He is known for two travel books: "Arabian Sands" (1959), which recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedu; and "The Marsh Arabs" (1964), which 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, 1957; new edition by Eland in 2003).