Also along the way they discovered secret oases and ancient cities as Captain Riley forged a surprising bond with a Muslim trader. They were forced to become allies in order to survive, even as Riley planed on betraying the trader in order to save his men.

Dean tells a disturbing, but true tale of endureance that finally came to an end when an Arab tribal leader brought the exhausted and emaciated men to the provincial trading post of Swearah where the British paid the ransom for their freedom.

This read like a pulse racing thriller. I know I couldn't put it down and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Sophie Cacique Gaul


Desert Heroism   April 4, 2004
 40 out of 41 found this review helpful

As a boy, Abraham Lincoln read the memoir of Captain James Riley, and never forgot its story of slavery in the Sahara (or Zahara, as Riley would have known it). Thoreau knew the book. It was an international bestseller, and it might have been one of the few books besides the Bible in some American homes. Riley was a legend in his own time, but no longer is in ours. He is back, brought to us by Dean King, who read Riley's memoir of his adventure in the Sahara, and then read a narrative of the same adventure from a fellow crewman of Riley's, and then himself traveled in the still inhospitable and dangerous regions described in the two books. King has produced _Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival_ (Little, Brown), a wonderful account of fortitude under the most extreme conditions at sea and on the desert. This is one of the great adventure stories, full of the tortures by man and nature, and of course of the success of an indomitable spirit.

Captain Riley and his "good Yankee crew" of eleven left Connecticut for an ordinary merchant voyage in 1815, and eventually foundered on the west coast of the Sahara, six hundred miles south of Morocco. They were beset by hostile, thieving nomads, but briefly escaped by taking to sea in the ship's longboats. They were eager to be away from the Sahara, which everyone knew was a realm of death but which was at the time uncharted, mysterious, and full (so the stories went) of cannibals. They ran out of provisions at sea and were forced to make for Sahara land south of Bojador, and their prospects were just as bad. Other tribesmen captured them, took their goods, and made them slaves. There are many pages devoted here to pain, extreme sunburn, thirst, hunger and other travails. The means of relieving these tortures are often unpleasant to contemplate as well; the way the captors and crew made do eating unmentionable parts of camels as well as snails and locusts are detailed here. Riley's eventual captor was a desert merchant Sidi Hamet, who was in financial trouble. Riley assured Hamet that he had important friends at the British consulate, hundreds of miles away. He insisted that these friends would buy him and the crew back for a high price. Of course, there were no such friends, and Riley was bluffing; Hamet insisted that if the ransom price was not paid, he would slit Riley's throat, and perhaps he was bluffing as well.

The hapless Riley and the hapless Hamet make the core of this tale, and King cannot be faulted that his source narratives don't have enough details to describe Hamet fully. He emerges, however, as a friend and savior, even if he was initially only after the ransom. Riley could not have known it, but there was indeed a procedure for ransoming slaves, and a British consular official made it happen, becoming Riley's lifelong friend. A measure of the two months in captivity is that Riley normally weighed 240 pounds, and when he was ransomed he weighed less than ninety. Not all of his crew made it back, and some of them may have spent the rest of their lives as slaves. King's exciting and surprising narrative ends with the speculation that Riley may even have had an effect on his own country's slave trade. He became an active abolitionist, easily able to discuss the immorality of slavery; and perhaps since Lincoln admired Riley's book, it may have done its little part to bring emancipation about.


Remarkable tale of survival   February 26, 2004
 18 out of 21 found this review helpful

