To sail in search of Paradise - the dream of many, the achievement of few. But recently a series of French expeditions set out, each heading for its particular idea of paradise on earth. This film is a record of what they found at the end of their travels: for one, the ice-fringed Kerguelen Islands, lost in a freezing ocean, peopled by penguins; for another, a land of fire, the Tibesti in the Sahara where hot springs of mud boil; a third discovered a more serene paradise - a high plateau in the Northern Cameroons; a fourth went to the Mysore jungle of southern India in search of the elephant. Other expeditions saw the savagery of the Papuans and the flower-boats of Tahiti.