But we seldom spoke of sex, for starving men dream of food, not women, and our bodies were generally too tired to lust. - Wilfred Thesiger

The Empty Quarter offered me the chance to win distinction as a traveller; but I believed that it could give me more than this, that in those empty wastes I could find the peace that comes with solitude, and, among the Bedu, comradeship in a hostile world. Many who venture into dangerous places have found this comradeship among members of their own race; a few find it more easily among people from other lands, the very differences which separate them binding them ever more closely. I found it among the Bedu. Without it these journeys would have been a meaningless penance.

They strolled with me through the streets hand in hand, as is usual with Arab friends, but I was lightly uncomfortable, having re-acquired my inhibitions with my trousers.

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.