Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  Wednesday, 23rd. We were off at 5, just as the sun rose. As I rode over the hill, Palmyra looked like a beautiful ghost in the pale stormy light. I am returning by the ordinary tourist route, The old high road across the desert. Last night there arrived from the East a big caravan of camels belonging to the Agail Arabs, who are going to sell them in Damascus. The chief man of them is one Sheikh Muhammad. I had met him yesterday in Palmyra, and he told me that 'Please God, who is great,' he meant to travel with me. He comes from Nejd, and talks the beautiful Nejd Arabic; there are one or two Bagdadis with him, and the rest of the party are the wildest, unkemptest Agail camel drivers. The interesting part of it is that the Agail are some of the Rashid's people, and I'm going to lay plans with Sheikh Muhammad as to getting into Nejd next year. I found them breakfasting on dates,-camels' milk and the bitter black coffee of the Arabs — a peerless drink. I also made a supplementary breakfast with them and then we all started off together. The reason Sheikh Muhammad wants to travel with me is that he is anxious to have the extra protection of my three soldiers — he has two of his own — fearing a raid of Arabs on his camels on the way to Karyatein. I think it's great sport; I'm not sorry to be able to do a good turn to an Agail, and he and his Bagdadis are very interesting to talk to, with their dragoman on the box and their mules following behind the crowds of tents. We had a very agreeable chat and they gave me some gingerbread biscuits, for which I blessed them and we made plans for meeting in Damascus. I wouldn't really have changed places with them, and I prefer a Sheikh from Nejd to a dragoman from Jerusalem as a travelling companion. We got to our camping place, Ain el Baida, about 11:30 — -It's a short march, but there's no water beyond. It was again blazing hot. I was glad to get under the shadow of my tent and to lunch and sleep. Since then I've been watching the troops of camels come slowly in, their masters carrying a club or an enormous lance 12 feet long, and all the process of drawing water from the deep well and emptying it into basins hastily scooped out in the ground for the camels to drink. The Agail have pitched a black tent not far from me, and stuck a lance into the ground beside it, and they are now making bread for their supper.

  Thursday, 24th. I wish I could manage to travel on the approved lines, but the fates are against me. I had laid all my plans for coming back from Palmyra like a lady, but no! it was not to be. We got off rather late this morning5:30, it was before I left Ain El Baida, and then the mules were not ready. I started without them — a fatal step, as you will see. The Agail were off half an hour before, the good Sheikh Muhammad having put two water skins for me on his camel. Ahmed, my guide, put another two on his camel and I told the muleteers to bring the other four, so that we should have enough water for our beasts and could sleep comfortably in the desert. There is no water between Ain el Baida and Karyatein, three hours on. I caught up the Agail who had stopped to breakfast and were making coffee and baking bread — they eat nothing in the morning before they start. We stopped, too, and had some coffee and dates and my soldiers ate bread new baked — very good, I tasted it — and drank camels' milk. They eat surprisingly little, these Arabs, when they are travelling. Nothing but bread and dates and milk and coffee, and little enough of that. Often the bread runs short, and only dates and milk remain. It was a wild looking party that was gathered round the coffee pot. There's lots of negro blood in them, owing, I think, to their having negro slaves, one of whom was with them. They intermarry a great deal with these slaves and the son of a slave woman is as good as another. Sheikh Muhammad went to and fro, superintending the cooking and bringing food for us all. I had intended to go on another two hours and camp, leaving a short day's march into Karyatein next morning, but at Kast el Khair we found that the two water skins on Sheikh Muhammad's camel had leaked and were quite empty, and Hanna told me that Yacoub, the muleteer, had refused, after I left, to carry his two skins and had poured the water out on the ground. So here we were with two skins and a couple of leather bottles for ten animals and seven people. There was nothing to be done but to make a dash for Karyatein, The Agail were rather distressed at this, being still terrified for their camels, but what was I to do. They had no water, camels needing none and after I had watered my beasts at Kars el Khair, I had none — I couldn't keep my camp 24 hours waterless. we were only seven hours from Karyatein., and we had done barely seven that morning, in fact our horses were so brisk that Ali, Muhammad the soldier, Ahmed the guide and I got into Karyatein in five hours-but we rode for it! I came in the last hour or two on Ahmed's camel — it's the greatest relief after you have been riding a horse for 8 or 9 hours to feel the long comfy swing and the wide soft saddle of a camel beneath you. We got in at 6 and went to the house of one Abdullah the priest. He took us into a big vineyard of his and brought me a carpet and some cushions to lie on, and bread and dibbis to eat. Hanna and my third soldier, Musa, arrived at seven, but my mules didn't get in till 9:30, having done a 16 hours' day. I rolled myself up in a rug and my carpet and made a pretence of going to sleep under the stars, but it was pretty cold and the attempt wasn't very successful. I was glad to get into my tent again and to bed about 11, feeling as if I had had enough of travelling for one day.

