THE FOLIO SOCIETY

The southern deserts of Saudi Arabia are so immense, desolate and inhospitable they are known in Arabic as Rub al Khali - the Empty Quarter. This dune-filled abyss of nearly half a million square miles, with its combination of searing heat, unforgiving terrain and warring tribes, was for Wilfred Thesiger the final, unattainable challenge. But, between 1945 and 1950, he succeeded in making two expeditions across the Empty Quarter, as well as journeying extensively in Oman, Yemen and the southern regions of the Arab peninsula.

These were epic treks on foot and camel - over 10,000 miles in all - in which Thesigers life was in constant danger. He was hunted as a Christian, arrested and imprisoned, and hovered almost permanently on the edge of starvation. Yet he believed these to be the happiest years of his life. Unimaginable hardships were treated as mere inconveniences. Even as he waited for three days for his party to return with food from an oasis town, drifting in and out of consciousness, Thesiger felt a profound sense of belonging. No Westerner has written so movingly of the beauty of the Arabian sands, and of the noble companionship of the Bedu. In the desert, he confessed, I found a freedom unattainable in civilisation.