Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, Thesiger spent five years exploring and wandering the deserts of Arabia. With vivid descriptions and colourful anecdotes he narrates his stories, including two crossings of the Empty Quarter, among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels.