A trading company manager travels up an African river to find a missing outpost head and discovers the depth of evil in humanity's soul.

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.

In 1880 South Africa, young Betsy has an adventure involving Zulu Tribesmen, Dutch Settlers, The Vortrekkers, and her older brother's romance of Katie Snee.