ry will permit.

I went on a voyage of discovery at the request of a distant relation,
who had a strange notion that there were people to be found equal in
magnitude to those described by Gulliver in the empire of Brobdingnag.
For my part I always treated that account as fabulous; however, to
oblige him, for he had made me his heir, I undertook it, and sailed for
the South Seas, where we arrived without meeting with anything
remarkable, except some flying men and women who were playing at
leapfrog, and dancing minuets in the air.

On the eighteenth day, after we had passed the island of Otaheite, a
hurricane blew our ship at least one thousand leagues above the surface
of the water, and kept it at that height till a fresh gale arising
filled the sails in every part, and onwards we traveled at a prodigious
rate; thus we proceeded above the clouds for six weeks. At last we
discovered a great land in the sky, like a shining island, round and
bright, where, coming into a convenient harbor, we went on shore, and
soon found it was inhabited. Below us we saw another earth, containing
cities, trees, mountains, rivers, seas, etc., which we conjectured was
this world, which we had left. Here we saw huge figures riding upon
vultures of a prodigious size, and each of them having three heads. To
form some idea of the magnitude of these birds, I must inform you that
each of their wings is as wide and six times the length of the
main-sheet of our vessel, which was about six hundred tons burden. Thus,
instead of riding upon horses, as we do in this world, the inhabitants
of the moon (for we now found we were in Madam Luna) fly about on these
birds. The king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he
offered me a commission, but I declined the honor his majesty intended
me. Everything in _this_ world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common
flea being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war their
principal weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are
wounded by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms,
and their darts (when radishes are out of season) of the tops of
asparagus. Some of the natives of the dog-star are to be seen here;
commerce tempts them to ramble; and their faces are like large
mastiffs', with their eyes near the lower end or tip of their noses:
they have no eyelids, but cover their eyes with the end of their tongues
when they go to sleep; they are generally twenty fee