To F.B.
BAGDAD, January 25th, 1920.
I've telegraphed to Father saying I hope he'll come. I would love to show him my world here and I know if he saw it he would understand why I can't come back to England this year. If they will keep me, I must stay. I can do something even if it is very little to preach wisdom and restraint among the young Bagdadis whose chief fault is that they are ready to take on the creation of the world to-morrow without winking.
To F.B.
BAGDAD, January 25th, 1920.
I had an interesting day on Monday. First of all we had the formal opening of the Girls' School — our first. I had invited the important native ladies and to my pleasure the Mohammedans turned up better than I expected. Miss Kelly, the Directress of Education, had made the school look very nice...I made a long speech in Arabic explaining the arrangements of the school and the way the children would be educated. The Muhammadan ladies took their share in it, chiming in with assent and approval. It was most exhilarating.
Then Mrs. Howell declared the school open after which we showed them round and then gave them tea. A most successful performance. That evening I had two young Arabs to dinner and a very interesting officer in the police service, Captain Morgan, to meet them. They came at 7 and stayed till 10:30 talking as hard as they could go, about education and the reform of religious endowments and all sorts of things. We were all on the most cordial terms when they left. I'm going to repeat the entertainment weekly, with different couples of my young men, the Arab young men I mean. I feel certain it's a good plan.
Next day Mrs. Leslie, the wife of the acting C. in C. came to tea, a most attractive woman. Then I had a tea party for my favourite monk, Père Anastase, he is exactly like a monk in Chaucer...
I'm afraid there's going to be no rain. We have had practically none this winter, it's most serious. The birds are famished because there is nothing growing. It's not that I watch the sparrows falling to the ground — I wish I could, confound them. My interest in the matter is that they devour the seedlings in my garden and strip my carnations to the bone.
To F.B.
BAGDAD, February 1st, 1920.
I have been having rather an uphill week with a chronic cold that won't go. The result is that I feel too slack to amuse myself and I do nothing but write. not a' good plan as I feel so very tired at the end of the day...The reason why I've been so busy is that people are beginning to come down the Aleppo road with news of Syria and Turkey, and I, having now rather a satisfactory network of informants, hear of the arrival of most of these and send for them. What With getting their information and writing it out my mornings have been pretty full. It's a distressing story Which they bring. We share the blame with France and America for what is happening — I think there has seldom been such a series of hopeless tangles as the West has made about the East since the armistice...
I have had two more little Arab dinner parties, both very friendly and successful. Sometimes we talk politics and sometimes we just talk about the country but anyhow we talk, exchange views and learn from one another. And it gives us the sense of being all part of the same game which is the main thing.
I have had to drop my India Office report — after writing two chapters on relations with the Kurds, a most thorny and difficult subject — for the annual reports are now coming in and I must read and digest them before I can complete my own chapters on administration. These will run to two or three chapters, after which a chapter on social and political conditions of which I've written half, and then a general revision of the whole will bring me to the end of the task. It has been a big job; I can't yet judge whether I have covered the ground satisfactorily.
Frank [Balfour] and I were agreeing this evening that we feel happier about the whole position here. We feel we are getting into closer touch, that antagonism is melting and cooperation growing. I hope we are right — it's a thing I don't think we can be mistaken about. He and I and the Howells dined at an immense Arab dinner party last week given by Fakhri Jamil in honour of the birth of a small cousin, the posthumous son of my poor friend, Abdul Rahman Jamil...After dinner I went round to the women's quarters to see the new baby, 3 days old and the mother's up and walking about how they survive I can't think. I must tell you I am honorary head of the Jamil family — that's how the Jamil profess to regard me ...
To F.B.
BAGDAD, February 14th, 1920.
