The biggest misfortune in human history is the invention of the combustion engine. Cars and airplanes diminish the world, rob it of all its diversity… - Wilfred Thesiger

As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.

We parted before I went to Abu Dhabi, which I found an Arabian Nightmare, the final disillusionment. For me this book remains a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people.

..I was thankful that I had not gone there with members of my own race, as one of large, meticulously organised expedition. I should have hated, in those surroundings, to listen to the wireless, the news, sports commentaries and European music; it would have seemed utterly incongruous. All I ever want to bring with me from our civilisation are some books, and those that I had, though there had been little opportunity to read them. In Arabia I had learnt to move from one world to another as easily as changing clothes, but always tried to keep the worlds apart.