Later he [Evelyn Waugh] asked, at second-hand, if he could accompany me into the Danakil country, where I planned to travel. I refused. Had he come, … - Wilfred Thesiger

Now that the Arabs are among the economic masters of the world I fear that many will find unendurable the boredome of their wealth.

These [RAF] airmen were my fellow countrymen, and I was proud to be of their race. I knew the essential decency which was the bedrock of their character, their humour, stubbornness, and self-reliance. I knew that if called upon they could adapt themselves to any kind of life, in the desert, in the jungle, in mountains or on the sea, and that in many respects no race in the world was their equal. But the things that interested them bored me. They belonged to an age of machines; they were fascinated by cars and aeroplanes, and found their relaxation in the cinema and the wireless. I knew that I stood apart from them and would never find contentment among them, whereas I could find it among the Bedu, although I should never be one of them.

I think the harder the life, the finer the type, yes, and I certainly felt this about the Bedu. When I went there, I felt that the difficulty was going to be living up physically to the hardships of their life. But, on the contrary, it was the difficulty of meeting their high standards: their generosity, their patience, their loyalty, their courage and all these things. And they had a quality of nobility.