Gulliver settles a modest economy to his own content: clay room, hemp bedding, rabbit and nnuhnoh skins, Yahoo, soled shoes, honey and health, and none of the lawyers, politicians, pickpockets, or dungeon life he lists by the score. He listens to Houyhnhnm talk on friendship, reason, and poetry, grows ashamed of his reflection, and imitates their gait until friends say he trots like a horse. Then his master summons him early.
After the Yahoo debate, the assembly resented a Yahoo kept more like a Houyhnhnm than a brute; neighbours pressed for execution of the exhortation to employ Gulliver like the rest of his species or command him to swim home, fearing his reason plus Yahoo pravity might seduce wild herds to ruin cattle. Gulliver swoons at his feet, then accepts two months to build a vessel with the sorrel nag's help. They sight a distant island, cut oak wattles, stitch a large canoe from Yahoo skins, caulk it with Yahoo tallow, and draw it to the sea.
On departure day Gulliver weeps, waits for tide and wind, kisses his master's raised hoof, pays respects to the company, and pushes off from shore. When he reaches the coast at last, the relief of rescue carries the cost of everything he can no longer unsee about his own kind.
Coming Up in Chapter 38
Gulliver sets sail into unknown waters, leaving behind the only society where he felt truly at peace. But what awaits him on that distant island, and how will he readjust to a world he now sees through completely different eyes?
