I might have been homosexual if I was born in a different age but as it was I remained asexual. - Wilfred Thesiger

The desert Arabs had no tradition of civilisation behind them; no architectural inheritance - they lived in black tents, or in rooms devoid of furnishings in their villages and towns. They had no taste for refinements, demanded only the bare necessities of life. It was a life that produced much that was noble, little that was gracious and nothing that was artistic.

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.

Strike a Bedu and he will kill you either then or later. It is easy for strangers to give offence without meaning to do so. I once put my hand on the back of bin Kabina’s neck and he turned on me and asked furiously if I took him for a slave. I had no idea that I had done anything wrong.