Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  [I wrote to Mr. Reeves in May, 1927, asking him to tell me something of Gertrude's studies with him. I give here an extract from his reply.

  ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

  May 21st, 1927.

  Dear Lady Bell,

  "... She came to me for instruction in surveying and astronomical observations for determining positions just before starting on her great journey in Arabia 1913-14. I have never had anyone to teach who learned more rapidly and took a more intelligent interest in the subject, we had to deal with... .

  "Miss Bell's prismatic compass route traverse Made on her remarkable journeys after she left me, was Plotted from her field books, and adjusted to her latitudes here by our draughtsmen. I need not say that her mapping has proved of the greatest value and importance. Her field books are here in our possession and will be greatly treasured."

  All the following year, 1908, she was at home absorbed in writing "A Thousand and One Churches," the work she wrote in collaboration with Sir William Ramsay recording their architectural experiences in Asia Minor.

  Early in 1909 she made one of her most important desert expeditions, to the castle of Ukhaidir. It is deplorable that there are no letters from her to be found about her very important undertaking of the reconstruction by plans and measurements of this immense castle. She subsequently wrote a book published by the Clarendon Press in 1914. The book is a quarto volume 13 inches by ten inches of 168 pages of letterpress, two maps and 93 plates which included 15 ground plans of her own planning and 166 photographs taken by herself besides photographs and plans from other sources. It is dedicated to Dr. Walther Andrae.

  As there are no letters remaining about Ukhaidir I quote from Gertrude's preface. it is too important an enterprise for her record of it to be omitted altogether. M. Massignon, the French traveller, was the first to make any record of Ukhaidir, although it had been visited by other travellers several times.]

  "The next visitor to the palace was myself. I left Aleppo in February, 1909, and reached Ukhaidir on March 25, travelling by the East bank of the Euphrates and across the desert from Hit via Kubaisah and Shethathâ... I published a paper on the vaulting system of the palace in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1910 and I gave a more detailed account of the building, in the following year (Amurath to Ammrath, p. 140). I returned to the site in March, 1911, in order to correct my plans and to take measurements for elevations and sections. Going thence to Babylon, I found that some members of the 'Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft' who were engaged upon the excavations there had been to Ukhaidir during the two years of my absence and were preparing a book upon it. Their book appeared in 1912 and is referred to frequently in this volume. For their generosity in allowing me to use some of their architectural drawings, I tender my grateful thanks, together with my respectful admiration for their masterly production.

  "I feel indeed, that I must apologize for venturing to offer a second version... But my excuse must be that my work which was almost completed when the German volume came out, covers not only the ground traversed by my learned friends in Babylon, but also ground which they had neither leisure nor opportunity to explore; and further, that I believe the time has come for a comparative study of the data collected by myself and others such as is contained in this book... .

  "With this I must take leave of a field of study which formed for four years my principal occupation, as well as my chief delight. A subject so enchanting and so suggestive as the Palace of Ukhaidir is not likely to present itself more than once in a lifetime, and as I bring this page to a close I call to mind the amazement with which I first gazed upon its formidable walls; the romance of my first sojourn within its precincts; the pleasure, undiminished by familiarity of my return; and the regret with which I sent back across the sun drenched plain a last greeting to its distant presence."

  [She was in England during the latter half of 1909 and again enjoyed at Rounton the company of a succession of congenial visitors among them Sir Frank Lascelles, Sir George Lloyd, P. Loraine, Lady Arthur Russell, Sir Edwin and Lady Egerton, G. W. Prothero, Sir Valentine Chirol, Sir Ernest Shackleton, etc.

  Gertrude, as may well be imagined, was the pivot of these gatherings and was always inventing exciting things to do, sometimes, indeed, too exciting for some of the guests. I have a vivid recollection of her insisting when the Egertons were with us on having a picnic on the top of the hill behind Mount Grace. Sir Edwin Egerton, a retired Ambassador, no longer very active, perhaps, had protested against going for a picnic and declared there was nothing he disliked more than sitting on the ground. Gertrude however insisted on his going. But she made many arrangements for his comfort, and when Sir Edwin arrived at the hill top, he found a table and chair awaiting him, his cover laid, and everything complete... .

