Letters From Baghdad Read online

  I went to bed and knew no more till 6 this morning, when I had five cups of tea and read all your letters and then went to sleep again until ten. I'm really not tired but my shoulders and neck and arms feel rather sore and stiff and my knees are awfully bruised.

  [After the Meije there is one more letter, too long to insert here, from La Grave, in which she relates her successful ascent of the Ecrins. She comes back to England in the middle of September, well pleased, as shown by her letters, with her progress in climbing.]

  CHAPTER V

  1899-1900 - JERUSALEM: FIRST DESERT JOURNEYS

  [In November 1899 she starts for Jerusalem, with many hopes and plans, including learning more Arabic. Dr. Fritz Rosen was then German Consul at Jerusalem. He had married Nina Roche, whom we had known since she was a child, the daughter of Mr. Roche of the Garden House, Cadogan Place. Charlotte Roche was Nina's sister. They made everything easy for Gertrude.

  On the way she writes a long letter from Smyrna, where everyone was most kind and hospitable. She describes the "Mediterranean race " to which the inhabitants of Smyrna belong].

  It speaks no language though it will chatter with you in Half a dozen, it has no native land though it is related by marriage to all Europe, and with the citizens of each country it will talk to its compatriots and itself as " we "; it centres round no capital and is loyal to no government though it obeys many. Cheerful, careless, contented, hospitable to a fault, it may well be all, for it is divested of all natural responsibilities, it has little to guard and little to offer but a most liberal share in its own inconceivably hugger mugger existence. Kindness is its distinctive quality, as far-as I have sampled it, and I hope I may have many opportunities of sampling it further.

  [From Beyrout she writes]

  We settled that when I come riding down from Damascus in the spring... .

  [The last part of the voyage is made on a Russian boat]

  all the stewards speak Russian and we communicate by signs, my fellow passengers are an American Catholic Priest and a Russian engineer and 400 Russian peasants who are making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

  To F.B.

  S.S. RUSSIA, Sunday 10th Dec., 1899.

  The pilgrims are camped out all over the deck. They bring their own bedding and their own food and their passage from Odessa costs them some 12 roubles. They undergo incredible hardships: one woman walked from Tobolsk, she started in March.

  To H.B.

  HOTEL JERUSALEM, 13th December, 1899.

  Here I am most comfortably installed. I am two minutes' walk from the German Consulate. My apartment consists of a very nice bedroom and a big sitting room, both opening on to a small vestibule which in its turn leads out on to the verandah which runs all along the first story of the hotel courtyard with a little garden in it. I pay 7 francs a day including breakfast, which is not excessive. My housemaid is an obliging gentleman in a fez who brings me my hot bath in the morning and is ready at all times to fly round in my service. I spent the morning unpacking and turning out the bed and things out of my sitting room; it is now most cosy-two armchairs, a big writing table, a square table for my books, an enormous Kiefert map of Palestine lent me by Uncle Tom and photographs of my family on the walls. The floor is of tiles but they have laid down a piece of carpet on it. There is a little stove in one corner and the wood fire in it is most acceptable. I propose buying a horse! for which I shall pay about 18 pounds and sell him at the end for no less, I hope. The keep is very little, Dr. Rosen says, and you see the alternative would be to use theirs. Now they have only 3 for their 3 selves and I already have all my meals except breakfast with them, so don't think I can infringe further on their hospitality.

  We got in soon after 8, and the kind Rosens came on board with a kavass and carried me off to a very nice hotel where we breakfasted. The garden was full of parrots and monkeys which breakfasted also when I had finished. It was a delicious sunny day. We drove round about Jaffa, caught the only train at 1:20 to Jerusalem. It was 5 before we arrived, Charlotte met us. The Consulate is small but very comfy, all the rooms open on to a long central living room which is full of beautiful Persian things. The two boys were much excited by my arrival and greeted me with enthusiasm. They are perfect dears, these people. I feel as if I should love them very much indeed. And so charming about all arrangements, hospitality and kindness itself.

