This acclaimed book is travel writing at its entertaining and hair-raising best. Kevin Rushby set out to find the lost pirate settlements that once existed on the islands and atolls of the Indian Ocean. Hitching rides on a motley assortment of vessels, he sails up the African coast, then east, to locate the descendants of the legendary sixteenth-century pirates who carved out kingdoms in the jungles of Madagascar. Along the way, Rushby meets up with the crackpot dreamers, tough settlers, the fighters and the failures who live on the islands now. This is a romantic story in the old-fashioned sense, full of adventure and colour.