But we soon perceived these two were great enemies to
one another, and did not always agree in the same story. We could
make a shift to gather out of one of them that this island was very
much infested with a monstrous kind of animals, in the shape of men,
called Whigs; and he often told us that he hoped we should meet with
none of them in our way, for that, if we did, they would be apt to
knock us down for being kings.
"Our other interpreter used to talk very much of a kind of animal
called a Tory, that was as great a monster as the Whig, and would
treat us as ill for being foreigners. These two creatures, it
seems, are born with a secret antipathy to one another, and engage
when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros. But
as we saw none of either of these species, we are apt to think that
our guides deceived us with misrepresentations and fictions, and
amused us with an account of such monsters as are not really in
their country.
"These particulars we made a shift to pick out from the discourse of
our interpreters, which we put together as well as we could, being
able to understand but here and there a word of what they said, and
afterwards making up the meaning of it among ourselves. The men of
the country are very cunning and ingenious in handicraft works, but
withal so very idle, that we often saw young, lusty, raw-boned
fellows carried up and down the streets in little covered rooms by a
couple of porters, who were hired for that service.
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