Book Review: Skeletons on the Zahara, by Dean King.

       Every now and then, a nugget is discovered after being in retreat for decades. Such is this account of a true story, originally told almost 200 years ago. It is a story often told of a shipwreck and survivors and the aftermath. The story recounts the ordeals of captain and crew after being tossed ashore on the Atlantic Coast of North Africa, not far from the Canary Islands.

      The  Commerce was an American sailing vessel, rigged as a brig, twin masts, and a crew of 12. She was a trader, filling her hold with various product and rounding the Atlantic rim for her owners. Her captain, Mr. Riley, was an experienced sailor/navigator, and was in the opinion of peers, a good leader who took care of his ship and its sailors.  The ship was from New England, Massachusetts to be exact, and most of the crew came from the area near or on the Connecticut River. These sailors knew about river navigation and the tidal flows. Sailing north on the river from Long Island Sound was a challenge for any ship and the crew.  Sailing across the Atlantic had its own difficulties going east or west. The Gulf Stream helped going east, and the Equatorial current helped on the return.

       The year was 1815 and the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the young country of the United States had concluded with the Treaty of Ghent. (Too late for the Battle of New Orleans). So the American flag was now a more common sight in European ports and in the Mediterranean Sea, the Barbary pirates notwithstanding.  African ports and the African coast had been a topic for sailors for over 2 centuries as the slave trade was drawn to conclusion by the banning of such traffic by Great Britain and the US. It would take a Civil War to end slavery itself in the US. Navigation was still more art than science, but the chronometer was only a couple of years away from universal acceptance. Finding one's latitude was well known practice with a sextant, longitude, still a guessing game.

       At sea and sailing southward, the  Commerce set a course that would skirt the Canary Islands and carry her west to the Caribbean Sea. While an experienced navigator, Riley misjudged the strong currents off of the African coast which pushed his ship into shoal waters off southern Morocco. There the ship wrecked, placing the crew in an untenable, unlivable environment, and the beginning of their collective ordeal of survival against the harsh desert and its inhabitants.

Read it.