w this could be
done in their country, where the smallest wherry was equal to a
first-rate man of war among us; and such a boat as I could manage would
never live in any of their rivers. Her majesty said, if I would contrive
a boat, her own joiner should make it, and she would provide a place for
me to sail in. The fellow was an ingenious workman, and by my
instructions, in ten days, finished a pleasure-boat with all its
tackling, able conveniently to hold eight Europeans. When it was
finished, the queen was so delighted, that she ran with it in her lap to
the king, who ordered it to be put into a cistern full of water, with me
in it, by way of trial, where I could not manage my two sculls, or little
oars, for want of room. But the queen had before contrived another
project. She ordered the joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred
feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep; which, being well pitched, to
prevent leaking, was placed on the floor, along the wall, in an outer
room of the palace. It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water,
when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in
half an hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as
that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained
with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then my
business was only to steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their
fans; and, when they were weary, some of their pages would blow my sail
forward with their breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard or
larboard as I pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried
back my boat into her closet, and hung it on a nail to dry.

In this exercise I once met an accident, which had like to have cost me
my life; for, one of the pages having put my boat into the trough, the
governess who attended Glumdalclitch very officiously lifted me up, to
place me in the boat: but I happened to slip through her fingers, and
should infallibly have fallen down forty feet upon the floor, if, by the
luckiest chance in the world, I had not been stopped by a corking-pin
that stuck in the good gentlewoman's stomacher; the head of the pin
passing between my shirt and the waistband of my breeches, and thus I was
held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch ran to my relief.

Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my trough
every third day with fresh water, was so care