About book Skeletons On The Zahara: A True Story Of Survival (2005)
When the crew of the ship, Commerce, left America, the War of 1812 had just ended. The captain of the ship, James Riley, decided to lead the ship in order to recoup some of the fortune he lost during the war. It surprised me that a ship headed to Africa would only have a crew of eleven. Captain Riley was only thirty-seven years old. He was an accomplished sea captain. His crew had sailed together before, some were neighbors on land, and there was a close bond among them. The ship crashed off the west coast of Africa. The crew survived the crash but faced the cruelest of challenges by surviving the perils of the West African Saharan Arab tribes and the largest desert in the world, The Sahara. The Sahrawi tribe captured and enslaved the crew. Members of the crew were sold for ostrich feathers or a torn blanket. The sailors turned slaves were starved, beaten, and worse, subjected to the beastly torments of the Sahara. Honestly, I do not know how they stayed alive. Captain Riley, for example, went from 240 pounds to 120 pounds. Another smaller man went down to 40 pounds. Forty pounds!! Due to lack of food and water, they drank their own urine, the urine of the camels (the tribes did that as well), drank the blood of any animal that was killed, and the insides of whatever was part of the animal. Honestly, if the starvation, dehydration, filth, extreme heat didn’t kill them, I don’t know why the brackish water (when they found it) or the raw filthy meat didn’t kill them (when they had it). You have to read the conditions in which they somehow lived. Plus they were beaten and treated like sub humans. It’s why when Captain Riley was saved and returned to the states, he was an abolitionist. Pg 94: They had been stranded on the western edge of the world’s largest desert, which takes up 1/3 of Africa and stretches “more than three thousand miles east to the Red Sea and twelve hundred miles from the . . . fringe of savanna in the south.” Fascinating – also on 94 and 95: “The Sahara was not always like this. From 5500 to 2500BC, it was relatively fertile, wet and inviting. Up until Roman times, antelope, elephant, rhinoceroses, and giraffes roamed a savanna densely studded with acacia, while crocodiles and hippopotamuses wallowed in lush rivers. Ostriches, gazelles, and antelope still persisted in 1815, but by then the Saharan climate was arguably the most extreme on earth. Its temperature could sizzle at more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, the ground temperature soaring 50 degrees higher in the sun; at night, the thermometer could plunge as much as 85 degrees.” There is also only 5 inches of rain per year. Pgs 194/195: As cruel and as horrible as the tribes were to them, they did have moments of great sharing when there was nothing. They were given a type of gruel by a group of nomadic Arabs at a time they were near dead. And some of them realized, “The best meal of their journey was the gift of men they did not know and would never see again. Like so much on the Sahara [as in life], it opened their minds to the unexpected, and to small graces in the midst of adversity.” How the tribes existed on the desert is fascinating. The weather is so dramatic and harsh that it’s an unimaginable life. They use all the byproducts of whatever they find. For most of this narrative there wasn’t food for the slaves to eat. The Arabs, when they came upon dates, for example, took the pits and crushed the oil from them so they could fortify there food with the oil. They then roasted the meat of the pits and then crushed them into balls that would later be used to fuel their fires. I bet the fire smelled good – certainly better than the burning camel dung. The camel is essential to the Saharan tribal life. Not only can the camel exist and move through the most difficult of terrains, all of the camel’s byproducts are used – the camel’s milk is highly fortified and might be the only thing a person might have to drink or “eat” for the day. Captain Riley was sold to two brothers, Sidi Hamet and his brother Seid. Sidi was a tough man but compassionate. His brother was a cruel man that Sidi had to work hard to keep under control. If it had been up to Seid, the men Riley was able to convince Sidi to buy, besides himself, would have been sold to this one and that one along the way. Due to Riley’s ability to persuade and to use his powers of observation he was able to save as many people as he did. Pg 306: “Though Riley could never fully understand Hamet’s ways, the Arab had earned not only the captain’s respect but his admiration . . . he had saved the sailors from slavery; he was a humane and trustworthy man . . . a man who had seen past their differences and trusted him, in a place where trust among strangers was a rare thing.” So here is serendipity again. In the Sahara, a slave, Captain Riley, starved, dehydrated, miserable met an Arab trader and was able to identify an honorable man, an intelligent man. Life presented a possibility to be saved and Captain Riley identified that chance and did everything to capitalize on it. Serendipity. Four of the crew plus Riley were saved. An Englishman paid their ransom and had help by an Arab “diplomat.” Officer Aaron Savage (20); Thomas Burns (41); James Clark (24); and Horace Savage (15) left Africa on January 4, 1816. Riley stayed behind to help with the possible release of others. It’s amazing Riley’s strength and commitment to his crew. After being saved, he “crossed Morocco by mule to meet James Simpson, the American consul-general in Tangier, to ensure that arrangements were made to rescue the remainder of his crew.”Pg 308: I was crushed to read that Sidi Hamet was killed trying to rescue the rest of the crew. March 1817, Archibald Robbins was saved by the Englishman, Wilshire, who paid his ransom like he did for the first five. The crew members who were never found were James Barrett, George Williams, Dick Deslisle, John Hogan, and Antonio Michel. It was so sad to read that. I was truly taken by the bravery of the crew and I wanted them all to live.Captain Riley wrote his memoir of the survival, which was published in 1817, and it became a best seller both in America and in England, as well as other countries. He became a famous nationally and internationally figure. Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thoreau, and James Fenimore Cooper all read Riley’s book. Archibald Robbins (age 22 at the time of the sail) also wrote a book. Pg 314: Captain Riley took his family to the northwest part of Ohio, along the river, and named the town after the Englishman who saved them, Wilshire. This absolutely amazed me. Riley actually returned to Gibraltar and was reunited with Wilshire. March 1840, Riley died at sea, sailing from New York to St. Thomas.
Imagine being stranded on the coast of the Zahara desert, with an extremely scarce amount of food and water. The nomadic locals are far from hospitable and there is seemingly no way to survive. This is the true story of Captain James Riley told in Skeletons on the Zahara written by Dean King and published in February 2004 by Little, Brown and company. I found the book interesting from a historical standpoint. It also taught me a lot about leadership and overall human nature. I was most impressed, however, by the narrative voice and Dean King’s ability to immerse the reader through detail, emotion, and accuracy. During the early 1800s, the only method of trading goods between continents was for ships to sail across oceans. These voyages were extremely risky and required a crew of brave and sufficient men. Skeletons on the Zahra tells the story of Captain James Riley and his men, who were thrown into a desperate situation and had to survive under almost impossible circumstances. In February 1815, the Commerce, an American ship, departed from Connecticut and headed towards the Cape Verde Islands to receive salt. Towards the end of the journey, the crew got disoriented and the ship struck land. The Crew boarded a lifeboat and attempted to locate familiar islands nearby, but gave up after several days. Captain Riley and his men were then kidnapped by the locals and divided among different settlements to work as slaves. The crew was losing hope, but Captain Riley refused to give up. While the plot is an amazing example of hope and courage, I consider the best aspect of the book to be the narrative voice. Captain Riley survived the ordeal and later wrote about it great detail. This gives the Author Dean King the ability to vividly describe his emotions. I found myself empathizing with Captain Riley because I knew exactly what he was thinking. Periodically the book will directly reference some of Riley’s quotes. For instance, while trying to convince someone to trust him, Riley said, “If I am lying you may cut my throat.” The absence of anything false also contributed to my overall connection to story. I never doubted any historical facts because it was based around the writings of someone who actually lived in that time period. Dean’s use of detail is also appreciated. He describes the environments and ambiences thoroughly. For example, he spares no details while describing the city of Swearah. Everything from the culture to the architecture is mentioned. At times I forgot I was reading the book within the comfort of my own living room. Skeletons on the Zahara is an amazing book of survival. The compelling plot will have you invested instantly. James Dean’s style of writing utilizes emotion, detail, and accuracy to tell a beautiful story. It’s a riveting narrative with elements of adventure, tragedy, compassion, courage, and hope.
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Enjoyed the heck out of it! Really excellent. This is an updated account of a story from 1815 about American shipwrecked sailors and how they survived starvation, slavery, ill-treatment in Saharan Africa. Their own fortitude along with help from well-meaning Arabs & Brits makes for an amazing tale. I found myself wondering, "How is it have I never even heard about this story before?!" Especially, when the original narrative (which forms the basis for King's book) was published, it was hugely popular. Even Abraham Lincoln was a fan. King writes, "In the only biography authorized by Abraham Lincoln, John L. Scripps’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, Scripps wrote that after the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, and Pilgrims’s Progress in Lincoln’s early reading came the Life of Franklin, Weems’s Washington, and Riley’s Narrative, (i.e. this book!)".King, Dean (2004-02-16). Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.(quoting Scripps)
—R_
This book has been on my wish lists (yes, I have one on amazon, one on cliff's, 1 on Bookcrossing and one here although I need to add a lot of books I want to goodread for many years.)So it was so much fun to receive a package from Hong Kong with 2 books I have been wanting to read for many years. Thanks azuki.Update June 19 2013:What a fantastic read! After the first 5 to 10 dry pages it got so that I could not stop reading. Right now I am reading another book like this one, survival book, this time on my kindle, so maybe that is why it differs, cause what I really liked about Dean King's book was the amount of notes, all the little maps spread into the book and all the info.It was all perfect really. Not too much and not too little.Even if you do not care about history books I am sure you would love this one. It reads like a thriller! When I was nearly done I had a hard time saying goodbye and I hope the other books I have in this genre will be just as good, but it is a hard act to follow!
—♥ Marlene♥
“Skeletons on the Zahara” is an enthralling narrative with a riveting storyline written by Dean King. The trial and tribulation story recounts the diary of a shipwrecked American sailor who was alongside his crew while stranded on the north west coast of Africa in 1815. Captain Riley and his crew of the Commerce were subjected to slavery and a journey across northern Africa. Their misfortune began when they were captured by a nomad tribe who then exposed them to problems such as starvation, dehydration, death, murder, and other dangerous tribes who inhabited the land they were crossing. The story of survival is an example of how two different forces were able to come together for the benefit of themselves. A muslim trader and the American sea captain James Riley were forced to become allies in order to survive. Throughout the diary, the captain displays courage to his crew with motivation that is evident when he says “what's the use of lying down to die as long as we can stand up and walk” which could have been the source of the Americans will to live (94). As a reader, the book was a memorable portrayal of the many slaves who also endured the journey of two months just to be sold into work after. It raises the issue of human rights and the conditions that workers are put through. Even in modern day times the world is still faced with the issue and violations raised with slavery. In 2012 the BBC estimated that around 20.9 million people are victims of forced labour. The book enlightened me on the real stories of only twelve people who were faced into slavery, and in that time, the unknown. Dean King does a phenomenal job of using the limited information of captain Riley's diary to turn it into a full and complete revival of his incomprehensible tale. I also feel that it was very lucky that the journey that was experienced by many others was finally documented as a reminder of the suffering that was encountered by thousands before. Overall the book has had and will continue to have a lasting imprint on how I look at the slave trade across northern Africa. The diary of Captain Riley and his crew of 11 men will live on to help readers today experience a small portion of the reality of being a slave.
—Chris Dillon