I had a really delightful 3 days in Hillah, where I arrived feeling half dead and recovered steadily. I was staying with the Political Officer, Major Tyler, and all his staff, some 10 young men; great fun it was. Our job was to inspect the first beginnings of the land survey, the agrarian settlement which lies at the root of all our tribal problems — a gigantic task it's going to be, but if we get it done right it will mean agrarian peace for ever and a day. So we met the surveyors and looked at maps and boundary marks — heaps of earth in this country, not stones, for there are none. And then we rode back and half-way stopped and lunched at the mudhif of the chief sheikhs of the district. He had gathered in representatives of all neighbouring tribes concerned in the settlement, but being a poor man he had let it be understood that he intended to provide only for us and the Bani Hasan, his nearest neighbours. So when our great tray of foods had been set before us, another was laid in the end of the mudhif and the Bani Hasan summoned to it. The rest of the company contented themselves with cigarettes and coffee. After lunch there was a great talk — this is how business is conducted in the provinces, and there's no better council chamber than a sheikh's mudhif ...It was a delightful scene. Our host had fought against us at Kut, having mobilized his tribe at the order of the Turks. "What was it like," I asked, "when you fought with the Turks?" "Khatun," he replied solemnly (that's what they call me — Madam), "we had nothing to eat. Mind you, they had plenty, but they gave us nothing." "Did you fight hungry?" I asked. "Wallahi no," he answered. "We returned home."
Next day Major Tyler and I motored to Diwaniyah. I hadn't been there for 2 years and I shouldn't have known the place again. Clean and tidy, with widened streets and a good hospital — it was a miracle. So is Hillah, which I spent the following morning in inspecting, after a couple of hours' talk with the two leading inhabitants. School, hospital, gaol, bazaars — like a rose, as we say in Arabic.
To F.B.
BAGDAD, February 29th, 1920.
It's too exciting to think that Father is already on his way here. It's also the first spring day after bitter cold and drenching rain, and being Sunday I'm not going to the office. I've installed myself in the verandah of my garden having brought all my work here for a good morning, which I shall begin by writing to you.
I took the whole Goschen family to Babylon this week...They are charming people to take sight seeing because they are so much interested...I'm very busy trying to get a private hospital for women of the better classes — they have already organised an excellent ward in the Civil Hospital for poor women. It was when we showed them this that the well born women asked if they would collect the money to pay for the building. It will cost, 'tout compris' Rs.45,000, and they must pay for it if they want it — an 8 bed hospital of 4 rooms with a bathroom and nurses room, 6 rooms in all. We had an immense tea party at Aurelia Tod's whose house is more convenient than mine, being in the middle of the town. She did it beautifully for us. I explained the matter of the hospital to the ladies and they were all very enthusiastic. I am now sending a personal letter to 10 of the richest men in this town asking them each to give Rs.3,000. The rest I think we should have no difficulty in collecting in small subscriptions.
To F.B.
BAGDAD, March 7th, 1920.
It's wonderful to think that by this time Hugo is back. I hope it will console you for Father's absence. I really do think it will do him all the good in the world to be away for a long spell, and the account he and you give me of his doings confirms that view.
I've just written a very long letter to Lord Robert giving an exhaust
ive criticism of the dealings of the Conference with Western Asia...
We've had torrents of rain and the world a sea of mud...I went off at noon with the Hambros in a launch up river and we found a delicious place in the sun where it was dry and basked in the barley fields under palm trees. After which I made friends with the peasant proprietors and we had a long talk about the dealings of governments. They were darling people and when I went away they gave me five carrots and a fish, just caught...And now my room is full of pots of wild mustard and green rye which we gathered in the fields and I'm reflecting on the recurring miracle of spring.
I told you about my hospital, didn't I? The Rs.3,000 subscriptions are beginning to come in...
I went to tea on Monday with Saiyid Daud. He has a wonderful house, the finest I've seen here. You go out of a tiny narrow street into a big court with beautiful stucco rooms on the upper floor, ceilings of vaulted Persian stucco and looking-glass work 100 years old; and then into another still bigger court full of orange trees and Olives 40 feet high and lovely rooms and balconies, and best of all a stork's nest in the corner.
To F.B.
March 14th, 1920.
I'm glad it's not this week I was going to Basrah for I've had and have got an unspeakable cold and feel as if my chest were a solid mass. I did not make it any better by going to Kadhimain yesterday and returning late, but the visit was worth making. I've been describing it to Lord Robert as a justification 'pro vita mea' — he cast up against me my love for the horrible Easterns — so to save trouble I'll tell you the same story.
