"I'll have to stay here for a while on business," my friend the captain told me. "But you can take the ship and some of the sailors. Go and see what you can buy and sell in the islands around here." That sounded interesting to me, so I agreed.

Unfortunately, we sailed straight into a terrible storm, which drove us many miles eastward. Then, by a very unlucky chance, we were seen and chased by two pirate ships. Our ship was not fast enough to escape, and the pirates caught us. They decided to keep the sailors to help sail the ship, but they did not need me. I suppose I was lucky they did not kill me. Instead, they left me alone in a small boat in the middle of the ocean, with only enough food for a few days, while they sailed away.

I had only been at home for about ten days when a friend of mine asked me to join him on a journey to the East Indies. I still wanted to see more of the world, and as he was offering to give me double the usual pay, I managed to persuade my wife to let me go. The voyage took eight months, and after stopping for a short time in Malaysia, we arrived in the Gulf of Tongking.

Laputans are certainly strange-looking people. Their heads always turn either to right or left: one of their eyes turns inwards, the other upwards. Their main interests are music and mathematics. They spend so much time thinking abut mathe-matical problems that they do not notice what is happening around them. In fact, rich Laputans employ a servant whose job is to follow his master everywhere The servant warns him if he is going to step into a hole, and reminds him to reply if someone speaks to him.

When the island was about a hundred metres over my head, they let down a seat on a chain. I sat on it, and was pulled up to the island. I had discovered the flying island of Laputa.

I am sure the pirates thought I would die. However, I saw land some hours later, and I managed to sail the boat to it. As I stepped out of the boat and walked up the beach, I noticed that although the sun had been very hot, the air suddenly seemed cooler. At first I thought a cloud was passing over the sun But when I looked up, I saw, to my great astonishment, a large island in the sky, between me and the sun. It was moving towards me, and there were people running around on it. I waved my arms and shouted as loudly as possible. "Help! Help!" I cried. "Rescue me!"

It is difficult talking to Laputans, as they have little interest in anything except music and mathematics. They are, however, very worried about the future of the earth, the sun, and the stars, and they often discuss this. I heard a conversation about this shortly before I left Laputa.

I was taken to see the King, but had to wait for at least an hour while he struggled with a difficult mathematical question. However, when he had finished, he spoke politely to me, and ordered his servants to show me to a room. For dinner they gave me three kinds of meat -- a square of beef, a triangle of chicken and a circle of lamb Even the bread was cut into mathematical shapes in the evening a teacher arrived to help me learn the language, and in a few days I was able to make conversation with the island people.

Laputa is a circle of land, about eight kilometres across, covered with houses and other buildings. It is moved by a simple machine which uses magnets to pull the island closer to land or push it higher into the sky. The island always moves slowly. It can only fly over the country called Balnibarbi, which belongs to the King of Laputa.

"And how is the sun, do you think?"

"As well as can be expected," came the reply.

"I thought he looked rather feverish this morning. I'm afraid he'll get too hot and destroy himself one day, if he goes on like this."

"How are you, my friend?" one man asked another.

"Only thirty years! That's not much to look forward to, is it?" And the two men shook their heads sadly. After several months on the island, I asked if I could visit the country underneath us. The King agreed, and ordered his officials to put me down on Balnibarbi, and show me round the capital, Lagado.

"That's right. We know that the next falling star is almost certain to get too close to the sun, and catch fire! And when the earth passes through that fire, it'll be destroyed immediately!"

"I know, it's very worrying. And what about the earth? It's only thirty years until the next falling star comes this way, and the earth was very nearly destroyed by the last one!"

The most interesting place I saw there was the university, which was full of very clever men, with very clever ideas. They were all working hard to find better, faster, cheaper, easier ways of doing and making things. They had ideas for building houses from the roof downwards, turning rocks into soft material, making rivers run uphill, and saving sunshine in bottles. I cannot remember half of the astonishingly clever ideas which they were working on. One day, they told me, they would find the answers to all these problems, and then their country would be the most wonderful place in the world. Meanwhile, I noticed that the people looked hungry and miserable. Their clothes were old and full of holes, their houses were badly built and falling down. There were no vegetables or corn growing in the fields.

When I visited the School of Mathematics, I could not understand why the students looked so unhappy.

"Yes, sir," he answered. "You see, we've only just eaten our lessons for today, and it's made us feel rather sick."

"What's the matter, young man?" I asked one of them. "You look quite ill."

"Eaten them?" I repeated in surprise. "Why did you do that?"

"Oh, that's the way we learn here, sir," he replied. "Our professors write mathematical questions and answers on paper, then we eat the paper. After that we're only supposed to have bread and water for three days, while the information moves upwards to our heads. But it's awful, sir, not eating much for three days. And we often feel sick. Er… excuse me, sir!" And he ran past me out of the room. This highly developed system of teaching did not seem to be working well.