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Describe Gulliver's visit to the land of the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver is exhausted when he finally reaches an island after his shipwreck and only wants to nestle down in the soft grass and sleep his tiredness away. He 'slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life' and guessed it was for about nine hours because it was only just getting light when he finally woke up. Naturally he tried to get up, but he found he was not able to lift himself up from lying on his back because his limbs were tightly roped down to the ground and even his long hair was tied down in the grass. There were also ropes drawn across the rest of his body, from under his arms down to his thighs. Gulliver couldn't look anywhere but up as the day warmed up and the sun got hotter and hotter, hurting his eyes. He heard a confusing sound but couldn't look to find out what was causing it.


Then he must have felt very tickly because something started to move gently around on his leg and soon he was able to crane his neck enough to just make out 'a little creature.' Soon there were many of them, and they began to shout at him in a strange language. Some even stabbed him in the sides with miniature spears, and others fired volleys of arrows into him, causing him much pain. Gulliver decided to stay very still until night time, but the attacks stopped when the Lilliputians saw that he was calm and still. Instead, they started building a tiny stage of wood, and one of them made a speech. Gulliver pointed to his mouth to signal that he was hungry and thirsty, and they relayed hundreds of baskets of meat and hogsheads direct to his mouth and gave him a drink. Gulliver then signals that he wants his freedom, but an important little man makes it clear that Gulliver will be kept as a prisoner. However, they did soothe his wounds with ointment and they released the tiny lines just enough for Gulliver to empty his bladder, which made the Lilliputians scatter left and right as the torrent washed down among them.


It seems that when Gulliver was discovered asleep on the ground, the emperor of the little men had received an early warning and had decided with his council to tie him down while he slept and that a machine should be prepared to transport him to the capital city.

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