Wilfred Thesiger in Africa by Alexander Maitland

Author:Alexander Maitland [Maitland, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-007-32525-2
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2010-03-22T16:00:00+00:00

ATTENBOROUGH: Never had a headache?

THESIGER: No, very rarely.

ATTENBOROUGH: And no ‘belly palaver’?

THESIGER: Well, the odd case of a loose stomach, but that’s all. Never anything more serious than that.

ATTENBOROUGH: Without water?

THESIGER: Well, when I went to a medical symposium they said that, in a temperature over ninety, you must drink a gallon a day, otherwise your stomach will pack up–it’s like trying to run a car without petrol. I did get up and say that we had been reduced for sixteen days–and, on another occasion, for nineteen days–to just one pint of water a day. And somebody said, ‘Well I should be interested to look at your kidneys!’

I was following the Bakhtiari on one occasion, and at lunchtime I had a pee, and I thought, ‘Hello, that looks a bit odd.’ I was peeing blood, and by the evening it was port wine. I was by myself, just with one other man, and I thought it was an impossibility to get out of there. I was reconciled to the fact that I’d had it, but in the morning when I had a pee, it was perfectly clear. I mentioned it to my doctor and he said, ‘Oh, think of it as a nose bleed in the wrong place.’ But at the time I thought that my kidneys had caught up with me and I’d had it.

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