Joe Moses, an American circus man, diamond smuggler, and self-styled medicine man, is dumped into a river by enraged African natives he has swindled. Left to float unconscious downstream, he is caught in the bullrushes near a village that is to be flooded upon the completion of an irrigation dam. Despite the pleadings of Anderson, a missionary, the natives refuse to leave by helicopter because they cannot take their animals with them. Joe appears and puts on a magic show by setting fire to a bush, and the natives hail him as a second Moses and demand that he lead them to "The Promised Land." Joe's reluctance to do so is quickly overcome by Anderson's daughter, Julie, who threatens to expose his diamond smuggling. Adding to Joe's problems during the long, arduous trek is Ubi, the U. S.-educated son of a witch doctor who resents Joe's influence with the natives. Attempting to expose Joe as a false prophet, Ubi accidentally perishes in flames. At the journey's end the district commissioner, Julie's former fiancé, fails to arrest Joe and allows him to walk into the African bush. Julie hurriedly tries to explain to her father why she loves Joe and then runs after him.