I was not always successful. I had the misfortune to be overpowered
by numbers, to be made prisoner of war; and, what is worse, but always
usual among the Turks, to be sold for a slave. [The Baron was afterwards
in great favour with the Grand Seignior, as will appear hereafter.] In
that state of humiliation my daily task was not very hard and laborious,
but rather singular and irksome. It was to drive the Sultan’s bees every
morning to their pasture-grounds, to attend them all the day long, and
against night to drive them back to their hives. One evening I missed a
bee, and soon observed that two bears had fallen upon her to tear her to
pieces for the honey she carried. I had nothing like an offensive weapon
in my hands but the silver hatchet, which is the badge of the Sultan’s
gardeners and farmers. I threw it at the robbers, with an intention to
frighten them away, and set the poor bee at liberty; but, by an unlucky
turn of my arm, it flew upwards, and continued rising till it
reached the moon. How should I recover it? how fetch it down again?
I recollected that Turkey-beans grow very quick, and run up to an
astonishing height. I planted one immediately; it grew, and actually
fastened itself to one of the moon’s horns. I had no more to do now
but to climb up by it into the moon, where I safely arrived, and had a
troublesome piece of business before I could find my silver hatchet, in
a place where everything has the brightness of silver; at last,
however, I found it in a heap of chaff and chopped straw. I was now for
returning: but, alas! the heat of the sun had dried up my bean; it was
totally useless for my descent: so I fell to work, and twisted me a rope
of that chopped straw, as long and as well as I could make it. This I
fastened to one of the moon’s horns, and slid down to the end of it.
Here I held myself fast with the left hand, and with the hatchet in my
right, I cut the long, now useless end of the upper part, which, when
tied to the lower end, brought me a good deal lower: this repeated
splicing and tying of the rope did not improve its quality, or bring me
down to the Sultan’s farm. I was four or five miles from the earth at
least when it broke; I fell to the ground with such amazing violence,
that I found myself stunned, and in a hole nine fathoms deep at
least, made by the weight of my body falling from so great a height: I
recovered, but knew not how to get out again; however, I dug slopes or
steps with my finger-nails [the Baron’s nails were then of forty years’
growth], and easily accomplished it.
Peace was soon after concluded with the Turks, and gaining my liberty,
I left St. Petersburg at the time of that singular revolution, when the
emperor in his cradle, his mother, the Duke of Brunswick, her father,
Field-Marshal Munich, and many others were sent to Siberia. The winter
was then so uncommonly severe all over Europe, that ever since the sun
seems to be frost-bitten. At my return to this place, I felt on the road
greater inconveniences than those I had experienced on my setting out.
I travelled post, and finding myself in a narrow lane, bid the
postillion give a signal with his horn, that other travellers might
not meet us in the narrow passage. He blew with all his might; but his
endeavours were in vain, he could not make the horn sound, which was
unaccountable, and rather unfortunate, for soon after we found ourselves
in the presence of another coach coming the other way: there was no
proceeding; however, I got out of my carriage, and being pretty strong,
placed it, wheels and all, upon my head: I then jumped over a hedge
about nine feet high (which, considering the weight of the coach, was
rather difficult) into a field, and came out again by another jump into
the road beyond the other carriage: I then went back for the horses, and
placing one upon my head, and the other under my left arm, by the same
means brought them to my coach, put to, and proceeded to an inn at the
end of our stage. I should have told you that the horse under my arm was
very spirited, and not above four years old; in making my second spring
over the hedge, he expressed great dislike to that violent kind of
motion by kicking and snorting; however, I confined his hind legs
by putting them into my coat-pocket. After we arrived at the inn my
postillion and I refreshed ourselves: he hung his horn on a peg near the
kitchen fire; I sat on the other side.
Suddenly we heard a _tereng! tereng! teng! teng!_ We looked round, and
now found the reason why the postillion had not been able to sound his
horn; his tunes were frozen up in the horn, and came out now by thawing,
plain enough, and much to the credit of the driver; so that the honest
fellow entertained us for some time with a variety of tunes, without
putting his mouth to the horn – «The King of Prussia’s March,» «Over the
Hill and over the Dale,» with many other favourite tunes; at length the
thawing entertainment concluded, as I shall this short account of my
Russian travels.
_Some travellers are apt to advance more than is perhaps strictly true;
if any of the company entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only
say to such, I pity their want of faith, and must request they will
take leave before I begin the second part of my adventures, which are as
strictly founded in fact as those I have already related._
CHAPTER VII
_The Baron relates his adventures on a voyage to North America, which
are well worth the reader’s attention – Pranks of a whale – A sea-gull
saves a sailor’s life – The Baron’s head forced into his stomach – A
dangerous leak stopped à posteriori._
I embarked at Portsmouth in a first-rate English man-of-war, of one
hundred guns, and fourteen hundred men, for North America. Nothing worth
relating happened till we arrived within three hundred leagues of the
river St. Laurence, when the ship struck with amazing force against (as
we supposed) a rock; however, upon heaving the lead we could find no
bottom, even with three hundred fathom. What made this circumstance
the more wonderful, and indeed beyond all comprehension, was, that
the violence of the shock was such that we lost our rudder, broke our
bowsprit in the middle, and split all our masts from top to bottom, two
of which went by the board; a poor fellow, who was aloft furling the
mainsheet, was flung at least three leagues from the ship; but he
fortunately saved his life by laying hold of the tail of a large
sea-gull, who brought him back, and lodged him on the very spot from
whence he was thrown. Another proof of the violence of the shock was the
force with which the people between decks were driven against the floors
above them; my head particularly was pressed into my stomach, where it
continued some months before it recovered its natural situation. Whilst
we were all in a state of astonishment at the general and unaccountable
confusion in which we were involved, the whole was suddenly explained
by the appearance of a large whale, who had been basking, asleep,
within sixteen feet of the surface of the water. This animal was so much
displeased with the disturbance which our ship had given him – for in our
passage we had with our rudder scratched his nose – that he beat in all
the gallery and part of the quarter-deck with his tail, and almost at
the same instant took the mainsheet anchor, which was suspended, as
it usually is, from the head, between his teeth, and ran away with the
ship, at least sixty leagues, at the rate of twelve leagues an hour,
when fortunately the cable broke, and we lost both the whale and the
anchor. However, upon our return to Europe, some months after, we found
the same whale within a few leagues of the same spot, floating dead upon