The Abode of Emptiness by Robin Hanbury-Tenison

The Empty Quarter, the Rub' al Khali, the Abode of Emptiness, was often referred to in the first half of this century as one of the few remaining genuinely unexplored regions of the world. And yet it was, like almost everywhere else on earth, well known to those who already lived there, the Bedouin. Eventually, it was to be their outstanding qualities of fortitude and honour, combined with their unrivalled knowledge of desert lore, which was to capture the imagination of the outside world.

Nineteenth century explorers had already become interested in the harsh and mysterious interior of the Arabian peninsular. Richard Burton, the eccentric, brilliant linguist, had Royal Geographical Society approval and financial support for his daring attempt to reach Mecca and penetrate what he called "the huge white blot in our maps" beyond. His meticulous planning for the adventure surpassed by a considerable degree what is expected today of those applying to the RGS for support. Already fluent in Persian and Arabic, as well as five Indian languages, he disguised himself as an Indian-born Afghan in order to account for his accent. He also had himself circumcised, knowing that certain death would otherwise result from discovery en route that he was not a Muslim. His rich and erotic writings gave glamour to the region, "a haggard land infested with wild beasts and wilder men" and added to the romantic image created by the Victorian landscape painters who went there in such numbers. Although he failed to cross the peninsular as planned, due to illness, and soon transferred his attention to African exploration, his book 'Pilgrimage to Al-Medina and Mecca' (1855) electrified the outside world and became a best seller.

The extraordinary William Gifford Palgrave, whose conflicting loyalties included being a spy for Napoleon III, preparing the political ground for the building of the Suez Canal by the French, and being a Jesuit missionary priest with special Papal blessing, made the first west-east crossing of the Arabian peninsular in 1862. As well as being a scholar, he was a brave and resourceful man with a talent for combining the guile and bluff necessary to survive in such troubled times.

It was not, however, until almost seventy years had passed before what Wilfred Thesiger has called "the final and greatest prize of Arabian exploration", the crossing of the Rub' al Khali, was to be achieved. Harry St John Philby had set his heart on being the first and had spent years preparing himself through gruelling camel journeys and careful political negotiations with the Saudis. He was devastated to be pipped at the post by an obscure political officer, Bertram Thomas, who crossed with a party of Bedouin in 1931. Philby took it very badly, as he believed the prize should have been his and his alone. He shut himself away for a week and cursed Thomas roundly.

There is an echo here of Scott's reaction on learning that Amundsen had beaten him to the South Pole. Strangely, both men had sons who, in their own very different ways, were to have much greater influence on world affairs than their distinguished fathers. Kim Philby was, perhaps, the most effective Soviet agent produced by Britain, while Peter Scott could be said to have played the major part in bringing about environmental awareness in this country.

For me, the magic of the Empty Quarter comes from the often lyrical writing which this, one of the harshest places on earth, has inspired. Bertram Thomas, when he first entered the region of Uruq adh Dhaiyah, which he described as "the southern bulwark of the sands of my desire", wrote "dunes of all sizes, unsymmetrical in relation to one another, but with the exquisite roundness of a girl's breasts, rise tier upon tier like a mighty mountain system". "Enjoying serener moments studying the tracks of smaller animals... the straight stride of birds' claws spaced one immediately before the other, a contrast with the earth meanderings of some small quadruped; the neat rosette pattern of a rat leads to a thicket, where you will find its tiny hole, a heap of newly turned red sand at the entrance; the crooked but beautiful intricacies of a lizard like a miniature arabesque lead to a sprig of herbage where it has played maypole and rolled over in joyous repletion; that futuristic riot marks the fallen twigs bowled over and over by whims of the wind".

In the end it is, rightly, with Wilfred Thesiger that the Empty Quarter is most associated. No one has evoked better "the peace that comes from solitude and, among the Bedou, comradeship in a hostile world". "I shall always remember", he wrote in his great book Arabian Sands, "how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and light-hearted gallantry. Among no other people have I felt the same sense of personal inferiority".

Thesiger is also a purist and a realist in a way that it is difficult for those of us from subsequent generations to emulate. So many of his concerns about the dangers of change and "progress", concerns which seemed reactionary when he expressed them, have proved to be well founded. Now we struggle to contain a disintegrating environment. Then he experienced and captured in prose, and through his exquisitely spare photography, a world still pure and functioning according to ancient and well-tested laws. His journeys can never be repeated. "It is not the goal", he writes "but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worthwhile the journey". True, perhaps, and harder to achieve in the modern world without faking. His pronouncement on this is, for me, definitive. "I would not myself have wished to cross the Empty Quarter in a car. Luckily this was impossible when I did my journeys, for to have done the journey on a camel when I could have done it in a car would have turned the venture into a stunt".