Arabia Felix

It is often assumed Wilfred Thesiger was the first non-Arab to cross the Rub Al Khali desert, despite doing so over a decade after Thomas and relying on the very Bedouin who Thomas used to guide him for the crossing.

This edition has been completely retyped, images from the original books were scanned to improve print quality, and place-specific modern photographs included for context. Punctuation and spellings, though occasionally at odds with current usage and often inconsistent within the book have generally been kept as in the Bertram Thomas text.

The expedition described in Arabia Felix is the culmination of several years of anticipation, and planning from 1926 by Bertram Thomas to achieve the first crossing by a non-Arab of the Rub Al Khali, the Empty Quarter desert. It might not be far-fetched in thinking that his taking employment in Oman was to be the means to that end.