for the weakness of mine eyes), a pocket perspective,[9] and several
other little conveniences; which being of no consequence to the emperor,
I did not think myself bound in honor to discover, and I apprehended
they might be lost or spoiled if I ventured them out of my possession.

[Footnote 9: _Perspective_ is an old name for telescope]

About two or three days before I was set at liberty, there arrived an
express to inform his majesty that some of his subjects, riding near the
place where I was first taken up, had seen a great black substance lying
on the ground, very oddly shaped, extending its edges round, as wide as
his majesty's bedchamber, and rising up in the middle as high as a man;
that it was no living creature, as they at first apprehended, for it lay
on the grass without motion, and some of them had walked round it
several times; that, by mounting upon each other's shoulders, they had
got to the top, which was flat and even, and stamping upon it, they
found it was hollow within; that they humbly conceived it might be
something belonging to the man-mountain; and, if his majesty pleased,
they would undertake to bring it with only five horses.

I presently knew what they meant, and was glad at heart to receive this
intelligence. It seems, upon my first reaching the shore after our
shipwreck I was in such confusion that, before I came to the place where
I went to sleep, my hat, which I had fastened with a string to my head
while I was rowing, and which had stuck on all the time I was swimming,
fell off after I came to land; the string, as I conjecture, breaking by
some accident which I never observed, but thought my hat had been lost
at sea. I entreated his imperial majesty to give orders it might be
brought to me as soon as possible, describing to him the use and the
nature of it: and the next day the wagoners arrived with it, but not in