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[69] or larboard, as
I pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat,
into her closet, and hung it oh 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[70] that stuck in the good gentlewoman's stomacher;[71] the
head of the pin passed between my shirt and the waistband of my
breeches, and thus I held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch
ran to my relief.

[Illustration: "GAVE ME A GALE WITH THEIR FANS." P. 60.]

Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my trough
every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let a huge frog
(not perceiving it) slip out of his pail. The frog lay concealed till I
was put into my boat, but then seeing a resting-place, climbed up, and
made it lean so much on one side that I was forced to balance it with
all my weight on the other to prevent overturning. When the frog was got
in, it hopped at once half the length of the boat, and then over my head
backwards and forwards. The largeness of its features made it appear the
most deformed animal that can be conceived. However, I desired
Glumdalclitch to let me deal with it alone. I banged it a good while
with one of my sculls, and at last forced it to leap out of the boat.

But the greatest danger I ever underwent in that kingdom was from a
monkey, who belonged to one of the clerks of the kitchen. Glumdalclitch
had locked the up in her closet, while she went somewhere upon business
or a visit. The weather being very warm the closet window was left open,
as well as the windows and the door of my bigger box, in which I usually
lived, because of its largeness and conveniency. As I sat quietly
meditating at my table, I heard something bounce in at the closet
window, and skip about from one side to the other; whereat, although I
was much alarmed, yet