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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... morning we found we had been followed by three lion which had then killed a horse in an Arab encampment close by . I sent out men to locate them ; they did so and one came back in the afternoon with news . Idris and I immediately set ...
... morning . In the morning , accompanied with three headmen , two police and a dozen armed men , we climbed to what had in a geological timescale been a vast plateau , now sliced into separate tables by precipitous thousand - foot gorges ...
... morning , and hail still lay on the ground . Reaching a small village eight hours after leaving Molale , we camped in a house , and made ourselves snug with a blazing fire of giant heath . Outside was a blustering and stormy night with ...
Contents
List of Maps | 7 |
Introduction | 15 |
Arrival in Addis Ababa | 23 |
Copyright | |
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