Arabian Sands: Thoughts

“Only in the desert…could a man find freedom.”

This feeling of freedom is what drove Wilfred Thesiger again and again to one of the most inhospitable places on earth. In "Arabian Sands", Thesiger describes his love affair with the desert, developed through years of wandering through the Empty Quarter of Arabia. He traveled by camel and by foot, with a handful of loyal Bedu for his companions. He suffered starvation, exhaustion, and bitter resentment on account of his Christian faith. Yet he could never get enough of it. 

“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance. I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquility was to be found there. I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence: the contentment of a fully belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”

The most incredible part of this book for me was the Bedu themselves; men like Thesiger's companions Bin Kabina and Bin Ghabaisha. These men had spent their entire lives living in the desert, never owning more than a camel and what they could carry on their backs. With a rifle and a dagger, these men were prepared to roam for months at a time, traveling until exhausted and then stretching out on the sand to sleep, often without even a blanket to cover them. The desert was their home and they lived in it by choice. 

Their lives in the desert had taught them many skills that are so foreign to me, they seem almost supernatural. One of the most remarkable of these was their ability to track. Thesiger describes several instances when one of his companions could read tracks in the sand and discern intimate details from them. On one occasion a man read some camel tracks they had come across and told the party, "They were Awamir. There are six of them. They have raided the Junuba on the southern coast and taken three of their camels. They have come here from Sahma and watered at Mughshin. They passed here ten days ago." They had not seen anyone for seventeen days, and did not see anyone for another twenty-seven days. After their journey, they exchanged news in the village and found that everything the man had read in those tracks had occurred exactly as he had described it. 

With companions such as these, is it any wonder that Thesiger felt drawn to the desert? He longed for the dunes of Arabia with such a passion that when he left the peninsula for the last time to return to England he said, "I knew what it felt like to go into exile."

“To others my journey would have little importance. It would produce nothing except a rather inaccurate map which no one was ever likely to use. It was a personal experience, and the reward had been a drink of clean, nearly tasteless water. I was content with that.”

My rating: 7 out of 10