In a replica of the boat that naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace himself sailed 140 years before him - a prahu, as these sleek Stone Age sailing vessels were called - and with Wallace's own book, The Malay Archipelago, as his guide, Severin embarks on a venture that takes him and his small crew through sparkling coral seas to remote shorelines where they encounter such exotic creatures as green turtles and Red Birds of Paradise, flying foxes and Bird-Winged Butterflies. Not only do they discover the unusual flora and fauna that Wallace had recorded in his travels but they also observe the smuggling of rare birds, the destruction of the rainforest, and the selling of endangered species for small fortunes as well as the survival of ancient rituals in tribal rule and the emergence of an environmental awareness among the Indonesian islanders.