The film was shot on the basis of a literary version of the events of the life of the famous Russian ethnographer, anthropologist, biologist and traveler, who studied the indigenous population of Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania. In 1869, Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay made a report in the Geographical Society about the need to study the indigenous population of the islands of Oceania. The Society Council decided to support his undertaking and, after receiving small funds, the scientist on the warship Vityaz leaves for New Guinea. Not wanting to impose his presence on the inhabitants of the village located on the shore, Nikolai Nikolayevich settles in the distance, in a house built by sailors from Vityaz for him. From now on, his goal is to understand the environment. The natives of the island knew how to build beautiful ships. The figures on the pies, on the trees on the shields were nothing more than the first manifestation of ideographic writing. The dexterity with which the natives performed various works was striking, although they were carried out by primitive tools. Miklouho-Maclay carefully recorded all the observations in a special notebook, which he kept from the first day of his stay on the island. From unusual and difficult living conditions in the rainforest, Nikolai Nikolaevich was seriously ill. It was no less difficult for his companions. The first teenager died of the fever, then the white servant Thomson, who before his death managed to admit that he had spied on the Russian scientist on behalf of Dr. Brandler. After a long absence, Miklouho-Maclay returns to Sydney. Margarita Robertson, whom he married after seven years of separation, becomes his faithful companion and assistant in scientific work. The penetration of the German Association in the South Seas to New Guinea and the active participation of its representative, Dr. Brandler, made Miklouho-Maclay take a tough stance. He will face a difficult struggle for the recognition of his point of view, which was formed in the course of work with material accumulated over many years of travel.