  But in spite of the influx of guests that came and went, and her absorption in her own work in the intervals, she managed to go away on one or two visits.]

  To F.B.

  August 17th, 1909. [P.S. only.]

  I'm drawing my castle [Ukhaidir] and it is coming out beautifully. I can scarcely bear to leave it for a moment.

  To F.B.

  September 13th, 1909.

  I've finished the chapter for Strzygowski-only blocked out of course, there is a lot more work to be done on it, but the worst part is over and what is more I think it's rather neat. I've been so absorbed in it that I haven't had a moment to think of anything else. Now I'm going for a walk on the moors to forget about it till after tea.

  I fear I shall have to come straight home and not go to Moll yet. Next week I must write an article for Mr. Prothero and even if I get home on Friday it leaves me very little time. I would rather go to her after it's done, when I shall be through this overwhelming batch of work that has to be done in such a hurry.

  [She writes from Ardgowan, Greenock, in September, she was staying with Sir Hugh and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart.]

  To F. B.

  ARDGOWAN, September 15th, 1909.

  Mr. prothero, would rather not have my article till Jan. an immense relief to me, especially as the Hellenic Soc. want me to lecture on November 9th and that will take a vast preparation. By the way Mr. P. talks of being in Yorkshire early in October, and I've asked whether he cannot come to us, saying I know you would endorse the suggestion. He is in Scotland This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw. There is an amusing party, the Gerald Balfours, Rayleighs, Bear Warre and others. The men go shooting every day. As for Lord Rayleigh I think he is very alarming, but he took me in to dinner yesterday and told me most exciting things suited to my understanding about radium. He opens doors into a wonderful unknown world which I shall never be able to walk in however. My hostess is delightful... .

  [Hugo was ordained at Ripon on September 19th, 1909.]

  I don't think I shall go to Ripon. I do feel so entirely out of that atmosphere. of course don't say that to Hugo, I would not wound his feelings for the world, and if you think I shall do so by not going, I will.

  To F. B.

  LONDON, October 5th, 1909.

  I went straight to the office and had an interview with a very capable lady who used to be the organising secretary of one of the Suffrage societies and has seen the error of her ways and wants to work for us. I fancy she will make an excellent and very sensible speaker and I intend to follow the matter up.

  When I came in I found a telegram from George Lloyd Asking me to lunch to-day so I rang him up and asked him to dine with me. He came back yesterday. I asked Willie T. to come too but he was busy and is coming in after dinner. So I shall have a good all round view of the crisis.

  [During this year the women's suffrage agitation took greater proportions. Gertrude was strongly opposed to it. I have found no letters from herself about it but Lady Jersey who was Chairman of the Women's Anti-Suffrage Committee sends me the following note, respecting Gertrude's connection with it.

  From the Dowager Countess of Jersey.

  "In the summer of 1908 Gertrude
became interested in the movement against the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise to Women, and joined Mrs. Humphry Ward, myself and others in the formation of a Women's Anti-suffrage League. The women received throughout practical assistance from men, among whom Mr. John Massie was the able advisor and Hon. Treasurer. After two or three years Lord Curzon and Lord Cromer formed a larger League into which the Women's Society was ultimately merged.

  "In the initial steps and until her departure for her great Arabian journey, Gertrude displayed her usual delightful energy and powers of organisation... It is impossible here to name the many keen women who rendered devoted assistance. It was soon realised that defence was harder than attack... But in Gertrude at least there was never any want of spirit, and her unfailing good temper and direct common sense encouraged and inspired those who sometimes felt the task of opposition a hard one.

  "In the Great War Gertrude's unrivalled experience of the East immediately marked her out for important spheres of action and her colleagues in the Anti-Suffrage cause had regretfully to abandon the hope of welcomIng her back to their counsels; they however are among the many who, while mourning her death, are proud of her life of achievement."]

