Ostensibly based on a true story of six of the passengers of the ship "Washington", which sailed from New York 20 years before the date of this book, under the captaincy of a Mr. Erskine. The six youths are set adrift in the South Pacific by the mutineering crew. They finally land on a desert island and have many adventures with nature and islanders as they struggle to survive. "The names of these castaways were: John Browne, the son of a Glasgow merchant; William Morton, and Maximilian Adeler, of New York; Richard Archer, from Connecticut, the journalist; John Livingstone, from Massachusetts; Arthur Hamilton, whose parents had settled at Tahieti"--Introd.