Page:Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.djvu/71

 a Troop of his best Horse, Twenty-four in number, come and exercise upon this Plain. His Majesty approved of the Proposal, and I took them up one by one in my hands, ready mounted and armed, with the proper Officers to exercise them. As soon as they got into order, they divided into Two Parties, performed mock Skirmishes, discharged blunt Arrows, drew their Swords, fled and pursued, attacked and retired, and in short discovered the best Military Discipline I ever beheld. The parallel Sticks secured them and their Horses from falling over the Stage; and the Emperor was so much delighted, that he ordered this Entertainment to be repeated several days, and once was pleased to be lifted up, and give the word of Command; and, with great difficulty, persuaded even the Empress herself to let me hold her in her close Chair within Two yards of the Stage, from whence she was able to take a full view of the whole performance. It was my good fortune that no ill Accident happened in these Entertainments, only once a fiery Horse that belonged to one of the Captains pawing with his Hoof struck a hole in my Handkerchief, and his Foot slipping, he overthrew his Rider and himself; but I immediately relieved them both, and covering the Hole with one hand, I set down the Troop with the other, in the same manner as I took them up. The Horse that fell was strained in the Left shoulder, but the Rider got no hurt, and I repaired my Handkerchief as well as I could; however, I would not trust to the strength of it any more in such dangerous Enterprizes.

Two or Three days before I was set at liberty, as I was entertaining the Court with these kind of Feats, 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 odly [sic] shaped, extending its Edges round as wide as his Majesty's Bed-chamber, 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