[00:00.53] Part four.
[00:03.26] Chapter nine.
[00:05.64] The Land of the Hunnims.
[00:10.68] I had been at home for five months when I was offered a job as captain of the Adventure.
[00:16.30] I couldn't refuse such a huge honor.
[00:19.54] Besides, I was beginning to long for adventures again.
[00:24.64] So I set sail from Portsmouth on 7th September, 1710.
[00:31.91] I took on several new crewmen in Barbados, but this was a terrible mistake.
[00:39.29] The men were escaped pirates, and they hatched a plot to seize my ship.
[00:46.92] They held me prisoner in my cabin for several weeks, but on 9th May, 1711, they rode me to a beach and left me there.
[00:59.50] I had no idea at all where I was, but I made my way inland, and soon came across a path marked with the tracks of people and horses.
[01:12.23] I had some beads and rings in my pockets, and I decided that the only thing to do was to go and find the native people, and use these trinkets to make friends.
[01:25.42] I went along cautiously, keeping well hidden for fear of arrows, but saw nothing alive until I spotted some large animals up in a tree.
[01:38.19] I was going to walk past, but one of the animals jumped down and bounded up to me.
[01:45.74] It had long hair on its head and sharp claws, and it was snarling viciously.
[01:54.87] I gave it a swipe with the flat of my sword to scare it off, but it bellowed so loudly that the whole group of creatures came to join it.
[02:06.23] All I could do was put my back against a tree and keep them off by waving my sword at them.
[02:13.27] I was wondering how long I could keep this up, when they all suddenly took fright and ran away as fast as they could.
[02:23.51] I looked around to find out what had frightened them, but all I could see was a horse walking quietly along.
[02:31.56] The horse, which was a gray, threw up its head at the sight of me.
[02:37.91] But when I tried to walk past it, it kept getting in my way.
[02:46.53] I tried making friends with it by patting its neck, but it didn't like this at all.
[02:54.53] It shook its head and nudged my hand away with its forefoot.
[02:59.69] Then it naed three or four times in such an odd way that it almost sounded as if it was talking.
[03:09.14] Another horse came along then, and the two horses touched fore feet, and took it in turns to nae to each other.
[03:19.15] Well, I told myself that if the horses were this clever, then the humans must be the wisest people on earth.
[03:28.75] The two horses walked round me, inspecting me very carefully, naying in a puzzled sort of way.
[03:37.85] I could only think they were really magicians who had turned themselves into horses for some reason.
[03:46.20] Gentlemen, I said, I'm just a poor shipwrecked Englishman.
[03:53.66] Please show me the way to a village where someone can help me on my way.
[04:00.56] The horses listened to me and began naying seriously to each other again.
[04:07.58] I kept hearing them say the sound Yahoo.
[04:13.77] So I said the word myself, imitating their naying speech.
[04:19.80] The horses were very surprised at that.
[04:23.70] The gray repeated the word, as if it were trying to teach me a better accent.
[04:30.61] And then the other horse said another word.
[04:35.89] Hnum.
[04:39.91] This took me several attempts, but I did well enough to amaze both the horses.
[04:49.05] The gray said, "Hunn, Hunn," and began to lead me along the road.
[05:00.22] The gray led me to a long wooden building.
[05:06.13] I got my beads and rings ready to greet the master of the house, but inside the first room I found only horses.
[05:16.11] Two of them were sitting down like dogs, and another was sweeping the floor.
[05:22.37] I was trying to decide whether this was all magic or whether I'd just gone mad, when the gray led me into another room, and there, sitting on mats, were a very beautiful mare and a colt, and a fall.
[05:43.71] The mare looked at me down her nose and said, "Yahoo!"
[05:49.76] But the gray led us all out into a yard.
[05:55.03] Here, tied to a post, were three of the horrible creatures I'd seen earlier.
[06:04.43] They were busy feeding themselves by tearing some dead animal to pieces with their claws.
[06:15.17] The gray untied the largest of the creatures, and he made us stand near each other so he could compare us.
