Dick Sands,a fifteen year old American orphan, is on board the whaling ship "Pilgrim", headed for San Francisco.This apprentice sailor, is learning how to be master of a ship some day.That opportunity will arrive sooner than expected!Captain Hull had to put most of the rebellious crew on shore, in a New Zealand port. The ship is carrying Dick Sands, the skipper,five sailors,the owner's wife, Mrs. Weldon ,her young son Jack,a nurse and cousin Benedict(a bug collector). Also the mysterious and unfriendly Portuguese cook,Negoro,who keeps to himself. The captain and his sailors,later find five unconscious black men, inside the sinking ship "Waldeck".(Hit by a steamer, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean)After hearing a barking dog,Dingo.When Captain Hull is killed, while trying to harpoon a finback whale, with all the seamen,there is no other person but Dick ,to take charge!The Waldeck's survivors, become the whaler's new crew.He sets his course to South America;but the cook through trickery, sabotages the binnacle, the ship's compass.And they land in Africa instead ! ( the Pilgrim is shipwrecked) Just a little off their destination.Meeting a man named Harris,a slave trader, in league with Negoro ,who convinces them that this is Bolivia,( before that nation lost its coastland, in a war)on the border of Chile. He gallantly offers to take them to his brother's hacienda!But they will be sold into slavery ; and marched to the interior.The caravan numbers more than 800.Their only hope is to escape , down a river in a canoe,through cannibal territory and get to a town on the Atlantic.