Wilfred Thesiger Major Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger , , also known as Mubarak bin London ( Arabic for " " the blessed one from London " " ) ( 3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003 ) was a British explorer and travel writer . Early life . Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia , the son of diplomat Wilfred Gilbert Thesiger and grandson of Lord Chelmsford . His uncle was Viscount Chelmsford , future Viceroy of India and the actor Ernest Thesiger was a cousin . Thesiger was educated at Eton College , Berkshire , followed by Magdalen College at the University of Oxford , where he took a Third in History . Between 1930 and 1933 , Thesiger represented Oxford at boxing and later ( in 1933 ) became captain of the Oxford boxing team . He was awarded a boxing Blue for each of the four years that he was at Oxford . Career . In 1930 , Thesiger returned to Africa , having received a personal invitation by Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation . He returned again in 1933 in an expedition , funded in part by the Royal Geographical Society , to explore the course of the Awash River . During this expedition , he became the first European to enter the Aussa Sultanate and visit Lake Abbe . Between 1935 and 1940 , Thesiger served with the Sudan Political Service stationed in Darfur and the Upper Nile . Second World War . At the outbreak of war , Thesiger joined the Sudan Defence Force , helping to organise the Abyssianian resistance to the occupying Italians . He was awarded the DSO for capturing Agibar and its garrison of 2 , 500 Italian soldiers . He later served with the Special Operations Executive in Syria and the Special Air Service during the North African Campaign , attaining the rank of Major . From 1943 to 1945 he acted as political adviser to the Abyssinian Crown Prince . Travels . In 1945 , Thesiger worked in Arabia with the Desert Locusts Research Organisation . Meanwhile , from 1945 to 1949 , he explored the southern regions of the Arabian peninsula and twice crossed the Empty Quarter . His travels later also took him to Iraq , Iran , Kurdistan , French West Africa and Pakistan . He would live for many years in northern Kenya . He returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995 . Thesiger is best known for two travel books : " Arabian Sands " ( 1959 ) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins . " The Marsh Arabs " ( 1964 ) is an account of the Madan , the indigenous people of the marshlands of southern Iraq . The latter journey is also covered by his travelling companion , Gavin Maxwell , in " A Reed Shaken by the Wind – a Journey through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq " ( Longman , 1959 ) . Thesiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 23 , 000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum , Oxford . His books were analysed , from a collector ' s point of view , in " Book and Magazine Collector " magazine , No . 65 , August 1989 , and again in 2008 , Issue No . 295 . In popular culture . In Gavin Maxwell ' s " Ring of Bright Water " , Bill Travers uses a copy of Thesiger ' s " The Marsh Arabs " to covertly spy on his soon to be close companion , Mij the otter . External links . Photographs by Thesiger Obituaries and Profiles ( mostly August 2003 )