[06:25.13] It was only then that I realized to my horror that the creature was really very like a human, except that he had longer nails and was quite a lot hairier.
[06:39.84] It was lucky that I was wearing clothes, for this made me look more different from the creature, the Yahoo, than I actually was.
[06:51.14] Not long afterwards, four Yahoos pulled up a sledge with a horse sitting on it, and all the horses went in to dinner.
[07:01.84] They ate sitting on bales of straw and had oats first, followed by hay.
[07:09.25] The horses talked a lot, and I spoke the words I knew and learned some more, though the horse's language was very hard to pronounce.
[07:20.88] After the meal, I was hungry myself, so I said one of the words I had learned.
[07:28.09] Hln, which means oats.
[07:35.63] When I got some, I rubbed all the husks off, ground them between two stones, and mixed them with water to make a sort of biscuit, which I toasted in front of the fire.
[07:51.03] This, with milk, was my main food all the time I lived in that country, though sometimes I caught rabbits with traps made of Yahoo hair.
[08:06.21] I also gathered leaves for salads.
[08:13.34] I missed having salt, but I must say I kept quite healthy without it.
[08:23.92] When it began to get dark, the gray led me to a barn.
[08:29.81] I made myself a bed of straw, covered myself with my clothes, and slept very well.
[08:40.30] My master, for by now it was obvious that the gray was master of the whole household, was convinced I wasn't an ordinary Yahoo.
[08:54.82] This was partly because I was cleverer and cleaner than the other Yahoos, but mostly because he took my clothes to be my skin.
[09:06.29] Well, I didn't want to be thought a Yahoo, and so I was careful not to let anyone see me without my clothes on.
[09:15.29] But then one day, disaster struck.
[09:24.73] One of the horses or Hunims came out to my barn before I was awake, and found me with my clothes fallen off beside me.
[09:37.30] He galloped away in a great fright, and after that, of course, I had to explain everything.
[09:49.15] My master thought my clothes were clever, but now he knew that I looked exactly like a Yahoo, except for being boulder and having shorter nails.
[10:02.62] From that time I worked extra hard to learn the Hunim's language.
[10:09.42] I wanted to show my master just how different from the Yahoos I was.
[10:17.09] As soon as I had learned enough words, I told him I'd come across the sea on a ship, which I had to call a floating stable.
[10:28.31] My master shook his head at this and said that I must have made a mistake or that I was saying the thing that was not.
[10:37.53] The Hunims never tell lies and so have no word for lying.
[10:45.97] My master had never heard of a Hunnim making such a thing, so he was sure a Yahoo couldn't.
[10:56.00] My master also found it hard to believe that in my country the Yahoos were the masters of the Hunnims.
[11:06.12] He couldn't help wondering again if I was saying the thing that was not, which made him very uncomfortable.
[11:16.35] He was intelligent, but he could never get used to the idea that saying things that aren't strictly true is a normal part of human life.
[11:29.25] It was hard to explain about the lives of horses at home.
[11:37.93] I started off with stables, food, and grooming.
[11:45.62] But that just made him think that the horses were really in charge after all.
[11:52.50] So then I told him about saddles and carts.
[11:59.77] But he couldn't understand why the horses didn't roll over and squash any Yahoo that sat on its back.
[12:08.86] So then, rather ashamed, I told him about spurs and whips.
[12:19.28] My adventures filled my master with even greater astonishment.
[12:27.71] It took ages to explain what pirates were, and even then he couldn't understand why anyone would want to do such terrible things.
[12:42.51] My master reminded me of the king of Brobdingnag in that way.
[12:50.22] Hmm, said my master thoughtfully, it's a good job your teeth and claws are too weak to hurt each other very much.
[13:03.14] So then I told him about guns and bullets and bombs, and told him that I had seen men blown up.
[13:13.15] My master stopped me then, having heard enough of that.
[13:19.68] So I never got a chance to tell him about Admiral Skyresh in Lilliput.