UAE | General
Posthumous honour for famed explorer at awards
Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer, was honoured with one of two posthumous Abu Dhabi Awards, presented last Sunday.
- By Alice Johnson, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:36 December 25, 2008
- The late desert explorer, Wilfred Thesiger.
- Image Credit: Abdul Rahman/Gulf News
Dubai: Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer, was honoured with one of two posthumous Abu Dhabi Awards, presented last Sunday.
Thesiger travelled through the Empty Quarter and Southern Arabian deserts during the 1940s. He crossed the inhospitable Empty Quarter twice (1946 and 1948).
The explorer spent five years with the nomadic Bedouins, becoming so close to them that they named him "Mubarak Bin London".
Thesiger is also credited with writing what has been called one of the greatest travel books of all time - Arabian Sands.
Written over a period of years and published in 1959, 'Arabian Sands' chronicles his journeys with a Bedouin tribe, which he also documented with more than 35,000 artistic black-and-white photographs.
The work gives an insight into the life of Shaikh Zayed as well as the Shaikhs and tribes of Abu Dhabi.
Thesiger photographed Shaikh Zayed himself.
Low points
In one significant chapter, Thesiger tells a shocking story about one of the lowest points in his life. It was 1946 and his travels through the desert came with a harsh reality. The intrepid explorer lay starving for three days, waiting for his companions to return with the food so necessary for survival.
He tells of the hallucinations that haunted him: images of cars that might be able to carry him to safety.
He later wrote: "No, I would rather be here starving as I was than sitting in a chair, replete with food, listening to the wireless and dependent on cars to take me through Arabia."
Thesiger wrote also of the generosity of his Bedu companions, recounting a tale of their struggle to catch a hare. After hours of setting traps and chasing the animal, they finally trapped it, starting a fire to cook the prized meat.
Upon arrival of travelling companions, the Bedouin showed their characteristic hospitable nature, letting the travellers take and eat the freshly-cooked meat.
Thesiger writes of his frustration at the incident, after spending so long catching the animal, only to watch others eat it.
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