  Friday. I found my camp pitched in Mahin near the water, and hundreds of camels drinking near it. A big company of the Hasineh Arabs had just arrived, moving from their winter quarters and their black tents were pitched not far from me. Their Sheikh, Muhammad, came to call on me, a boy of 20 or younger, handsome, rather thick lipped, solemn, his hair hanging in thick plaits from under his kefflyeh. He carried an enormous sword, the sheath inlaid with silver. After he had gone, his sister and some other women appeared in all the trailing dirt of their dark blue cotton robes. Sheikh Muhammad is a great swell. He owns 500 tents and a house in Damascus, and Heaven knows how many horses and camels. After tea, I returned his call and sat on carpets and cushions in the big Sheikh's tent, the Hasineh making a circle round me while I drank coffee. The Sheikh's mother also appeared and was treated with great honour, Muhammad getting up and giving her his place on the carpet and his camel saddle to lean on. After a bit, one of the black browed, white robed Arabs took a rubaba, a single stringed instrument played with a bow, and sang to it long melancholy songs, monotonous, each line of the verse being set to the same time and ending with a drop of the voice which was almost a groan. The murmur of the rubaba ran through it all — weird and sad and beautiful in its way. All the silent people sat round looking at me, unkempt, half-naked, their keffiyehs drawn up over their faces, nothing alive in them but their eyes, and across the smouldering fire of camels' dung, the singer bent his head over the rubaba or looked up at me as he sent the wailing line of his song out into the dark. Sometimes one would come in to the open tent (the front is never closed) and standing on the edge of the circle, he greeted the Sheikh with a "Ya Muhammad!" his hand lifted to his forehead and the company with "Peace be upon you," to which we all -answered "And upon you peace!" Then the circle spread out a little wider to make room for the new comer.

  At last I got up and said good-bye, I hadn't gone more than a few steps than my soldiers told me I had committed a fearful solecism. They had killed a sheep for me and were preparing a dinner, of which I ought to have partaken, and further, said Ali "Muhammad is a great Sheikh and you ought to give him a present." I went back to my tent rather perturbed, what could I give? Finally, after thinking things over, I sent one of my soldiers with Ali's pistol wrapped up in a pocket handkerchief (you can give nothing to an Arab but arms or horses) and a message that I hadn't known he had meant to do me such honour and would he accept this present (net value 2 pounds). He returned answer that he was grateful, that he was doing nothing but his duty and would I honour them? So back I went with Athos, Porthos and What's-his-name, and we all sat down again on the cushions and carpets and waited. We waited till 9:30! I wasn't bored (though I was hungry!). One by one, the Arabs dropped in till the circle stretched all round the big tent; at intervals the talk went round — the politics of the d
esert: who had sold horses, who owned camels, who had been killed in a raid, how much the blood money would be or where the next battle. It was very difficult to understand, but I followed it more or less. Besides the bitter black coffee, we were handed cups of what they called "white coffee" — hot water, much sweetened and flavoured with almonds. At length came a black slave with a long spouted water jar in his hand, to me first and then to all the company. We held out our hands and he poured a little water over them. And at last dinner — four or five men bearing in an enormous dish heaped up with rice and the meat of a whole sheep. This was put down on the ground before me, and I and some ten others sat round it and ate with our fingers, a black slave standing behind us with a glass which he filled with water as each guest required it. The food was pretty nasty, saltless and very tough — but it was 9:30! They eat extraordinarily little, and I was still hungry when the first circle got up to make place for the second. More hand-washing, with soap this time, and I bowed myself out and retired to biscuits and bed. It was rather an expensive dinner, but the experience was worth the pistol.

