well deserve all the favors he had already conferred upon me, or might
do for the future.

The reader may please to observe, that, in the last article for the
recovery of my liberty, the emperor stipulates to allow me a quantity of
meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724 Lilliputians. Some
time after, asking a friend at court, how they came to fix on that
determinate number, he told me, that his majesty's mathematicians having
taken the height of my body by the help of a quadrant,[22] and finding
it to exceed theirs in the proportion of twelve to one, they concluded,
from the similarity of their bodies, that mine must contain at least
1724 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was
necessary to support that number of Lilliputians. By which the reader
may conceive an idea of the ingenuity of that people, as well as the
prudent and exact economy of so great a prince.




CHAPTER IV.

MILENDO, THE METROPOLIS OF LILLIPUT, DESCRIBED TOGETHER WITH THE
EMPEROR'S PALACE. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND A PRINCIPAL
SECRETARY, CONCERNING THE AFFAIRS OF THAT EMPIRE. THE AUTHOR OFFERS
TO SERVE THE EMPEROR IN HIS WARS.


The first request I made, after I had obtained my liberty, was, that I
might have license to see Milendo, the metropolis; which the emperor
easily granted me, but with a special charge to do no hurt, either to