In Search of King Solomon's Mines: A Modern Adventurer's Quest for Gold and History in the Land of the Queen of Sheba by Tahir Shah

King Solomon, the Bible's wisest king, was possessed of extraordinary wealth. The grand temple he built in Jerusalem was covered in gold. Over the ages, many have sought to find the source of the great king's wealth -- but none with so much flair, wit, or whimsy as Tahir Shah. Intrigued by a map he finds in a shop not far from the site of the temple, Shah assembles a multitude of clues to the location of Solomon's mines. From ancient texts to modern hearsay, all point across the Red Sea to Ethiopia. Shah's trail takes him on a wild ride by taxi, bus, camel, and donkey to the gold-bearing corners of this storied and beautiful country. He interviews the hyena man of Harar, is hauled up on a rope to enter a remote cliff-face monastery, and stumbles upon an illegal gold mine where thousands of men, women, and children dig with their hands. But the hardest leg of the journey is to the accursed mountain of Tullu Wallel, where legend says the devil keeps watch over the entrance to an ancient mine shaft... Book jacket.

disclaimer of sorts: I am a bit of a fan of Tahir Shah's work, so I am not overly critical of one of his lesser developed books.

In Ali Baba's Tourist Emporium in the old city of Jerusalem, Tahir Shah allows himself to be sold a map to King Solomon's mines. It is an obvious piece of tourist merchandise, but it starts the wheels turning for an adventure in Ethiopia, and (obviously) a search for those mines. Partly inspired by the H. Rider Haggard classic tale (albeit set in completely the wrong country), and by the real travels of English adventurer Frank Hayter, amongst others, Tahir Shah sets out to locate the mines which supplied Solomon with the gold to line his temple (the Temple on the Mount, Jerusalem).

Haile Selassie, Ras Tafari, The Queen of Sheba, Prester John, the Ark of the Covenant, Coptic Christians, the Ethiopian Jews - all the well known images of Ethiopia fall into place in the disorganised travel that is Shahs expedition to search the seven spots on his map (not the map from Jerusalem) all of which have the potential to be the location of the mines.
His travels take him to the legal mines (ie the commercial gold mine), the illegal mines, to mountains and to remote areas. Along the way he meets interesting people, and touches on their stories.

It is perhaps not as polished as some of Shah's more excellent works, but there are worse ways to spend a couple of days dipping in and out of his adventures. He perhaps doesn't set himself up to be seen as the best of people, what with his food hoarding, the purposeful harsh treatment of his driver and muleteers (to establish himself as the boss), but at least he portrays himself honestly and not in a revisionist way to build himself up.

And admittedly the book ends when the story sort of runs out of steam. Don't enter into this book looking for an outcome - it is definitely a book of the journey, not the result.

As a Tahir Shah fan, I can live with this as a 4 star book.

Here is a bit I thought was interesting, and is an example of a paragraph of digression found through the narrative of the book: P94.
When it comes to time, Ethiopia has its own rules which place it is a sort of parallel universe. Instead of following the Gregorian calendar, as we do in the West, Ethiopians use the Julian Calendar, a system seven years and eight months behind us. In Ethiopia there are twelve months each of thirty days and a thirteenth month of just five days. Every year, thousands of unsold western calendars are shipped to Addis Ababa, stored for seven years, then sold to people like Abdul Majeed.