Sent packing by his mother with 7000 Francs to “have an adventure”, Louis de Rougemont would not disappoint. But his fantastical story soon took a nasty turn, as he journeyed to Australasia only to get stranded on a remote island for two and a half years, before living - and leading among cannibals, surviving stormy seas and... riding turtles. De Rougemont returns to civilisation to tell all this and other tales that capture the minds of one nation, and the suspicions of another.