The book was originally published in 1817. It is the account of James Riley, an American sea captain, who was shipwrecked on the Western coast of Africa, captured by natives, sold as a slave, and subsequently redeemed by a British businessman. (Only a few years after open conflict between the U.S. and Britain!)

It  is largely an account of the misery of travel across the Saharan desert. It describes the practices used by the camel caravans to survive and the struggle Riley and his crew had to maintain the will to live despite the depredations of the desert, the little hope of a positive outcome, and the misery of a dearth of melanin under a scorching sun. 

Near the end of the 1847 edition of his book, Riley wrote this important plea for assistance in ending slavery:

I will exert all my remaining faculties in endeavors to redeem the enslaved and to shiver in pieces the rod of oppression; and I trust I shall be aided in that holy work by every good and every pious, free, and high-minded citizen in the community, and by the friends of mankind throughout the civilized world