They [the Middle East Anti Locust Unit] were the golden key that unlocked Arabia for me. To somebody who was interested in desert exploration the Emp… - Wilfred Thesiger

God, you must be a couple of pansies.

At first glance they [his Bedu companions] seemed to be little better than savages, as primitive as the Danakil, but I was soon disconcerted to discover that, while they were prepared to tolerate me as a source of very welcome revenue, they never doubted my inferiority. They were Muslims and Bedu and I was neither. They had never heard of the English, for all Europeans were known to them simply as Christians, or more probably infidels, and nationality had no meaning to them. They had heard vaguely of the war as a war between the Christians, and of the Aden government as a Christian government. Their world was the desert and they had little if any interest in events that happened outside it.

The harder the life the finer the type and there’s no doubt about that; the easier you make life the lower goes your standards.