  CHAPTER XII

  1910-1911 - ITALY-ACROSS THE SYRIAN DESERT

  [In these letters from Rome, Gertrude is again in places too well known to make it worthwhile to give her descriptions of them. I quote however some personal extracts, which show her keenness and thoroughness of study.

  She goes from Rome to Spalato.

  She goes to Dalmatia and then back to Spalato where she is shown the palace of Diocletian by Monsignor Bulic, Director of Antiquities, "the most charming old man imaginable."

  She goes to Zara, Polo, Ravenna, deep in study everywhere with experts, and then feels she must turn homewards.]

  To F. B.

  ROME, February 28th, 1910.

  I have decided to stay on here another week with Eugénie (Mrs. Arthur Strong]. I have got a very nice room in her pension. But I shall miss Father dreadfully. We have had the most interesting ten days together and I hope he has enjoyed them as much as I have. He is such an ideal companion. With the archaeologists he is in his element, and he disconcerts the learned by extremely pertinent questions! but they are all delighted with him and I think he puts them upon their mettle and that they are far more interesting when he is there. We have made several new friends. The head of the German school Dr. Delbrück is extraordinarily able and we are going to spend a long morning together on Thursday in his library and discuss vaults. But our chief friends are the dear Wyndhams, who are darlings both of them. Robert Hichens turned up. at my lecture this afternoon — Oh, I think the lecture went quite well and I had a very distinguished audience of professors. Dr. Ashby at the head of the British School spends his time in trotting round with us.

  Well it's all being quite as amusing as we meant it to be.

  To F.B.

  ROME, March, 1910.

  It is most kind of you to agree to my staying here, and I want to tell you that I feel an awful beast about the dinner party. But at the same time I do think another fortnight here will be of immense value to me. Even in this last week I have begun to get hold of things. To-day I worked at Architectural decoration all the morning, partly out of doors and partly in the German Institute where I went to read for an hour before lunch. In the afternoon I joined Miss Van Demen at the Baths of Caracalla and looked at them all the afternoon. They are very difficult and I have not got them quite straightened out so I shall have another day at them tomorrow. I can't tell you what a delightful sensation it is to begin to understand these things. I feel so excited about them that I can scarcely bring myself to come in to lunch. I came back at 5 for Eugénie's lecture, a very good one and very helpful to me.

  To F.B.

  ROME, March, 1910.

  When my literary remains come to be published the letters from Rome will not occupy an important place.! We have not a minute to write but I must seize spaces between archaeologists to tell you what I am doing... Yesterday morning I spent three hours with Delbrück who gave me the most wonderful disquisition I have ever heard on the history of architecture. It was a regular lecture. He had prepared all his notes and all his books to illustrate what he was saying. He is a very remarkable man and as he talked I got the hang of things that had always remained mysteries to me. He ended by saying that it was absurd that I should be so ignorant of the Roman monuments and by telling me that I ought to come here for 6 weeks to study. He is perfectly right and I'm contemplating quite seriously whether I will not come in Oct. and Nov. and study. I would like to do it before I go back to the East. It is a bore but after all 2 months is a short time in one's life. If it would give one a real hold of Roman problems it would be infinitely well spent. We'll talk of this when I come home.

  To F.B.

  ROME, 1910.

  ... I went to the Capitol Museum and worked at ornament over which I grew so excited that I flew up to the Terme and went through all the ornaments there with immense satisfaction... . .

  To F. B.

  1910.

  You were really very kind not to mind my staying in Rome. I felt when I got your letter about the dinner party that I ought to come home at once, and I shall think of you tomorrow evening. Meantime my regrets are tempered by having learnt so much. I have been working like a slave and have got to the bottom of Diocletian's baths this last day or two. I have also been working at ornament and find to my joy that the moment one begins to look at it with care a regular sequence is apparent and the things that all seemed an immense muddle fell into a quite comprehensible history. All this has left me very little time for anything else... .

  To F. B.

  ROME, 1910.

