Chapter Four. I Travel to Laputa

I leave Brobdingnag. I return to England.

I meet pirates. I visit the flying island of Laputa.

After two years in Brobdingnag, I began to think about my freedom. It seemed impossible: everyone was so big and I was so small. At the beginning of the third year, the king and queen decided to travel to the south coast. They wanted to visit their people there. I travelled with them, in my now very comfortable box. Glumdalclitch came too. At the end of our journey to the south, Glumdalclitch and I were very tired. I had a cold and Glumdalclitch was very ill. I wanted to go outside, but Glumdalclitch wanted to sleep. She called a boy. ‘Take Grildrig to the sea,' she said. ‘I don't feel very well, so I'll stay here. Be very careful. Look after Grildrig well.'

Glumdalclitch was very sad. Perhaps she could see into the future.

The boy carried me (in my box) down to the sea. It took about half an hour. I was very tired and I fell asleep. I don't really know what happened next. Perhaps the boy went swimming. Perhaps he put the box down just for a minute, but suddenly I woke up.

‘What's this? Why is the box moving so fast?' I thought.

I was scared. I looked out of my window. I could see the sky and clouds. I was now very high in the sky. I was in the claws of a giant bird.

‘It knows I'm in here. It'll eat me!' I thought, afraid.

‘Help!' I shouted out of the window. ‘Help!'

Suddenly, the box began to fall. It fell down and down. With a splash, it fell into the sea.

In the water, in the box, I thought about poor Glumdalclitch. I thought about the king and queen. ‘Please don't be angry with Glumdalclitch,' I said to myself.

Then I thought: ‘Will someone rescue me? Will I die in the water, here?'

After about four scary hours, I heard a noise. It was a ship! ‘Help! Help!' I shouted.

‘Who's there?' A man asked in English.

‘Lemuel Gulliver!' I shouted. ‘Help me, please!'

The ship's carpenter cut the box open and I walked out. The sailors were very surprised. They seemed small to me. Was I back in Lilliput? No, they were the same size as me!

The destination of the ship was England. On the journey, I spent a lot of time with the captain. I told him about Brobdingnag. He didn't believe me. ‘You're mad,' he said.

Luckily, I had the wasp sting and some other souvenirs of Brobdingnag. When he saw them, he believed my story. ‘Write a book about it!' he said.

‘Perhaps I will,' I answered.

I arrived home on 3rd June 1703, about nine months later. My wife was very happy to see me. My wife and my daughter seemed very small to me.

‘You'll never go to sea again!' she said.

She was wrong.

Ten days later, a man came to my house. His name was William Robinson and he was the captain of the Hopewell. He was like a brother to me. He came to visit me often. One day, he said, ‘I want to go to India. Will you come with me? I need a good ship's doctor.'

‘Yes!' I said. ‘I'll be very happy to come with you.'

On 5th August 1706, we left England again. In April the next year, we arrived in Madras. We stayed there for a few weeks, because some sailors were ill. When we set off again, there was a terrible storm. We didn't know where we were. On the tenth day, pirates saw our ship. Some of the pirates were Dutch and some were Japanese. I spoke Dutch quite well so I said, ‘Please, take the ship, but don't kill us.'

The Japanese pirate was angry. ‘Put him in a canoe, alone!' he said. ‘Let him die at sea!'

The pirates took our sailors onto their ship. They put me into a canoe. I was alone, at sea, again. When I was a long way from the pirate ship, I took out my pocket telescope. Through it I saw some small islands. I sailed towards the first island, but it was very rocky. I found some eggs, ate them and slept under a rock. The next day, I sailed to another island, then another. On the 5th day, I arrived at the last island. I found some more eggs. On this island, there was a small cave. I slept a little. I was quite worried now. I was very tired. ‘Will I die here?' I thought.

When I left the cave, it was quite late the next morning. The sun was hot and the sky was clear. Suddenly, it went quite dark. I looked up. There was a large cloud in the sky. But no, it wasn't a cloud. What was it? It started to come down. I took out my pocket telescope. I could see people on it. It was a very big island in the sky.

I was happy to see people, so I waved and waved. Some people on the island saw me. The island came down more. More people on the island in the sky came to look. They waved at me. The island was now very near to me.

‘Help me! Help me!' I shouted.

The next minute, I saw a seat on a rope. The seat came down from the island towards me. I sat on the seat and the people on the island pulled me up.

On the island in the sky, I saw some very strange people. Their eyes looked in different directions. Their clothes had a lot of drawings on them: suns, moons, stars and musical instruments. They seemed very distracted. Their servants told them when to speak and when to listen. The people on the island were very kind. They took me to the royal palace immediately. The king was also very kind. He sat on a chair in the middle of the room. There were mathematical instruments all around him. He asked me some questions but, of course, I didn't understand his language. Then, dinner arrived.

The food was very strange. The lamb was triangular, the bread was conical and the sausages looked like musical instruments. A group of musicians played some music. I didn't like the music at all – it was terrible. After dinner, the king sent me away with a man.

He had pens and paper. He was my language teacher. He taught me the names of the shapes, the moon and stars and all the musical instruments. After a few days, I began to understand the language.

The name of the island in the sky is Laputa. Laputa flies over a larger island under it. The name of this island is Balnibarbi. The capital city, Lagado, is on Balnibarbi. The houses on Laputa are all very strange: there are no 90° angles in the houses. This is because the Laputans aren't practical. They're interested in mathematics, music and astrology. The men of Laputa are also very scared. They're afraid that, one day, a falling star will hit their island. The women of Laputa live a comfortable life, but they're very bored.

The king uses physics to control the movement of Laputa. He also uses Laputa to control the people of Balnibarbi. Dear reader, the people of Balnibarbi are very oppressed. The king can use Laputa to stop rain and block the sun. If the people of Balnibarbi cause a lot of trouble, the people of Laputa throw rocks at them.

The people on the island of Laputa were kind to me, but they weren't curious about me at all. I was quite interested in both mathematics and music, but the men were quite boring. I began to talk to the women, children and servants. The Laputan men were surprised at this, but the women, children and servants talked about more interesting things than the men. I studied hard and now I could speak their language very well. But there was nothing for me here. After two months on the island, I wanted to leave.

There was one Laputan man I liked. He was a very important lord. He was very intelligent, very practical and very interested in the world around him. Everyone said he was stupid. Why? Because he didn't like Laputan music. He often came to talk to me in my room. ‘What's Europe like? What laws are there in England? What's Lilliput like? What's Brobdingnag like?' he asked.

One day, we talked about travelling. ‘Could you help me?' I asked him.

‘How?' he answered.

‘Will you talk to the king for me? I want to leave. I want to travel to Balnibarbi and to other places in the world.'

‘Yes, I'll talk to the king,' he said.

On the 16th February, I left Laputa. The king gave me a present; some money to help me on Balnibarbi. The island of Laputa went down in the sky. When we were near Balnibarbi, I went down on the seat on the rope.