Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World

by Ralph Alger Bagnold

Ralph Bagnold was among a group of eccentric British explorers who in the 1930's explored the deserts of North Africa using Model T Fords. This book describes his journeys into the region known as the Western Desert of Egypt or the Libyan Sahara. He is a central character in the group of explorers who would be later fictionalized in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Libyan Sands is an exploration of the Egyptian western desert and the Libyan Sahara on the eve of the Second World War.

Genres: Travel, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Africa

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, FRS[1] OBE, (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was the founder and first commander of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group during World War II. He is also generally considered to have been a pioneer of desert exploration, an acclaim earned for his activities during the 1930s. These included the first recorded east-west crossing of the Libyan Desert (1932). Bagnold was also a veteran of World War I. He laid the foundations for the research on sand transport by wind in his influential book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes (first published 1941; reprinted by Dover in 2005), which is still a main reference in the field. It has, for instance, been used by NASA in studying sand dunes on Mars.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book covers a number of expeditions into the Sinai Desert, the Egyptian Western Desert and the Libyan Desert over the period 1927 to 1932. Ralph Bagnold was the leader of the group carrying out these expeditions, with a few mainstay companions, and a number who slotted in and out, depending on whether they could obtain leave (mostly from the army) to attend. Initially most were stationed in Cairo at the time.

White the British Army Light Car patrols pioneered vehicle movement in the deserts of Egypt, it was Bagnold's team who pioneered the use of the Ford Model T for these journey. Into what was thought of as camel country, that had previously been limited to tracked vehicles which were slow and still required camels to support with field dumps and stores, the Model T's proved far more capable than the European vehicles used previously. With the various Model T's they custom built the framework of the bodies to contain all their long0range fuel tanks, water containers, spares, tools and equipment as well as stores.

While initially these expeditions were short in duration to suit their leave ability, so perhaps a week long, the later expeditions were much longer and as they increased they took on more scientific meaning. Insects, botany, birds and other aspects formed part of their work, as well as geology, archaeology and the detailed survey and mapping tasks - filling in the blank spaces on maps. While the southern boundaries of Libya were not agreed, they went as far as Chad and Sudan in their 1932 expedition.

As well as covering each of the expeditions in order, the middle chapters provide a detailed history of the Libyan Desert, and in the last chapter Bagnold speculates (scientifically) about Zerzula the fabled and never located lost oasis.

Beyond the scope of this book, Bagnold and his group makes up the origin of the famed Long Range Desert Group, which Bagnold himself was to set up in 1940, such was his expertise in the desert.

Throughout the book Bagnold himself remains self-effacing without any hint of boasting or complaining of hardships, but regularly owns up to decisions which would have been better made. The book is certainly heavy on detail, but for me at least this wasn't overly technical, and therefore not a barrier to my enjoyment. If by chance you are interested in sand and the sciences related to sand, this will be right up your alley...

4.5 stars, rounded up.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bagnold and his mates were an impressive group of explorers, it takes an eccentric/crazy person to travel into the unknown when you know if your vehicle breaks or you run out of supplies then you're doomed, there will be no chance of rescue.  Bagnold and co do this as part hobby and part experiment.... a hobby that involves strapping tanks of petrol onto your vehicle and driving out into immense heat hoping they don't explode.  To undertake something like this you'll need the right people with you, Bagnold has a natural affinity with machines and can repair/modify almost anything, with him is a cook with the ability to find anything packed in the vehicle and to create meals to boost morale and most impressive of all were the navigators.  How do you navigate in a landscape of sand and where a compass doesn't really work?

The early journeys were quite short,  week long adventures going to and from areas they knew, this was to test out the cars.  The trips they were undertaking had not been done by car before, this was camel territory, they had been told many times that cars just couldn't do it.  And in the beginning they were sort of right, the cars were just not quite ready for this,  they needed a few modifications a few of which were quite genius.  Once they had sorted out the cars, figured out how to load them, their mileage and how to accurately navigate they were ready for a proper trip.

This is where the book comes to life, some proper edge of the seat adventuring.  You get a nice balance of history, geography and the politics of the area, all mixed up with digging out the car again and again.  There was never any complaint though, it must have been hell digging out the car in the middle of the day, a scorching sun and it could have been the 20th time digging that day, at one point they were only managing 1 mile a day before getting stuck.  When they stopped for the day at an interesting location they still had the energy to have a bit of fun....well a 24 hour mountain climb in sandals.  There was also time for some real British eccentricity....a mate flying his plane to search for them after they had just started a trip, landing the plane and unloading a full bar for a bit of a party, imagine coming across that in the middle of the desert.

This was an interesting read, very impressed by what these guys achieved and I liked the ending chapters, good to read about what they learnt being put to good use later on, I think even Bagnold himself was shocked with how much respect was shown to his knowledge of sand.  I'd recommend giving this book a read.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...

[Ryan Murdock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ralph Bagnold began to explore the deserts of Egypt (referred to as the Libyan Desert) while stationed in Cairo in the 1920’s and 30’s. It was there that he and a small group of friends first took Model ‘T’ Fords out into the sands—something everyone agreed was impossible given the difficulties of navigating vast dune seas. Over the course of their expeditions they pioneered techniques that are used by desert drivers even today, opening previously unexplored territory and making the first recorded east-west crossing of the Libyan Desert in 1932.