  I called on a delightful old Italian, Signor Sordini. We sat and talked of East and West with the completest accord and made great friends — all in Italian, mind you. I talk it disgracefully badly however and I know I constantly call people Thou in my anxiety to call them It [sic.]

  To H.B. and F.B.

  RAVENNA, 1910.

  ... As for London, no, I don't expect I shall be there much. I must fall back to the book and I think that can be written best at home. You see I don't want to waste any more time than I can help — the book! ... .

  [This was 'Amurath to Amurath.'

  Before going to England she goes to Munich to See the exhibition of pictures. There she receives a letter from W. Heinemann.)

  To F.B.

  MUNICH, 1910.

  ... Then I came in to grapple with a letter from Heinemann who wants me to reply by telegram to the terms he offered me for my book and to agree to have it ready early in November. I have agreed, but I expect we shall have the devil's own hurry over it and so I have written to him.

  The exhibition is wonderful. I am very glad that I am alone here so that I can really work at it.

  To F.B.

  MUNICH, 1910.

  I have had these evenings when I have been alone to write an article on the Persian and Arab Poets for Mr. Richmond. I hope it is all right. I think it is, and I am glad to have it off my mind.

  To F.B.

  January 9th, 1911.

  Two things I want in Rome.

  You know the round church of Santa Costanza) outside the walls? Next to it is the little basilica of St. Agnese which has in the inside a double storey of columns on either side of the nave. The capitals of the lower story are acanthus captals with tiny garlands hung over the corners. I want a photograph of one of these, showing the garland clearly, for it is the only example I know in Rome of the garlanded capital of the early Christian monuments at Diarbekr and in the Tur Abdin. The photograph does not, I think, exist. But Eugénie's photographer would take it for me for a few francs. I shall want it as a point for comparison when I write my forthcoming work about the Tur Abdin.

  The second thing is in the Museum of the Terme. I was shown it by the curator, Paribene, who took Eugénie and me around. It is
Part of some architectural fragments from a tomb of the Antonines found some way out of Rome, near Tivoli, I think. When I saw these fragments, they were not yet being exhibited to the public. Paribene said they had to be sorted and set up. The interesting thing about them was that some of the decoration was the acanthus spinosus, the fat jagged acanthus, not the broad, flat-leaved one. Now the earliest example I know of the acanthus spinosus, except this tomb, is at Spalato — 50 years later than the fragments at the Terme. It is undoubtedly an Asiatic motive (the plant itself is Asiatic) and it points to a school of Asiatic stone-cutters having existed in Rome in the time of the Antonines — so I think. If Paribene would be so kind, I should like to have a good photograph of one of these fragments, showing exactly that particular kind of acanthus decoration. It is rather an important point which I should like some day to use. Here again, the photographs would probably have to be taken specially for me. Eugénie knows the fragments in the Terme — we saw them together — and she could get permission from Paribene to have them photographed, if she would be so good... .

  (this letter from Gertrude was written on board ship on her way to the East on February 9th 1911. Her father and I were in Rome. It shows her thoroughness of study, and her determination to verify every detail of architecture. The photographs she asked for were sent to her.)

  To F. B.

  BEYROUT, January 16th, 1911.

  ... ..I went off to the Jesuit College where I was received with open arms by the two librarians. We had a long talk and I told them all I was going to do, and they gave me some useful introductions to bishops in the Tur Abdin. And then we went over the printing establishment. I found one compositor setting up the Arabic text which Sir Charles Lyall is bringing out, much perplexed over some indecipherable English words which I succeeded in reading for him. He only knew Arabic you see. They are sending me a lot of their publications, the two fathers of the library (I always send them my books) so they will arrive at Rounton some time and must be kept for me. With all this I have spent a most delightful morning, as you may imagine. You remember I told you that my delightful Sheikh was in prison on a charge of murder. Fattuh tells me they succeeded in getting him out, by a free use of my testimony to his character! I'm delighted. He'll be able to murder someone else now. What a country! Already I feel my standards of virtue entirely changed.