"Samuel Romanelli was a free spirit who spent most of his life traveling in search of adventure, knowledge, and patrons for his literary endeavors. . . [During a voyage to Italy in 1786, he became stranded in Gibraltar . . . and circumstances forced him to join a merchant traveling to Morocco. Through misadventure, he lost his passport and was retained in that country for four years, the story of which forms Travail in an Arab Land. This first-person account is an important and unique work treating the life and culture of Jews in 18th-century Morocco."--Jewish Book News