These buckets were about the size of large thimbles, and the poor people supplied me with them as fast as they could: but the flame was so violent that they did little good.

I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my leathern jerkin.

The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable; and this magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if, by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient.

I had, the evening before, drunk plentifully of a most delicious wine called _glimigrim_, (the Blefuscudians call it _flunec_, but ours is esteemed the better sort,) which is very diuretic.

By the luckiest chance in the world, I had not discharged myself of any part of it.