Chasing clues gathered from the Septuagint to ancient folklore, from the copper scroll to the national epic of the Kebra Negast, Shah was led to Ethiopia, whose past rulers traced their descent from the son born to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and from which gold has been exported for millennia.

Their first trip was down the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway to view the feeding of the hyenas said to guard Solomon's treasure in Harar, then returning by bus and undergoing "the kind of experience that makes you question the purpose of even the most well-intentioned journey".

Religious experiences in the north later on included being lifted by rope to view the clifftop Debre Damo monastery; in Axum, Shah met a Rastafarian 'god'; in Gondar one of the few remaining Falashas.

Heading southward next through monsoon downpours and swamped roads, the party made for the sinister mountain of Tulu Wallel where, decades before, an English adventurer called Frank Hayter claimed to have discovered the gold mines of King Solomon.

[3] Though The New Yorker notes that Shah presents Ethiopia as "a land with all of the ills of modernity and none of its benefits",[4] yet he manages to describe even the most shocking detail with a light touch and imparts information in so entertaining a way that "most readers won't realize that while walking on the wild side, they've also just done a quick course in Ethiopian history.