During the Second World War, Bagnold went on to form the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), carrying out small mobile hit and run attacks in the deepest parts of the Sahara, using the skills they’d built on expedition. When the war ended he went into his lab and he wrote The Physics of Blown Sand, which is still the main reference in the field.

But Bagnold wasn’t just a pioneer of desert driving techniques and a scientist. Libyan Sands, the book he wrote about his early driving expeditions, is a beautifully observed book filled with eloquent prose; a true classic of desert travel writing. It’s not easy to find, but it’s worth the effort to track it down.

[Ram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ralph A. Bagnold, is the founder of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group in the Second World War. His 1941 book, The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, established the foundations of the scientific investigation of the transport of sand by wind. Bagnolds work has been used by United States' space agency NASA in its study of the terrain of the planet Mars, the Bagnold Dunes on Mars' surface being named after him by the organization.

The interest in the formation of sand dunes and traversing them in automobiles started in a series of car excursions out of Cairo during the 1930’s. In these (mostly) desert trips, Bangold and a group of Englishmen based in Cairo, explored the surrounding lands , starting in The Sinai Peninsula, Palestine and Jordan in the north east, and finishing with the Libyan desert and sand sea in the west.

This travel book/Journal is the description of these excursions.
We are introduced to the land, the roads (and lack of them) , the cars and the challenges of these trips in an area with very few roads and big impassable dunes and sand seas that require special skills in navigation, driving, planning and executing. As far as I understand, all the trips were done with vehicles that did not have 4 wheel drive (mostly model T Fords). The author describes various techniques they developed for traversing sand patches and dunes and navigation (including the invention of a sun compass).

I found the whole book fascinating. I was more familiar with the places in Palestine, Jordan and Sinai, places I have hiked in . For the Western trips , I had to follow the maps.

While this book is not a page turner, has some boring and repetative descriptions and does not describe dramatic events, it is still an authentic chronicle of a true desert explorer, adventurer and pioneer and for that gained my attention.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you buy a book on the strength of the cover? As a child the book cover that caught and held my attention was of a canoe, with six men in it, sailing down a jungle river. Longer than the canoe, a giant snake rose up out of the water, towering over the tiny canoe, where one man was caught by the artist, in the act of taking a seemingly futile pot-shot with his rifle at the anaconda python. The book was titled “Exploration Fawcett” by Colonel P.H.Fawcett. The book, published in 1953, was passed to me by my grandfather and inside there was a cutting from the Daily Telegraph from 21st February 1966 reporting “Site of Last Col. Fawcett Camp Known.” It was the first book of its genre that I read and I read it avidly.
More recently Nick Hammond, free-lance writer upon luxury, hotels, travel and food gave me a copy of “The Worst Journey in the World” by Apsley Cherry-Gerrard. This first-hand account, originally published in 1922, of Captain Scott’s ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole is, as Condé Nast Traveller says, “A masterpiece”. I love reading such books and no sooner had I finished Cherry-Gerrard’s work, was I embarked upon “Libyan Sands” by R.A.Bagnold, suitably subtitled “Travel in a Dead World”. This was first published in 1935 and has been recently re-published by Eland, whose selection of re-prints I think is terrific. The book has a quite brilliant and evocative cover and I would have bought the book on the strength of its cover alone. However, my partner bought it for me and she couldn't have chosen better. If you have an interest in Lawrence of Arabia, of the Long Range Desert Force, of Almasy (aka the English patient) and of real adventure in a bygone era, then this book is for you. That said, it can get a little heavy going at times because it is a product of its day and holds no concessions to the impatience of some of the modern day's readers. That aside, I found it an engrossing read and heartily recommend it.

[Iain Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this book so interesting is not just the knowledge that Bagnold gleaned from his desert explorations pre WW2, but the use he put that knowledge to in founding the Long Range Desert Group, without whom the SAS would probably never have succeeded in their early days. David Stirling, the founder of the SAS, wrote that the "LRDG were the true masters of the desert," and the single individual who contributed most to that mastery was Bagnold.

But the book itself is beautifully written, full of insights not just into the desert, but into the history of the region, and its cultures.

A truly fascinating book for those who love exploration, or the desert, or just tales of men who, In TE Lawrence's words, turn dreams into reality.

[Martin Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I generally enjoy travelogues but I eventually, reluctantly, abandoned this book on page 115. I found I was reading words but not taking any of it in. There are only so many times you can read repeated descriptions of sand dunes and it was written in quite a technical way that if you didn't know the area it was hard to picture. It was very different to one of my favourite travel writers, Norman Lewis, who draws you in with deep, vivid description. Bagnold, I found, wasn't a naturally gifted writer. He was a fantastic and fearless explorer, no doubt, but a rather one-dimensional 'explainer' of experience. I also found there was very little helpful geographical context. Of course, I accept that at the time it was written expectations of the reader would have been very different. But it felt like a chap writing to some old Army pals who would have known the area and I found myself drifting further and further out of it.

