[3] After their adventures in the South Sea Islands, Jack Martin, Ralph Rover, and Peterkin Gay go their separate ways.

Six years later, Ralph (again the narrator), living on his father's inheritance on England's west coast and occupying himself as a naturalist, is visited by Peterkin, whose "weather-beaten though ruddy countenance" he does not recognise.

Peterkin, who has stayed in touch with Jack, has hunted and killed every animal on Earth except for the gorilla and now comes to Ralph to entice him on a new adventure.

Ralph theorises at length on "muffs", which he defines as boys who are too gentle and mild and should be made to undergo physically challenging training.

The trader who explains this to Ralph is a friend of missionary efforts: when the natives are ruled by their "abominable superstitions", they become "incarnate fiends, and commit deeds of cruelty that make one's blood run cold to think of".

It is a relatively bloodless affair since Jack has ensured that the first volley from Jambai's riflemen consists of wadded paper, intended to scare off the attackers without killing them.

However, when Ralph attacks the trader's camp, he manages to scare off the now-liberated slaves, and another weeks-long pursuit ends with the happy reunion of Makarooroo and his fiancée, who head down to the (Christianized) coast to get married.

[4] Ideas published in Darwin's Origin of Species were in broad circulation before the book's 1859 publication, and The Coral Island reflects the then prevalent view of evolutionary theory; the Victorian age based its imperialist ideology in part on the idea that evolution had resulted in "white, English superiority that was anchored in the notion of a civilized nation elected by God to rule inferior peoples.

[6] Ballantyne already made some errors in his descriptions of nature in The Coral Island, and had apparently resolved whenever possible to write only about things of which he had personal experience.