The Life of My ChoiceWilfred Thesiger is the last of the great British eccentric explorers, a legendary figure, renowned for his travels through some of the most inaccessible places on earth. As a child in Abyssinia he watched the victorious armies of Ras Tafari returning from hand-to-hand battle, their prisoners in chains; at the age of twenty-three he made his first expedition into the country of the Danakil, a murderous race among whom a man's status in the tribe depended on the number of men he had killed and castrated. His widely acclaimed books, 'Arabian Sands' and 'The Marsh Arabs' tell of his two famous sojourns in the Empty Quarter and the Marshes of southern Iraq. But Thesiger's true character and motives have until now remained an enigma. In this, his autobiography, he highlights the people who most profoundly influenced him and the events which enabled him to lead the life of his choice. "One of the very few people who in our time could be put on the pedestal of the great explorers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." "A treasure galleon built to the same specifications as 'Arabian Sands' and 'The Marsh Arabs' ... it is the record of a man magnificently and unabashedly out of step with his times." "He is, unquestionably, one of the greatest travellers the British have ever produced, the last of our recognizable primitives. He also writes with much distinction and honesty." |
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... Jibuti on a salt flat , and a squalid native quarter had grown up round the modern town , with its offices , fly - blown hotels , cafés , bars and brothels . Jibuti was an unromantic seaport in an uninviting landscape . Tajura , a short ...
... Jibuti next morning and there among the native craft was de Monfreid's Altair : he was now in France and the boat was for sale . I later went on board and met some of his crew , whose names I already knew from his books , and I was half ...
... Jibuti all but Omar and his servant left on the train . I went to the station to see them off , and the parting with them deepened my depression . Kassimi and Goutama , Birru and Said , Abdullahi , Said Munge , Abdi , Bedi and his ...
Contents
List of Maps | 7 |
Introduction | 15 |
Arrival in Addis Ababa | 23 |
Copyright | |
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