Having read other reviews I am sure many will find it fascinating. But, it just wasn't to be for me.

[Anthony Lesurf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ralph Alger Bagnold is a legend. An old-school British adventurer. Best known for his wartime exploits with the Long-Range Desert Group (LRDG), which he formed during the early days of the North African campaign in the Second World War; for his amateur research into the ‘Physics of Blown Sand and Sand Dunes’; and for his work with NASA and the sands of Mars – the Bagnold Dunes of Mars are named after him.
Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World, tells the origin story of his desert adventures in his own typically understated words.
Bagnold tells of how, as an officer in the Royal signals, he was posted to Egypt in 1925, where he, and a small group of like-minded colleagues, soon began to explore the well-trodden (by the military and Bedu nomads) desert paths to the east of Cairo in their Ford Model T motorcars. This was really only a hobby, a pastime, basically, dune bashing before dune bashing was a thing, that Bagnold and his friends chose to do in their own time, often taking leave and spending weeks in the deserts of Sinai, Palestine, and Trans-Jordan. But they, and Bagnold in particular, quickly became enamoured of the emptiness of the desert and began to look West towards the largely unexplored ‘Great Sand Sea’ of the Libyan Desert.
On these western adventures, these men were pioneers heading into uncharted territory where they were to all intents and purposes on their own and self-sufficient. They found and recorded new routes through the deserts: perfecting desert logistics and mechanics, refining driving and navigating techniques, and designing and building new technology (the sun compass and sand mats and various other things that we take for granted when driving in the desert today). Bagnold would also take specialists along for the ride - archaeologists, botanists, entomologists - and their adventures soon became more scientific missions than jollies into the desert. Bagnold himself soon became an expert in the desert and the movement of its sand and its sand dunes.
Eventually, Bagnold’s overseas postings came to an end and that seemed to be the end of his explorations. But of course, the war changed all that. But that is another story.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhere between 2.5 and 3 stars so rounding up here. Bagnold, while an incredibly gifted explorer and engineer, is not the most gifted writer. Early chapters are especially rough going “We went here, then here, and then here” without much narrative to draw you in. Stereotypically British, Bagnold admits early on that without a major disaster across his many travels it hardly makes the writing riveting which drew a laugh for me. It was disappointing to see the potentially interesting WW2 work relegated to a short ending chapter. Overall, regardless of the dry narrative, have to admire the bravery here in uncharted territory.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first learned (failed to entirely grasp, would be more accurate) his equation in a fluvial geomorphology class, then I read his book... Bagnold is no ordinary geomorphologist, to understate, as the author himself might have put it. One of the best stories coming out of (pre-) Second World War, along with, of course, Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slog, for all the best reasons. Here I sit with my (professional landscaper) son, having animated discussions about the pros & cons of the many types of...sand.
We're enroute to a client's property, which is located in one of those areas where people make sizable investments in their landscaping ("i want a beach right ...there.") Yep, a beach without water.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed accounts of expeditions into the deep Sahara in the 1920s and 1930s. A little too much detail for me, but still recommended to armchair travelers, especially those with an interest in the desert and/or North Africa.

[Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

The parts where he talks about the specific innovations, modifications, techniques, etc they used to traverse the desert are very interesting. The parts where he discussed the specific geography were generally not engaging. Unfortunately there was more of the latter than the former overall.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

He was an amazing man. If you're interested in exploring or history you'll enjoy this book.

[David Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an all-time classic.

[John Zada · Rating 5 out of 5]

An overlooked gem in the annals of exploration.

[Mahmoud]

Love it, probably nothing describes the outstanding inventions and discoveries made on the automobiles to venture through the Sahara
A must...

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful read for anyone interested in adventure travel

[scarlettraces]

Equal parts boring (mechanics is not my thing) and fascinating.

[Janita Rodenburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

First travel journal I’ve ever read and definitely a big recommendation!

[Patrick Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone reading the book - 50 minutes of Bagnold's silent film footage of the desert expeditions is available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1HHM...)

[William Hood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for the desert rat. The events took place in the Libyan desert between the world wars. Though Ralph Bagnold was a serving British Army officer at the time, his were not military expeditions. By and large the expeditions were self funded by the participants and were meant for fun, adventure and just to see how far they could go. Later they became serious explorers. Some years later the lessons learned would pay off many times over as Bagnold formed and was the first commander of the Long Range Desert Group, which did great service in halting the Italian advance into Egypt.
The details of exploration in model A Fords, techniques of navigation and specialized desert travel in the sparse conditions are fascinating.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read especially the more reflective bits about deserts, dunes and history. The book evokes images of ancient caravan routes littered with centuries of skeletons of camels and thoughts of cruel suffering inflicted on the slaves driven along them, the stone age tools found in barren desert which once must have sustained life, the surprising frequency of water and oases, and the pioneering journeys in cars where until recently only camels could reach. Reproducing, almost living sand dunes - (two types that never mix), remote isolated communities of just a few people completed unphased by strangers turning up in motor vehicles.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely fantastic read, all the more so considering the later scientific and military roles that Bagnold would take on. Highly recommended.