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." |
From inside the book
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... army under General Sir Francis Grenfell . This com- prised several by now well - trained Egyptian infantry ... army , with their bands playing , stormed the Amir Mahmud's zariba on the Atbara river . They suffered heavy casualties but ...
... army of Ras Desta , another son - in - law of the Emperor , at Dolo on the Ganale river near the Kenya border . Not ... army . Now , though operating in an area with which he was familiar , he proved highly incompetent . When Graziani ...
... Army was on Ras Tafari's right , Ras Kassa with levies from Sagale on his left . In front , and to the right of the smaller hill , a spring flowed into boggy ground . On the day of the battle the Wollo army attempted a surprise attack ...
Contents
List of Maps | 7 |
Introduction | 15 |
Arrival in Addis Ababa | 23 |
Copyright | |
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