onto a rock. There was a terrible crash and I could see that the ship was in great danger. " We're going to sink!" shouted the captain. "Get into the lifeboats!" Quickly climbing into a lifeboats with five other sailors, I was able to escape, but not everyone was so lucky: we watched in horror as The Antelope sank behind us. But although we rowed for some distance, The sea did not become calmer. A huge wave hit us and we were all thrown into the water. The sea was rough and it was very hard to swim in my heavy clothes, but at least the water was not too cold. I looked around me and realised that i was alone. I did not know what had happened to the other sailors. Perhaps they were all dead. The wind and the waves decided the direction I went, and i soon felt i had lost all the strength in my arms. Just when i thought i could not swim any more, my feet touched something hard. I had reached land. When i finally walked up the beach, I was cold, wet and exhausted. I looked around me, but there were no houses or people that i could see, so i found some soft gross, lay down and fell into a long sleep When i woke up, it was early morning and the the sun was just beginning to rise. I tried to stand up, but i found that this was impossible. I realised that my arms, my legs and even my hair were all somehow fastened to the ground.Thin ropes were tied around my body and neck. and I found I could only look up at the clear sky above me. I heard some noises and then felt something climb onto my left leg.It moved up my body until it was close to my head. Only then could I see what it was. It was a human, but this human was only about fifteen centimetres tall. He was carrying a bow and arrow. I then realised there were about forty other men of the same size all around me. They all looked the same, each one carrying a tiny bow and arrow. "Who are you and what are you doing to me ?" I cried. On hearing my voice, the little men looked worried and jumped away from me, so I tried to stand up again. Some of the ropes broke and now I could move my left arm. The little men shouted something in a strange language and I felt hundreds of arrows hit me. Most of the arrows hit my thick clothes and I felt nothing, but some of them stuck in my left hand. The arrows were tiny, but there were so many of them that it hurt. "Will you please stop that ?" I shouted, but when they continued to shoot the arrows, I lay quietly on the ground and decided not to move or say anything. I lay quietly on the ground and decided not to move or say anything. If I waited until night time, I thought I could use my left hand to unite the other ropes and escape when it was dark. Perhaps because they could see that I was not trying to escape, the little men became quiet. Later, they grew more confident and after about an hour, I could hear wood being cut next to me. I guessed that they were building something. Then the ropes around my head were cut free and I could finally lift my head. i saw a man standing on a wooden platform that had been built to the side of my head. The man was wearing important looking clothes, and a servant stood on each side of him.He looked at me and started to give a talk, but I could not understand anything he said, I guessed from his expressions and intonation that he spoke with mixture of threats and promises. When the man finished talking, I tried to talk to him in English: " Sir, my name's Lemuel Gulliver and my ship's been lost in a storm. That's why I'm here. You don't need to tie me up, I won't hurt anyone. Perhaps you could give me some food and a drink ." I could see from his expression that he did not understand me either. So I pointed to my mouth to show him that I was hungry and thirsty. The man said something to his servants. I watched as some of the little men went off, returning shortly with many baskets of food and little containers of water. They put ladders against my shoulder and carried the baskets and containers up to my mouth. They could not believe how much I drank and ate, but could trust me and, with food in my stomach, I felt I could trust them, too. "Thank you," I said when I had finished eating. The little men smiled at me and nodded their heads. Another man arrived and it was clear that this was an important person. The other man bowed to him and from his clothes I understood that this was the King of their country, which I later found was called Lilliput . He, too, spoke to me from the wooden platform and I waited patiently until he finished speaking. "I'm pleased to meet you, sir, but please, can set me free ?I asked him. I now knew we could not speak the same language, but we managed to communicate with each other using signs with our hands. So I understood that he refused my request to be free, and that he said that i did bit need to worry. He pointed and said something about moving me somewhere. Hundreds of tiny people were now standing around me. Slowly they picked me up and put me on a strange machine that had many wheels. Later I found out that the people of this land were great engineers and had designed this machine to carry heavy trees. It was pulled by a team of tiny black and white horses, each horse about eleven centimetres tall. I realised that they wanted to take me to the capital city, Before we left, some of the arrows had hit my hand. The cuts immediately felt much better. The city was perhaps a kilometre away, but it took all that night for the machine to carry me there. Because they had put some medicine in my food that made me sleepy, I slept for most of the journey , only waking up briefly when one of the soldiers decided to put a pole up my nose to see what would happen. He quickly ran away when I woke up and sneezed. The next morning, I awoke to find that the machine had carried me to an area close to the city gates. The horses stopped outside a building which I later found out was an ancient temple, the largest building in the land. No one used the empty building now, so the king decided that I should stay there. The building had a small garden around it which you could enter through two gates, each one a little more than a metre high. The king did not want me to escape, so he asked some of his men to fasten my legs to the gates using metal chains. Opposite my new home there was a tower which was approximately two metres high. The king went to the top of this tower with his men so they could watch me , like you watch an animal in a zoo, although i could not see them. During the next few days, hundreds of people from the city came out of the gates to see me lying on the strange machine next to my new home. At first, they used ladders to try to climb up on my body, but the king said this was not allowed. When the soldiers realised I could not escape with my legs chained to the gates, they cut the ropes that fastened me to the machine. Now I could stand up, although the chains on my legs stopped me from going very far. However, i could walk a little way around the empty building, and at night I could lie down to sleep on the hard floor of my new home. The next morning, i got up and looked at the land around the city. It was a pretty scene which reminded me of a painting in a children's book. There were lots of little fields and woods. The field's were the size of small gardens and the trees were only little more than two metres tall. I watched as some men arrived with little vehicles which they pushed towards me on wooden wheels. Each vehicle carried food and drink, and the men left the vehicles at the point to which I could walk before the chains stopped me. I emptied twenty of these vehicles for my breakfast. I did not know what the food was, but it tasted nice.