First crossing of the Empty Quarter

Wilfred Thesiger · 1946 CE – 1947 CE · Earth

First crossing of the Empty Quarter — Wilfred Thesiger · 1946 CE – 1947 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Cross the western sands of the Rub‘ al Khali from Dhofar to the Trucial Coast with Bedouin companions and on their terms.

Historical context

Bertram Thomas and St John Philby had each crossed a corner of the Rub‘ al Khali in the 1930s, but the western sands between Dhofar and the Trucial Coast were still blank, and the tribal wars of the region made them more dangerous than the dunes. A locust survey gave Thesiger his excuse and his salary; the Bedouin gave him everything else. He went on their food, at their pace and under their protection, and he understood from the first that the oil concessions already being signed behind him would make the journey impossible to repeat and pointless to attempt.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Salalah, October 1946

    October 1946

    Thesiger leaves the monsoon coast of Dhofar for the sands, paid to hunt locusts.

  2. Over the Qara mountains

    1946 CE

    Beyond the escarpment the grass stops and the gravel steppe begins.

  3. The wells of Mughshin

    1946 CE

    At the edge of the sands most of the party refuses to go on, and four men agree.

  4. The Uruq al Shaiba

    1946 CE

    Ranges of soft dunes 150 metres high stand across the line of march.

  5. Water at Khaba

    1946 CE

    A brackish well in a hollow of the Dhafara sands ends the worst of the crossing.

  6. Liwa, December 1946

    December 1946

    A crescent of palm gardens in the dunes, the first cultivation in four hundred kilometres.

  7. Abu Dhabi

    1946 CE

    A fort, a few hundred palm-frond houses and a pearling fleet on a sand island.

  8. Buraimi and the road home

    23 February 1947

    The party turns south through inner Oman and reaches Salalah on 23 February 1947.

Outcome

Reached Liwa and Abu Dhabi in December 1946 and returned to Salalah on 23 February 1947, the first European crossing of the western Empty Quarter.

Wilfred Thesiger

British traveller who crossed the Empty Quarter twice on camel with Rashid and Bait Kathir Bedouin, and wrote its elegy in Arabian Sands.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

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