Thank you to Al for picking this month's theme.
Wilfred Thesiger's 1959 book "
Arabian Sands" is a classic in travel literature and anyone who I have
ever spoken to who mentions that they have ever read it also often go on to say it is amongst their
all-time favorite narratives. A throwback to some earlier time, one of Thesiger's fantastic
adventures took place between 1946 and 1950 when he twice crossed the
Rub' al Khali - the Empty
Quarter of Saudi Arabia.
Thesiger himself was also a
superb photographer.
A couple of paragraphs from Arabian Sands have always stuck in my mind when the topic
of prints and tracks comes up, so I have taken the time to transcribe them here and I hope
some readers may find them entertaining.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Copyright Wildfred Thesiger, "Arabian Sands" pp 65-66
A few days later we passed some tracks. I was not even certain that they were made by camels, for
they were much blurred by the wind. Sultan turned to a grey-bearded man who was noted as a tracker
and asked him whose tracks they were, and the man turned aside and followed them for a short
distance. He then jumped off his camel, looked at the tracks where they crossed some hard ground,
broke some camel-droppings between his fingers and rode back to join us. Sultan asked, 'Who are
they?' and the man answered, 'They were Awamir. There are six of them. They have raided the Januba
on the southern coast and taken three of their camels. They have come here from Sahma and watered
at Mughshin. They passed here ten days ago'. We had seen no Arabs for seventeen days and we saw
none for a further twenty-seven. On our return we met some Bait Kathir near Japabl Qarra and, when
we exchanged our news, they told us that six Awamir had raided the Januba, killed three of them,
and taken three of their camels. The only thing we did not already know was that they had killed
anyone.
Here every man knew the individual tracks of his own camels, and some of them could remember the
tracks of nearly every camel they had seen. They could tell at a glance from the depth of the
footprints whether a camel was ridden or free, and whether it was in calf. By studying strange
tracks they could tell the area from which the camel came. Camels from the Sands, for instance,
have soft soles to their feet, marked with tattered strips of loose skin, whereas if they come
from the gravel plains their feet are polished smooth. Bedu could tell the tribe to which a camel
belonged, for the different tribes have different breeds of camel, all of which can be
distinguished by their tracks. From looking at their droppings they could deduce where a camel had
been grazing, and they could certainly tell when it had last been watered, and from their
knowledge of the country, they could probably tell where. Bedu are always well informed about the
tribes and can guess which tribes would raid each other. No Bedu will ever miss a chance of
exchanging news with anyone he meets, and he will ride far out of his way to get fresh news.
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