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Gulliver arrived in Lilliput after his ship crashed into a big rock and split.  After the ship sank, he and a few companions rowed away in a life boat, but they became exhausted with rowing and had to give themselves over to the waves.  A storm eventually overtook them, and Gulliver had to swim for it.  He assumes that his compatriots from the life boat were all lost at sea. After he is brought into the town by the Lilliputians, he is housed in an old temple, a very large one, that had been "polluted" when a murder took place there some years before.  As a result, it fell into disuse and was now emptied of its contents so that it could accommodate Gulliver's large size.  The doorway was big enough that he could crawl through it, and he was chained and padlocked within so that he could be kept isolated.

It is the Lilliputians who most often represent English political figures in Gulliver's Travels .  With the Lilliputian rope dancers who vie for political office, winning a position based on whoever can jump the highest without falling rather than whoever is most qualified for office, Swift satirizes the English government and the manner in which government positions are filled. Further, the feud between the Tramecksans and the Slamecksans—those who wear high heels and low heels... It is the Lilliputians who most often represent English political figures in Gulliver's Travels .  With the Lilliputian rope dancers who vie for political office, winning a position based on whoever can jump the highest without falling rather than whoever is most qualified for office, Swift satirizes the English government and the manner in which government positions are filled. Further, the feud between the Tramecksans and the Slamecksans—those who wear high heels and low heels on their shoes—repres...