  To-day Dr. R. and I went for a long walk, I left a card and a letter of introduction on Mrs. Dickson at the English consulate. One's first impression of Jerusalem is extremely interesting, but certainly not pleasing. The walls are splendid (Saracenic on Jewish foundations), but all the holy places are terribly marred by being built over with hideous churches of all the different sects.

  [Gertrude's interest in the holy places was that of the archaeologist only and not that of the believer.

  There is no space to insert in extenso her long and interesting letters from Jerusalem, where she was entirely happy learning Arabic, exploring her surroundings, and being admitted into the delightful intimacy of the Rosens. But some extracts from the letters are given here.]

  To F.B.

  This morning I went out with Charlotte and the children (I have not Yet got my teacher). The two boys rode on a donkey and looked angels. They are delicious children. I saw a charming little horse, a bay, very well bred with lovely movements rather showy, but light and strong and delightful in every way We have embarked on negotiations for him which promise to take some time as they now ask 40 pounds and my price is 18 to 20! He comes of a well-known stock so that I should run no risk of losing on him when I sell him. Charlotte, Dr. R'. and I rode this afternoon, I on a pony belonging to the hotel keeper, very bad, much too small and slow, he wouldn't do at all. My saddle had to be wrapped round him!

  This morning I had my first lesson. My teacher's name is Khalil Dughan and he is exactly what I want. I learnt more about pronunciation this morning than I have ever known.

  In the afternoon, Nina, Dr. R. and I rode out.

  To F.B.

  December 13th, 1899

  My days are extremely full and most agreeable. I either have a lesson or work alone every morning for 4 hours-the lesson only lasts one and a half hours. I have 3 morning and 3 afternoon lessons a week. I am just beginning to understand a little of what I hear and to say simple things to the servants, but I find it awfully difficult. The pronunciation is past words, no western throat being constructed to form these extraordinary gutturals. Still it's really interesting. We lunch at 12:30 and go out about 2, generally riding till 5. Then I come home to my work till 7 when I dress and go in to dinner. I aim at being back by 10 to get another hour's work but this doesn't always happen, especially now when Nina is very busy preparing a Xmas tree and we spend our evenings tying up presents and gilding walnuts, Dr. R. reading to us, the while, all his travel letters from Persia — extremely interesting.

  My horse is much admired. My teacher, also, is a success. He has the most charming fund of beautiful oriental stories and I make him tell them to me by the hour as I want to get used to the sound of words. He is a Christian and his family claims to have been Crusaders.

  He has given me a lecture of his, written out in English on the customs of the Arabs. It begins "The Arabs are the oldest race on earth; they date from the Flood!!" Comes my housemaid, "The hot water is ready for the Presence," says he. "Enter and light the candle," say I. "On my head," he has replied — it sounds ambiguous in English! That means it's dressing time.

  To her sister Elsa.

  JERUSALEM, December 20th, 1899.

  The days fly here so that I scarcely know how to catch at them for a moment's time to write to you. It is now 11 p.m. and I must go to bed quickly so as to be up early and prepare my lesson before my Arab comes. (I may say in passing that I don't think I shall ever talk Arabic, but I go on struggling with it in the hope of mortifying Providence by my persistence. I now stammer a few words to my housemaid — him of the fez — and he is much delighted.) With
Charlotte, who is a most spirited companion, I explored a great part of the inner town. We are quite the family party and I love them all. The boys are angels. Now to bed.

  The first night of rain I was awakened by a rushing sound of water and found that it was falling in sheets on to my pillow! I took up my bed and walked and spent the rest of the night in peace.

  To F.B.

  JERUSALEM, Thursday, Dec. 28, 1899.