Anyone skeptical about the limit human beings can and will go to survive need only read "Skeletons on the Zahara." This is the remarkable tale of Captain James King and his crew, their shipwreck off the North African coast in 1815 and the horrific privations they endured at the hands of the elements and their captors.
After their ship wrecks they barely survive and escape an initial encounter with natives. After days at sea on a longboat they must return to land and give themselves to the natives. From here they are slaves, often sold or traded for as little as a blanket.
King relies chiefly (though not exclusively) on King's account (which became a widely popular book read by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau) and the account of another shipmate.
Through "Skeletons on the Zahara" author Dean King transports the reader to the vast, dry desolation of the dessert. One practically experiences the searing mid day heat, feels the cruel blows, suffers the humiliation of being stripped bare and taunted, and undergoes the indignity of slavery. Most of all there is thirst and hunger, twin horrors in heavy doses, Indeed the book can be all too depressing at times But the suffering is accompanied by hope and the endless stores of it that embolden the human spirit and make seemingly anything endurable.
"Skeletons on the Zahara" should appeal to wide audience as King's contemporary account did. It reads like good fiction with heroes, villains, adventure, narrow escapes and historical lessons.
Dean King obviously benefited from visiting the settings of the book. He also wisely includes maps at the beginnings of most chapters to help readers follow the course of journeys.
A great read.


Real survivors   March 15, 2004
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

In 1815 a New England merchant brig foundered in rocky seas off North Africa. Its crew survived though perhaps they later wished they hadn't.

In the first days, hostile nomads drove them to escape back to the sea in a small boat with a broken oar only to suffer such dehydration and starvation that even enslavement by the dreaded nomads seemed preferable - until it happened.

After a slow, thoughtful start laying out the background of the men and the voyage, Dean's story of the crew's ordeal reads like a runaway suspense thriller with torture. And it's well written and chock full of information you didn't know you needed - the camel, for instance, is an astonishing physical specimen, a creature with a face built for sandstorms; an animal that doesn't sweat or pant, but stores its heat for the cold nights when it becomes a kind of living stove.

Dean's book is based largely on two firsthand accounts - one by ship's captain James Riley, and another by crewman Archibald Robbins. Dean also retraced much of Riley's trek, and his selected bibliography is lengthy.

Near death, the crew puts back into shore and, unable to find water, throws themselves on the mercy of the first nomads they encounter. The men are immediately stripped naked, then parceled out as slaves - after a bloody and protracted fight among the desert dwellers. Their first guzzle of water and sour camel's milk rips through their intestines, a cycle that is to be repeated throughout their ordeal.

Separated, sunburned, depleted, still naked and unable to keep up, the men are put on camels. "It is no coincidence that a camel's gait is called a `rack'." Blood was soon dripping from chafed thighs and calves.

The ordeal goes from horror to worse. The nomads themselves often have nothing to eat or drink; bloody encounters and thievery are common. The sailors are worth rather less than a lame camel. Less than a good blanket, in fact.

The physical suffering is enough to make you marvel at their will to live, but Dean also conveys the helplessness of slavery. Purposely dehumanized, their lives are entirely subject to commerce or whim. Riley, a man of his time who, Dean speculates, may have planned on acquiring a slave cargo, became a fervent abolitionist on his return.

Riley comes alive on the page as a man of indomitable will, who takes his responsibilities to his men to heart. Eventually he strikes a bargain with an Arab trader, a promise based on a lie and a gamble that develops into something more personal, if precarious. The denouement is a protracted drama of danger, diplomacy and daring that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Riley's book was a best selling sensation, which remained in print long after his death, so a certain amount of skepticism is necessary. But the later events of his life bear out his energy, strength and charisma. Dean's ("Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed") stirring account, fleshed out with information about the desert, the people, their history and the cultural importance of Islam, as well as the extremes the human body can endure, is as culturally informative as it is exciting.


An instant favorite   March 7, 2004
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

I was first attracted to this book after reading a review in the Smithsonian magazine. The original story was apparently one of the most influential books of Abraham Lincoln's youth. I was also intrigued by the location in which the story took place, Morocco, where I had spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the border with Algeria. The story was rich with the descriptions of a sailor's life and the hardships of shifting to a struggle for survival in the desert of the Sahara. I had some experience with nomads and Touaregs in the Sahara and was amazed at how King's descriptions of nomadic lifestyles and customs of 200 years ago are still alive today.

It's probably apparent by now that I am not a book reviewer, this is my first review. In fact I don't read much any more as I am usually disappointed and quit before finishing most books. This book, however, was one which I could not put down. It is a work that I must place at the top of my all time favorites.