After five months at home, Gulliver is offered and accepts the position of captain of the merchant ship. During the voyage, several of his crew become ill, and Gulliver is forced to hire replacements. Unfortunately, those hired are pirates who organize a mutiny on the ship and leave Gulliver on an island where he encounters a pugnacious, "odious" group of animals that look and act like primates and that attack him by climbing trees and defecating on him. Their attack ends when a horse appears on the road. This horse studies Gulliver with great curiosity and is soon joined by another horse, both of which seem to converse using words which Gulliver understands as Yahoo and Houyhnhnm.