  It has rained quite persistently for 5 days. You may imagine how I say 'Heil dir, Sonne!' this morning when I woke and saw the sun. Yesterday the Rosens had a Xmas tree for all the German children. It was most successful and the children were dears. I am beginning to feel very desperate about Arabic and I am now going to try a new plan. A Syrian girl is to come and spend an hour with me 3 Or 4 times a week and talk to me. I shall take her out walks sometimes, if she is satisfactory, and converse with her. It is an awful language.

  To F.B.

  JERUSALEM, Jan. 1st, 1900.

  Will You order Heath to send me out a wide gray felt sun hat (not double, but it must be a regular Terai shape and broad brimmed) to ride in, and to put a black velvet ribbon round it With Straight bows. My Syrian girl is charming and talks very Prettily but with a strong local accent. It adds enormously to one's difficulties that one has to learn a patois and a purer Arabic at the same time. I took her out for a long walk on Friday afternoon and went photographing about Jerusalem. She was much entertained, though she was no good as a guide, for she had never been in the Jewish quarter though she has lived all her life here! That's typical of them. I knew my way, however, as every Englishwoman would-it's as simple as possible.

  She came with us on the following day on a most delightful expedition. We started at 9 in the morning-it was Sunday and therefore a legitimate holiday-and rode down the Valley of Hinnon and all along the brook Kedron (which is dry at this season) through a deep valley full of immensely old olive trees and rock tombs scarcely older. Then up a long hill and down on the other side into a shallow naked valley, where there were many encampments of the black Bedouin tents, and so into an extraordinary gorge called the Valley of Fire. The rock lies in natural terraces and is full of caves; the Brook Kedron (it had rejoined us in a roundabout way) has cut the steepest, deepest cleft for its bed and on either side rise these horizontal layers of stone. They have been a regular city of anchorites, each living in his cave and drawing his ladder up behind him when he went in. Half a mile or so further on lies the citadel of this cave town, the Monastery of Mar Saba, itself half cave and half building, its long walls and towers creeping up the steep rock, the dome of its chapel jutting out from it, and the irregular galleries and rows of cells hanging out over a precipice. The rock itself is full of little square windows and these are the cave cells and probably about as old as St. Saba who lived in the 6th century.

  To F.B.

  JERUSALEM, Jan. 5th, 1900.

  What a terrible time it is. I feel such a beast to be writing to you about my pleasant doings in the midst of all this, still I can do no good to you all by being very anxious. On Wednesday we rode down to the Dead Sea, over a long stretch of country on which grew thorny plants, then through a curious belt of hard mud heaps, then along the Jordan valley and finally across a bit of absolute desert, white with salt and plantless. It was a glorious day, bright and hot.

  To Her Sister.

  JERUSALIM, Jan. 11th, 1900.

  MY DEAREST ELSA,

  It is sad about Berlin and all your beautiful clothes. I was thrilled by your account of your coat-it sounds too beautiful. But dear, dear! that you should not be going to shine in it in imperial circles! I am extremely happy and much amused, and I am very busy with Arabic. Whenever I can I get Ferideh to come and spend the afternoon with me, but as she teaches in a school, I can usually only get her on a Saturday. She comes to tea with me, however, two other days a week and we converse for an hour. I often go walking alone of an afternoon and explore the surrounding country And nearly always find some exciting flower among the rocks. The earliest flower place is the Valley of Hinnon. I went there yesterday afternoon for starch hyacinths and cyclamen and had a tremendous scramble. As I came back along the Road I met an Arab who greeted me affably and told me he had seen me climbing on the rocks. So we walked home together We had a long talk — my conversations are limited to rather simple subjects. The first thing they always say is, "We have heard that there is a great deal of water in your country." then I expatiate on the greenness of it and the distance and the cold and so forth. It's awful fun.

  To H.B.

  JERUSALEM, Jan. 11th, 1900.

