LAPUTA

LAPUTA, a flying island inhabited by speculative philosophers, visited by Gulliver in his "Travels," who, when their minds began to be too much absorbed in their studies, were wakened up by a set of attendants called "Flappers" armed with dried bladders full of small pebbles or "dried peas" attached to the end of a stick, with which they struck them gently about the mouth and ears.