  Sunday, 27th. It was interesting this morning to see the Hasineh on the move. Sheikh Muhammad had only twenty or thirty of his five hundred tents with him, yet the camels filled the plain like the regiments of an army, each household marching with its own detachment of camels... .

  Monday, 28th. Sending my mules by a desert road, I took two of my musketeers and Hanna, and rode to an exquisite place called Mualula. It is interesting as being one of three places — the other two are close by — where the old Syrian language is spoken, the language in which Christ spoke. Most of the inhabitants are Christians — their Christianity dates from the first century — and there are two big convents, Catholic and Greek. I spent a charming hour in the Greek convent, where the monks and nuns were delightful people. The Prior is a Greek, pleasant, intelligent and cultured... .

  Tuesday, 29th. I had a very beautiful ride into Damascus. The air was sweet with the smell of figs and vines and chestnuts, the pomegranates were in the most flaming blossom, the valley was full of mills and mill races bordered by long regiments of poplars — lovely, it must be at all times, but when one comes to it out of the desert it seems a paradise. I got to Damascus soon after two and rode through the bazaars, eating apricots, with which all Damascus is full. Now he who has not eaten the apricots of Damascus has not eaten apricots. To my joy I found Charlotte here when I arrived and letters. Telegrams from you and the war news excellent... 95 [Sloane St.] will be splendid I Tell my sisters I love their letters and fly to them as soon as I get my post... I do fervently hope to be in London about the 21st. I should like a week there because I am somewhat ragged, as you may well imagine. I wish I were as well stocked with clothes as Elsa, tell her! As for my travelling clothes-'nein!!' Oh, my dear family! I do long to be with you again. I want to have the most fearful long talk about nothing with my sisters and about things with my father and about everything taken together with my mother. By the way, did I mention that Damascus is a singularly beautiful place? I found a delightful letter from Caroline here. Much love to her.

  [Gertrude's letters until her return to England are very vaguely dated, but it is clear that she remained with the Rosens, making more or less distant excursions with them at intervals. In one of her letters I find: ]

  Nina and Dr. Rosen are perfectly delightful travelling Companions, we have just been agreeing that for a dwelling anything but a tent is merely a kind of makeshift.

  [She writes delightful descriptions of the country she passes through, of its wealth of flowers, of its smiling Prosperity alternated with desert wilderness. She describes Baalbek and the Lebanon Range. She and her companions ride to the place where the great cedars flourish.]

  To H.B.

  ARAK EL EMIR, Wednesday, 30th May, 1900.

  From my Camp. (Arabia, suggests Dr. R., in case you shouldn't know where the above important place is). Well, we left yesterday after lunch, after a tremendous getting off, such a packing and saying Goodbye! I never had my hand kissed so often! it was blazing hot, but a furious wind got up as we rode down to Jericho. It made us a little cooler but raised such storms of dust as I have never seen. We could neither speak nor hear nor see, and when we arrived in Jericho we looked as if we had just been dug up from an untimely grave. We spent a very comfortable night and got off at 5 this morning. The wind had gone and had taken with it the heat, and the flies, so that we had a most pleasant ride across the Ghor. We crossed the Jordan by the bridge and then turned away a little further northwards than my former road, getting into the foothills about 8. From thence we rode up a long winding grassy valley, very pretty, with plenty of corn in it and all the fields full of lovely pink hollyhock and flowering caper, which is like St. John's wort, but with pink stamen and white petals. This valley led us up on to a little col from whence we looked down into the beautiful Wady Sir with Arak el Emir lying in the bottom of it. Heights thinly covered with oak behind. Now this place is very interesting. It was a palace built by an enterprising gentleman called Hyrcamus about 200 years before Christ, and Josephus describes it so accurately that one can to this day trace the lines of the moats and tanks and gardens. of the palace little remains except a great 'pan de mur' built of enormous stones, the upper ones carved with lions. You can trace a long road leading up to some cliffs about a quarter of a mile behind (from these the place takes its name, Arak meaning cliff) in which are cut a regular town of caves, one of them being an enormous stable with mangers for 100 horses cut in its walls. We got here at 1, very hungry and instantly lunched by the stream which is bordered by thickets of oleander. At our feet was a beautiful little blue lake, Yamonneh, with a great spring flowing out of the rocks high up above it and a silvery water flower growing over it in patches. It was such an odd combination to see a mountain lake looking quite civilised, and camels beside it! Both the lake and the spring dry up in summer — there is awfully little water on this side of the hills. We then rode W. up the cleft, a deep valley full of corn and scrubby trees which had expended most of their energy in growing along the ground, and got into our camp at 6. I was glad to see it for had been rather a poor thing all day and hadn't expected nearly such a long ride. The result was that I was dead beat and slept very badly and felt extremely miserable this morning.

