[3] A Greyfriars School holiday story,[3] the novel has a colour dust jacket, frontispiece and black and white illustrations by R. J. Macdonald.

After the closure of The Magnet in May 1940 due to wartime paper shortages, author Charles Hamilton was contractually barred by the publisher, Amalgamated Press, from continuing to write Greyfriars stories.

The author Charles Hamilton had never visited any country outside of Western Europe, and he made use of his extensive library of travel books to add local colour and language to his tale.

However, the boys enjoyed themselves in the care of the assistant manager, the suave but quick-tempered Martinho Funcho, in spite of several encounters with the dangerous bandit O Corvo (The Crow).

The whereabouts of the missing manager were discovered by astute detective work on the part of Hurree Jamset Ram Singh; and good food being plentiful, Billy Bunter decided that he would prefer to stay indefinitely than return to the doubtful pleasures of Greyfriars School.