Arabian Sands

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Written by Antonin Kennel June 09, 2009

In February of this year I traveled to Morocco to go for a short trek in the desert south. Over a few days' walk, accompanied by camels and a local guide, I took photos at midday as well as during the early morning and dusk. The atmosphere, and colors, are charged, and they change fast. The landscapes I saw, and the feelings they gave me, reminded me of a book called "Arabian Sands" by Wilfred E. Thesiger. I chose here a few extracts from his book to accompany my photographs. Only in the desert, they declared, could a man find freedom. (Talking about the Bedus)

These quaid are known individually to the Bedu, for each dune has its own shape, which does not change perceptibly with the years; but all of them have certain features in common. Here in every case it was the northern face which was steep. On this side the sand fell away from beneath the summit in an unbroken wall, set as steep an angle as the grains of sand would lie. Down this face small avalanches constantly subsided, each fall leaving a temporary, light-colored smear upon the surface of the sand. On either side of this face sharp crested ridges swept down in undulating curves, and behind them were other alternating ridges and troughs, smaller and more involved as they became farther from the main face. The sand on the lower slopes at the back of the dune was firm, and rose and fell in broad sinuous trenches, or was dimpled with shallow hollows.

The surface of the sand was marked with diminutive ripples, of which the ridges were built from the heavier and darker grains, while the hollows were filled with the smaller paler-colored stuff. Continuously the wind shifted the sand, separating the heavier from the lighter grains, which are always of different color. Only once did I notice sands where the large where paler than the small. Although they are the last numerous it is the large grains which give the prevailing hue to the landscape.

Disturb the surface of the sand and the underlying paleness is immediately revealed. It is the blending of two colors which gives such depth and richness to the Sands: gold with silver, orange with cream, brick-red with white, burnt-brown with pink, yellow with gray - they have an infinite variety of shades and colors.

At first we crossed a gravel plain, sprinkled with sand of a reddish tint, and broken up by small limestone tables among which we saw many gazelle, all very wild. Gradually, as we went farther, the sand increased until it entirely overlaid the limestone floor. (…) We were now riding northward along valleys half a mile wide enclosed by dunes of a uniform height of about two hundred feet. A curious feature of these valleys was that they were blocked at intervals of about two miles by gradual rises of hard sand. The sand in the bottoms was rusty red, whereas the dunes on the either side were honey-colored - both colors becoming paler as we traveled farther north. In the evening, having climbed up to camp among the dunes, we looked across waves of sand and small crescent hollows dotted with abal bushes.

But it was not only this personal sorrow that distressed me. I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and traveled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and lighthearted gallantry.