Yes, but I also wanted to verify the accuracy of what Riley and Robbins reported [Archibald Robbins, a sailor aboard the Commerce who suffered an additional 19th month of captivity, also published an account of the wreck]. In their time, there were a lot of wild tales circulating, both in print and verbally, but I immediately realized when I read Riley's memoir that it was authentic. He took his reporting seriously, but in the book he sometimes wrote far-fetched things—like seeing people who were 300 years old. He also reported that the nomads lived off of camel milk and camel urine. I didn't know if that was really possible. It seemed unrealistic to me. I felt a need to research and find out what was true, and the surprising thing was that a lot of what Riley reported still happens today.
What's a good example?
The thing that hit me the hardest was when I was riding with a guide in a Land Rover and I noticed that he had a long thin scar on his neck. I remembered reading in Riley that the nomads treated illnesses by heating up a long blade, the size of a Bowie knife, and using the back end to brand different parts of the body—typically, the ankles, wrist, shoulders, neck. One of the sailors was treated that way for dysentery in Riley's narrative. I found it horrific and unbelievable. Riley's critics didn't believe it either. I asked the driver how he got the scar and he told me that he had been very sick several years ago and had been treated in the exact way Riley described. My jaw dropped. I was shocked that that kind of medical treatment is still being used today. He told me that the treatment saved his life and that he also treats his children with it.
In the book, Riley describes being so thirsty that he is driven to drink camel urine. Did you get a chance to try camel urine yourself?
I did not taste camel urine, but I did inquire about it. One of my guides was quite loquacious on the topic and said that yes, indeed, they do drink camel urine on occasion, particularly the urine of a pregnant camel because it has certain nutrients and is believed to help cure stomach ailments and mouth sores. And, of course, if you're dying of thirst you will drink any kind of camel urine. The fact that Riley reported that the nomads preferred camel urine to their own was somewhat shocking, but once you get over there, you find out that it's not that uncommon.
What was the most trying aspect of your attempt to retrace Riley's steps?
From my reading, I had expected that we would be able to go farther and faster on the camels than we were actually able to. I trained for the trip to prepare for it, as did the people who were with me. But the camels and the camel drivers, they're just not used to doing the kind of hard, forced march that I wanted to reenact. I wanted to do up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) a day. It turned out that if we could do 30 miles (48 kilometers) that was an excellent day. A more typical day would be 20 (32 kilometers). Riley reported doing up to 100 (161 kilometers). I doubt that he was actually doing that many, but I think that sometimes he did travel 50, 60 miles (97 kilometers) in a day. T.E. Lawrence [a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia] once did 100 miles in a day, but Lawrence was known for almost killing his camels. His guides wouldn't ride with him at times because he pushed the camels so hard.
How was your own experience astride a camel?
Your relationship with your camel is a remarkable thing. It's like nothing we know. The people of the Sahara measure their wealth in camels. Camels provide their food—camel milk—and older, lame camels are slaughtered for meat. They're also your transportation. You rely on the camel so much that you love your camel. Even being there for a short time, I discovered that the camel is such an essential aspect of life on the desert that you just have to respect the camel. It's a much different kind of relationship than we know with our animals.
What protections from the harsh Sahara were available to you today that weren't available to Riley and his men?
Sunglasses were huge. One of the sailors, Roger Porter, went sun blind toward the end. The glare fried his eyes; he eventually recovered after not being able to see for a good stretch of time. We also had saddles for our camels and, importantly, we had clothes. For the most part, the sailors didn't have any clothes because the clothes that they had were so valuable to the nomads that they were all taken. Along the Western Sahara, there are fierce winds. The sand blows everywhere and if you don't have what they called a shesh, sand pretty much penetrates everywhere—it gets in your ears, up your nose, in your mouth. Even if you have that protective gear on, it still gets everywhere. I was walking across a desert beach to look at a wrecked ship. I had my reading glasses in a case in my pocket. The sand somehow blew in, entered my pocket, got into my glasses case, and scratched up the lenses. A photographer will tell you that every photographic lens must be kept in a sealed plastic bag.
After your experience in the desert, do you think you could have survived the ordeal of the Commerce?
I like to think that I could have dug deep and come up with what it takes to survive that kind of ordeal. But, in the knowledge that a person can be broken, that your spirit can be broken, I'm not sure that you can entirely control yourself. I know that at one point, Riley's spirit was broken and he looked for a rock to bash his own head on. But he survived that moment and transcended it and it actually gave him more strength. So I think that if you're in that kind of situation, you're going to face a crisis, or it may be several crises, and those are the moments that you have to figure out how to get through and gather strength from. You just don't know. I like to think I could have faced it.
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