  I am just beginning to feel my feet after a fearful struggle. The first fortnight was perfectly desperate — I thought I should never be able to put two words together. Added to the fact that the language is very difficult there are at least three sounds almost impossible to the European throat. The worst I think is a very much aspirated H. I can only say it by holding down my tongue with one finger, but then you Can't carry on a conversation with your finger down your throat can you? My little girl Ferideh Yamseh is a great success. She talks the dialect, but that is all the better as I want to understand the people of hereabouts. I went to visit her and her family after dinner yesterday — they are quite close. It was most amusing. I found the mother a pretty charming woman who has had ten children and looks ridiculously young (they marry at 13). Two sisters and presently a brother came in. The mother talks nothing but Arabic so the visit was conducted in that language with great success Ferideh interpreting from time to time. I was regaled on cocoa, a very sweet Arab pastry and pistachios which I love and shown all the photographs of all their relations down to the last cousin twice removed... .

  My Sheikh has just told me that Ladysmith is relieved I do hope it is true and that this is the beginning of good news. I am sending you a little packet of seeds. They are more interesting for associations sake than for the beauty of the plant — it is the famous and fabulous mandrake. By the way the root of the mandrake grow to a length of 2 yards, so I should think somebody shrieks when it is dug up-if not the mandrake, then the digger.

  I took Ferideh for a drive and a walk yesterday and talked Arabic extremely badly and felt desponding about it. However there is nothing to be done but to struggle on with it. I should like to mention that there are five words for a wall and 36 ways of forming the plural. And the rest is like unto it.

  To H.B.

  JERUSALEM, Jan. 11th-14th, 1900.

  Sunday 14. This goes to-morrow. It ought to reach you in a week as it goes by a good post via Egypt. The posts are arranged thus: Sunday and Monday outgoing posts and the rest of the week nothing. Dr. R. Nina and I rode this afternoon, heavenly weather. We went an exploring expedition through a lovely valley under a place called Malba. The path of course awful. In one place we had to get off, pull down a wall and lead our horses over it. There are no decent paths at all, only the hard high road. I so often wish for you — always when I'm making a nice expedition. Next spring let us come here together. Anyhow let us have a nice travel together soon.

  To F. B.

  JERICHO, January 17th, 1900.

  I rode down here yesterday afternoon with Isa, one of the kavasses. We started at 1:30 and got here at 5, which was pretty good going. It was a most pleasant day for riding, cool and not sunny, today is brilliantly sunny, I came down the last hill in company with a band of Turkish soldiers, ragged, footsore, weary, poor dears ! but cheerful. We held a long conversation. The Russian Pilgrim House we visited last night and found it packed with pilgrims as tight as herrings sleeping in rows on the floor. Even the courtyard was quite full of them and on a tree an eikon round which a crowd of them were praying, Charlotte and I rode off with Isa about 11 and went down to the Jordan, taking our lunch with us. There ,*we found an enormous crowd assembled. Bedouin and fellaheen, kavasses in embroidered clothes. Turkish soldiers, Greek priests and Russian peasants, some in furs and top boots and some in their white shrouds, which we
re to serve as bathing dresses in the holy stream and then to be carried home and treasured up till their owner's death. We lunched and wandered about for some time, I photographing some of these strange groups — long-haired Russian priests in their shrouds standing praying in the hot sun by the river bank, among the tamarisk bushes and the reeds, every one, men and women, had chains of beads and crucifixes hung round their necks. The sun was very hot and we waited and waited while those who were going to be baptised signed their names and paid a small fee. We found ourselves ensconced on willow boughs just opposite to the place where the priests were coming down to bless the water. We waited for about half an hour, then the crowd opened and a long procession of priests came to the water's edge with lighted candles. The shrouded people clambered down the mud banks and stood waist deep In the stream until the moment when the priest laid the cross three times upon the water, then suddenly, with a great firing off of guns, everyone proceeded to baptise himself by dipping and rolling over in the water. It was the strangest sight. Some of them had hired monks at a small fee to baptise them and they certainly got their money's worth of baptism, for the monks took an infinite pleasure in throwing them over backwards into the muddy stream and holding them under until they were quite saturated. We then rowed back, returned to our horses and got back about 5.