Thesiger crossed the Empty Quarter twice in the late 1940s, on camels, with a few Bedu who’d have gotten there a lot faster without him. His nominal job was scouting locust breeding grounds for the British, locusts being the scourge of agriculture, but everybody knew that was an excuse for him to be out there. What he found was a way of living he rated above anything back home: Guys who owned nothing, went hungry as a matter of course, and would still hand a stranger the last of the food. Two young Rashid — bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha — run through the whole book. He wrote it knowing the oil crews were coming, the trucks were coming, and he says so flat out, and says too that he had no business grieving a life the Bedu might be glad to leave. Still, he did.