No more

“It may be, however, that the reader will one day be hurried by a steam-engine over the route which I was now crossing at the slow pace of a camel; and when that day comes, all the excitement and wonder of a journey in the desert will be over. There will be no more pitching of tents, or sleeping under the starry firmament, surrounded by Arabs and camels; no more carrying provisions, and no danger of dying of thirst; all will be reduced to the systematic tameness of a cotton-factory, and the wild Arab will retire farther into the heart of the desert, shunning, like our native Indians, the faces of strangers, and following forever the footsteps of his wandering ancestors.
Blessed be my fortune, improvement had not yet actually begun its march.”

From Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land
by John Lloyd Stephens, 1837.