Skeletons on the Zahara

Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. An interesting story. This is the non-fiction account of the crew of a ship that wrecks on the coast of Africa around 1815. The crew (and one pig) make it to shore but encounter one disaster after another. They are separated and taken as slaves by the Arab natives. This author studied the journals of two crew members, including the ship captain, that were published shortly after some of the crew made it back to civilization.

The book goes in to great detail about the lives of the crew as, for months, they are slaves to nomads traversing the Sahara Desert. The hardships are pretty devasting and, in fact, it makes the book pretty gruesome in places -- if you're easily disturbed, you want to skip this one or at least skim the descriptions of the physical hardships the crew members go through.

The writing style is a little stilted and, eventually, it gets a little repetitive. Not to be insensitve, but "sold to new owner, beaten, starved, baked in the desert....repeat", gets a little old after a while. That said, to somebody who thinks "hardship" is having to turn the air conditioner colder, this was an eye opener. Its hard to believe this is 200 years ago. Even harder to believe that there are still parts of the world that haven't change from the difficult life depicted in this book.