  Tuesday, 5th June. However, we had a very interesting and a short day before us. We rode up to the crest of Lebanon, and then all along the ridge to the highest point, Jebel Mahmal. It was gorgeous, the sea on one side and the desert on the other, Hermon to the south and Horns to the north. We rode to within an hour of the top and might have ridden all the way, except that it was rather a Pull for the horses. There were no rocks, only Slopes of gravel, more or less steep, with occasional patches of snow and a good deal of mud where the snow had just melted — We were 10,000 feet up. There is no glaciation, but they say a little snow lies the summer through. Below us lay the cedar clumps protected by an amphitheatre of hills, and the great gulf of the Wady Kadisha running down to Tripoli with villages scattered along its brink. We sleep in one of them to-morrow. There were some exciting clumpy Alpine things growing — one a very dwarf broom covered with yellow flowers, the others, pink and white and purple, I didn't know. There was also a charming tiny tulip, Purple outside, and white within, with a yellow centre, and a lovely pale blue scilla. We got down to the cedars at 1:30, after a very rough descent; and found our tents pitched under the trees. After having been told so Often that they are ragged and ugly, I am agreeably disappointed in them. There are about 400 of them. Some very fine old trees, grass and flowers growing under them — a heavenly camping ground. At this moment it is too delicious! a low Sun. birds singing in the great branches and the pale brown, snow-sprinkled hills gleaming behind. We are extremely happy.

  Wednesday, 6th. There is such an exquisite village in front of me that I can scarcely take my eyes off it to write to you. Its name is Hasrun and it stands perched up on cliffs over the deep valley
Kadisha' the stream being 1,000 feet or more below it, and the mountains rise above it, and the whole is a red gold at this moment, for the sun is busy sinking into the sea out Tripoli way. We spent a delicious lazy morning at the cedars, breakfasted and lunched under the big trees and photographed and drew and listened to the birds. The ground is covered with tiny cedars, but they never grow up under the shadow of their parents (how different from the Belgian Hare!) but wither off when they have reached the height of about 2 inches-which is small for a tree. There were, however, outside the big trees a few saplings which had sprung up of themselves and were growing extraordinarily slowly; they were five years old, said the guardian of the wood, but they were not more than 18 inches high. I have brought a lot of cones away with me. Shall we try and make them grow at Rounton? It would be rather fun to have a real Cedar of Lebanon — only I believe they don't grow more than about 20 feet high in 100 years, so we at least shall not be able to bask much under their shadow. We tore ourselves away at 1, the guardian of the woods making us low salaams as we rode off. He was a beautiful creature tall and straight and dressed in a red and gold cotton coat and a white felt scull cap on his curly head. There were pale periwinkles growing on the edge of the wood and a sweet-scented pink daphne inside — well, well, we were sorry to go... .

  [Gertrude brought the cones home, and distributed them to her family and friends — and so there is a real Cedar of Lebanon growing on the lawn at Rounton now. It is about 16 ft. high. Another stands on Sir George Trevelyan's lawn at Wallington.]

  Thursday, 7th, We started off at 6:30 this morning. There is very lovely broom in this country with flowers much larger than ours. On the very highest col, from which the snow had just melted, the ground was blue with sweet violets. From this highest col we saw our ultimate destination far away and behind it a great hog's back called Jebel Sunnin, white with snow. Below us was a place called Akurah, to which we descended by an awful road, and lunched, it being then 1. We lay under some mulberry trees and all the population sat round on walls and looked at us — stalls full, dress circle full., upper boxes full!