modern travel writers excite more hostility and awe than Sir Wilfred Thesiger, who died in 2003. Despising the “drab uniformity of the modern world”, Sir Wilfred slogged across  Africa and Asia, especially Arabia, on animals and on foot, immersing himself in tribal societies. He delighted in killing—lions in Sudan in the years before the second world war, Germans and Italians during it. He disliked “soft” living and “intrusive” women and revered murderous savages, to whom he gave guns. He thought educating the working classes a waste of good servants. He kicked his dog. His journeys were more notable as feats of masochistic endurance than as exploration. Yet his first two books, “Arabian Sands”, about his crossing of the Empty Quarter, and “The Marsh Arabs”, about southern Iraq, have a terse brilliance about them. As records of ancient cultures on the cusp of oblivion, they are unrivalled.

　　现代游记作家鲜有人能比2003年去世的威福瑞 塞西格爵士更令人敬畏。威福瑞爵士厌恶这个“单一乏味的现代世界”，于是或兽力或徒步，长途跋涉，穿越非洲和亚洲，特别是阿拉伯半岛，完全将自己沉浸在了部落社会中。在德国人和意大利人参加的二战前的那段岁月里，他住在苏丹，喜欢捕猎狮子。他讨厌“温和”的生活，憎恶“不安本分”的女人，敬重残暴的原始人并向他们赠送枪支。在他看来，让工人阶级受教育无异于优秀奴仆人才的浪费。他用脚踹自己的狗。他的旅行所以出名，与其说是因为探险历程，莫若说是因为他那种“受虐狂”的表现。不过，他的头两本著作，一本叙述横穿阿拉伯半岛南部沙漠“空白之地”的《阿拉伯沙地》和另一本描写南伊拉克的《沼地阿拉伯人》，简洁明了地记录了他光辉的旅程。相比湮没于历史深处的那些古文化记载，这样的旅程同样无与伦比。