I know that today it sounds unforgivable to have shot seventy lion in five years, but that was fifty years ago and circumstances of that time cannot … - Wilfred Thesiger

The desert Arabs had always been a people born to hardship. For them there was no ease or comfort, only the weariness of long marches and toil at well-heads. 'We are Bedu,' they boasted, and asked only the freedom that was theirs. Stoical in pain, and often very brave, they lived for the raid and the counter-raid, which were conducted according to set rules and usually with great chivalry. They took a fierce pride in danger and suffering, and never doubted their superiority over villager and townsman.

The Nuristanis had retained their individuality as a race even after conversion to Islam. Now they would be visited by an ever-increasing number of expeditions seeking adventure in wild places. This would disrupt a society utterly unprepared. Each expedition by its very presence would help destroy what it had come to find.

Personally, I would forgo any other comfort to drink clean water.