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In Search Of The CastawaysIn Search of the Castaways (original title Les enfants du Capitaine Grant, "The Children Of Captain Grant") is a novel by Jules Verne. The book tells the story of the young daughter and son of Captain Grant, captain of the Britannia. After finding a bottle cast into the ocean by the captain himself after the Britannia is shipwreck, they decide to launch a rescue expedition; the main difficulty is that the coordinates of the wreckage are half-erased, and only the latitude (37 degrees) is known; thus, the expedition would have to circum-navigate the 37th parallel. The children set sail aboard the yacht Duncan, with Lord Glenarvan and 15 men. They explore Patagonia, Tristan Acunha Island and Amsterdam Island, and Australia (a pretext to describe the flora, fauna and geography of numerous places to the targeted audiance). There, they find a former quarter-master of the Britannia, Ayrton, who proposes to lead them to the site of the wreckage. However, Ayrton is a traitor, who was not present during the loss of the Britannia, but was abandonned in Australia after a failed attempt to size control of the ship to practice piracy. He tries to take control of the Duncan, but out of sheer luck, this attempt also fails. Ayrton, made a prisonner, offers to trade his knowledge of Captain Grant in exchange for being abandonned on a desert island instead of being surrendered to the English authorities. The Duncan set sail for the Tabor Island, which, also out of sheer luck, turns out to be captain Grant's shelter. They leave Ayrton in his place to live among the beasts and regain his humanity. The novel is followed by a sequel, L'Île mystérieuse (Mysterious Island, 1874), where Ayrton's final destiny is told. External links
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