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Oct 09, 2013miaone rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
It's one of the best books I ever read. I doubt I'd have been able to push my way through reading the original, 1817 or so, accounts of their adventures by either Capt. James Riley or Able Seaman Archibald Robbins. The early-19th century literary language used by both seamen was too flowery and dense for me. Therefore, I admire Dean King for reading both books in detail, plus many others to add to his knowledge of the times. Then King traveled along parts of the nomadic routes across the Sahara Desert, sometimes on camels. After all that research, he wrote the story of the dozen men who sailed in 1815 from New England, were shipwrecked off Morocco, sold into slavery on the Sahara Desert, and, for some of them, sailed back to Connecticut. I've rarely felt so caught up in a story. The abuse the Americans suffered at the hands of their nomadic Arab owners was almost unbelievable. How the men endured it, plus starvation, extreme thirst, scurvy, illness of the sort we don't even think of any more such as typhus and cholera, all the while hoping desperately that a British consulate officer with access to money will ransom them -- and this just 3 years after the US fought a war with England -- well, it kept the pages turning for me. In fact, so caught up was I with which men suffered which fate, that as soon as I rushed through the first reading, then I took my time and read it again. I was most impressed with Captain Riley's intense loyalty to his men in trying to see that they were all rescued, even though some of them treated him rather badly. He just wouldn't give up on them, even when it meant he suffered even more because of it. It's an intense and thoroughly worthwhile read.