Chapter-5
We stayed in that island for about ten days, after which we had decided to depart. I took leave of the king, the governor of Glubbdubdrib and returned with my companions to Maldonada. After waiting for a fortnight, a ship was ready to sail for Luggnagg. On 21st April, 1708, we sailed into the river of Clumegnig which was 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. Within half an hour two people came who guided us between certain shoals and rocks to a large basin.
Some of our sailors had informed the pilots that I was a stranger and a great traveller. When I landed, the custom house officer examined me very thoroughly. The officer spoke to me in the language of Balnibarbi which was generally understood in that town, especially by seamen and those employed in the customs.
I gave him a short account of myself and made my story as believable and reliable as I could. But I thought it necessary to disguise my country and call myself a Hollander; because my intentions were for Japan. I knew that the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to enter into that kingdom. I, therefore, told the officer that, having been shipwrecked on the coast of Balnibarbi, I landed in Laputa or the flying island. I told him that I endeavoured to get to Japan from where I might find a way back to my own country. The officer said, “You must be confined till I receive orders from the court for which I will have to write immediately and hope to receive an answer in a fortnight.”
After about a fortnight, we received the order from the court. It contained a warrant for me and my attendant to be taken to Traldradubh by a party of ten horses. The only person who accompanied me was a poor lad who would act as an interpreter. Each of us had a mule to ride on. A messenger was sent before us to inform the king about my arrival. This was done so that the king might appoint a day and hour when I might have the honour to lick the dust before him. This was the custom of the court.
Two days after I had arrived in Traldragdubh, I was commanded to crawl upon my belly and lick the floor as I advanced towards the king. Since I was a stranger, due care was taken to clean the floor properly so that there might be no dust to cause me any harm. However, this was a peculiar grace which was allowed to the persons of the highest rank when they desired admittance to the court. Sometimes the floor was covered with dust when the person to be admitted happened to have powerful enemies at the court.
Once, I happened to see a great lord with his mouth so packed with the dust that he was not able to speak a word when he reached close to the throne. There was indeed another custom when the king wanted to put any of his nobles to death in a gentle, indulgent manner. He would order the floor to be strewn with brown powder of a deadly composition. When the noble licked and crawled up to the king, the powder would infallibly kill him in twenty-four hours.
When I had crept within four yards of the throne, I raised myself gently upon my knees. I then struck my forehead seven times against the ground and pronounced the following words, as they had been taught to me the night before ‘Inckpling gloffthrobb squut serummblhiop mlashnalt zwin tnodbalkuffh slhiophad gurdlubh asht’. This was the compliment established by the laws of the land for all persons who were admitted to the king’s palace. This was the English translation: “May your celestial majesty outlive the sun, eleven moons and a half!”
Thereupon, the king returned some answer. Although I could not understand yet I replied as I had been directed: ‘Fluft drin yalerick dwuldom prastrad mirpush’ which signified, “My tongue is in the mouth of my friend.” This expression meant that I desired permission to bring my interpreter. Immediately, the young lad who had come with me was brought to the court and introduced. Then the king invariably asked me several questions to which I answered very politely. This question-and-answer session carried on for an hour. I spoke in the Balnibarbian language and my interpreter delivered the meaning in the language of the Luggnaggians.
The king was very delighted with my company and ordered his bliffmarklub or high-chamberlain to arrange lodging for me and my interpreter in the court. Together with this, I got a daily allowance for our food and a large amount of gold for my common expenses.
The Luggnaggians were polite and generous people. Although they were a little proud, which was peculiar to all Eastern countries, yet they showed themselves courteous to strangers. I had many acquaintances. Since my interpreter always accompanied me, we had long conversations.
One day, I was asked by somebody of a high rank, “Have you seen any of our struldbrugs or immortals?”
I replied, “I have not.” I requested him to explain to me what he meant by such a term.
He told me that a child happened to be born in a family with a red circular spot in the forehead directly over the left eye-brow which was an infallible mark that would never die. The spot was about the compass of a silver three-pence but in the course of time, it grew larger and changed its colour. When the child was twelve years old, it became green and continued till twenty-five and then it turned to a deep blue. At the age of forty-five, it grew coal black and as large as an English shilling.
He said that these births were so rare that there were not more than eleven hundred struldbrugs of both sexes in the whole kingdom. He also said that these productions were not peculiar to any family but a mere case of chance. The children of the struldbrugs themselves were equally mortal with the rest of the people.
I devised a whole plan of what I would do if I were immortal. If it had been my good fortune to come into the world as a struldbrug, I would first procure myself riches. In that way, in about two hundred years, I would be the wealthiest man in the kingdom. Secondly, right from young age I would devote myself to the study of arts and sciences and hence, could excel all others in learning. Lastly, I would carefully record every action and event that happened in the public and impartially draw the characters of the several successions of princes and great ministers of state with my own observations on every point. I would exactly set down the several changes in customs, language, fashions of dress, diet and diversions.
These struldbrugs and I would mutually communicate our observations and memorials through the course of time and remark the several gradations by which corruption stealths into the world. I would also oppose it in every step by giving perpetual warning and instruction to mankind. We could also see the various revolutions of states and empires, the changes in the lower and upper world, ancient cities in ruins, and see obscure villages become the palaces of kings; famous rivers lessening into shallow brooks; the ocean leaving one coast dry, and overwhelming another; the discovery of many countries yet unknown; barbarity overrunning the politest nations, and the most barbarous become civilized.
Besides, what wonderful discoveries could we make in astronomy, by outliving and confirming our own predictions; by observing the progress and return of comets with the changes of motion in the sun, the moon and the stars.
Contrary to this fantasy, I was told that after the age of thirty, most struldbrugs grew sad and dejected and by eighty, they were incapable of affection and envious of those who were able to die. If two of the struldbrugs married, the marriage would be dissolved when one reached the age of eighty. The reason being that those who were condemned without any fault of their own to a perpetual continuance in the world should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.
As soon as they completed the age of eighty years, they were looked on as dead in law. Their heirs immediately succeeded to their estates and only a small pittance was reserved for them to live upon. The poor ones were maintained at the public expense. Besides they were held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they could not purchase lands or take leases; neither were they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal. At the age of ninety, they lost their teeth and hair. They had no distinction of taste, and ate and drank whatever they got. Not only this, they forgot the common names of things and the names of persons, even of their nearest friends and relations.
Later, I saw five or six of these people of different ages. The youngest one was about two hundred years old. They were brought to me several times by some of my friends. Although they were told that I was a great traveller and had seen the entire world yet they had no curiosity to ask me a question. These people were despised and hated by all sorts of people. However, after hearing all this, my enthusiasm for a life of immortality disappeared as quickly as it began.
