Traveling with Gulliver, Part IV Quiz

Answer: Captain

"I left my wife bid with child, and accepted an advantageous offer made me to be captain of the "Adventure", a stout merchantman of 350 tuns." "Cabbin" was Swift's spelling.

Answer: His crew mutinied and set him ashore on unknown land.

"The rogues whom I had picked up, debauched my other men, and they all formed a conspiracy to seize the ship and secure me; which they did one morning, rushing into my cabbin, and binding me hand and foot, threatening to throw me overboard, if I offered to stir. ...

They sailed many weeks, ...but I knew not what course they took, being kept close prisoner in my cabbin... They forced me into a longboat, ... rowed about a league; and then set me down a strand."

Answer: Hairy, dirty, deformed humans

"Their shape was very singular, and deformed. Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the fore parts of their legs and feets; but the rest of their bodies were bare....

The face of it, indeed, was flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips large, and the mouth wide. The forefeet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else, but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the palms, and the hairiness on the backs."

Answer: Talking horses

"The word 'Houyhnhnm' in their tongue, signifies a horse."

Answer: Rational, wise, virtuous

"The wise and virtuous Houyhnhnms, who abound in all excellencies that can adorn a rational creature, ... hath no term to describe any thing that is evil, except those whereby they describe the detestable qualities of their Yahoos. ... Their prudence, unanimity, unacquaintedness with fear, and their love of their country, would amply supply all defects in the military art."

Answer: He builds a boat and puts to sea

"Let it suffice to say, that in six weeks time, with the help of the sorrel nag, who performed the parts that required most labour, I finished a sort of Indian canoo, but much larger, covering it with the skins of Yahoo well stitched together, with hempen threads of my own making.

The sail was likewise composed of the skins of the same animal. ... I likewise provided my self with four paddles. ... I paid my respect to the ... Houyhnhnms ..., then getting into my canoo, I pushed off from shore."

Answer: New Holland

"I arrived ... to the south-east point of New Holland. I saw no inhabitants in the place where I landed; and being unarmed, I was afraid of venturing far into the country. ... On the fourth day, venturing out early a little too far, I saw twenty or thirty natives upon a height, not five hundred yards from me. ... I made what haste I could to the shore, and getting into my canoo, shoved off: the savages observing me retreat, ran after me; and before I could get far enough into the sea, discharges an arrow, which wounded me deeply on the inside of the left knee."

Answer: 1715

"On the fifth of December, 1715, we cast anchor in the Downs about nine in the morning, and at three in the afternoon I got safe to my house in Redriff. ... Thus, gentle reader, I have given thee a faithful history of my travels for sixteen years and above seven months."

Answer: He could not endure their smell or presence

"During the first year I could not endure my wife or children in my presence, the very smell of them was intolerable; much less could I suffer them to eat in the same room. To this hour they dare not presume to touch my bread, or drink out of the same cup; neither was I ever able to let one of them take me by the hand."

Answer: Yahoos

"...I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable; and therefore, I here intreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight."