Skeletons on the Zahara

Dean King

While there have been numerous historical adventure narratives published, this is the first major work to take place in the greatest desert of all. King retraced parts of Captain James Riley's three-month trek through the desert, going for days consuming only camel urine and locusts. The book is rich with the sort of detail one could only get from being on the scene, in the heart of the desert. This book chronicles the hardships encountered by twelve American sailors who, in 1815, were shipwrecked on the coast of North Africa, captured, sold into slavery, and sent on a difficult odyssey through the perilous heart of the Sahara. Along the way the Americans would encounter everything that could possibly test them: barbarism, murder, starvation, plagues of locusts, death, sandstorms that lasted for days, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on armies of camels. They...

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