It's a problem here how to get into touch with the Shiahs, not the tribal people in the country; we're on intimate terms with all of them, but the grimly devout citizens of the holy towns and more especially the leaders of religious opinion, the Mujtahids, who can loose and bind with a word by authority which rests on an intimate acquaintance with accumulated knowledge entirely irrelevant to human affairs and worthless in any branch of human activity. There they sit in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it — nor can they. And for the most part they are very hostile to us, a feeling we can't alter because it's so difficult to get at them. I'm speaking of the extremists among them; there are a few with whom we are on cordial relations. Until quite recently I've been wholly cut off from them because their tenets forbid them to look upon an unveiled woman and my tenets don't permit me to veil — I think I'm right there, for it would be a tacit admission of inferiority which would put our intercourse from the first out of focus. Nor is it any good trying to make friends through the women — if the women were allowed to see me they would veil before me as if I were a man. So you see I appear to be too female for one sex and too male for the other.
There's a group of these worthies in Kadhimain, the holy city, 8 miles from Bagdad, bitterly pan-Islamic, anti-British 'et tout le bataclan.' Chief among them are a family called Sadr, possibly more distinguished for religious learning than any other family in the whole Shiah world. A series of accidents led them to make advances to me to which I replied that if they would like me to visit them I should be delighted to honour myself ...The upshot was that I went yesterday, accompanied by an advanced Shiah of Bagdad whom I knew well. I rather fancy he is secretly a free-thinker. We walked through the narrow crooked streets of Kadhimain and stopped before a small dark archway. He led the way along 50 yards of pitch-dark vaulted passage — what was over our heads I can't think — which landed us in the courtyard of the Saiyid's house. It was old, at least a hundred years old, with beautiful old lattice-work of wood closing the diwan on the upper floor. The rooms all opened on to the court — no windows on to the outer world — and the court was a pool of silence separated from the street by the 50 yards of mysterious masonry under which we had passed. Saiyid Hassan's son, Saiyid Muhammad, stood on the balcony to welcome us, black robed, black bearded and on his head the huge dark blue turban of the Mujtahid class. Saiyid Hassan sat inside, an imposing, even a formidable figure, with a white beard reaching half way down his chest, and a turban a size larger than Saiyid Muhammad's. I sat down beside him on the carpet and after formal greetings he began to talk in the rolling periods of the learned man, the book-language, which you never hear on the lips of others. Mujtahids usually have plenty to say — talking is their job; it saves the visitor trouble. We talked of the Sadr family in all its branches, Persian, Syrian and Mesopotamian; and then of books and of collections of Arabic books in Cairo, London, Paris and Rome — he had all the library catalogues; and then of the climate of Samarra which he explained to me was much better than that of Bagdad because Samarra lies in the third climatic zone of the geographers. He talked with such vigour that his turban kept slipping forward on to his eyebrows and he had to push it back impatiently on to the top of his head...And I was acutely conscious of the fact that no woman before me had ever been invited to drink coffee with a mujtahid and listen to his discourse, and really anxious lest I shouldn't make a good impression.
So after about three-quarters of an hour I said I feared I must be troubling him and I would ask permission to take my leave. "No, no," he boomed out, "we have set aside this afternoon for you." I felt pretty sure then that the visit was being a success and I stayed another hour. But I tackled this next hour with much more confidence. I said I wanted to tell him about Syria and told him all I knew down to the latest telegram which was that Faisal was to be crowned. "Over the whole of Syria to the sea?" he asked, with sudden interest. "No," I answered, "the French stay in Beyrout." "Then it's no good," he replied, and we discussed the matter in all its bearings. Then we talked of Bolshevism. He agreed that it was the child of poverty and hunger, "but," he added, "all the world's poor and hungry since this war." I said that as far as I made out the Bolshevist idea was to sweep away all that ever had been and build afresh. I feared they didn't know the art of building. He approved that. Then as I made signs of going, he said, "It is well known that you are the most learned woman of your time, and if any proof were needed it would be found in the fact that you wish to frequent the society of the learned. That's why you're here to-day." I murmured profound thanks for the privilege (with a backward glance at the third climatic zone), and took my leave in the midst of a shower of invitations to come again as often as I liked.
On my way home I went to see Frank Balfour who was in bed with a touch of fever and heard from him the afternoon's news which was that Faisal had been crowned king of Syria and Abdullah king of the Iraq...
Tell darling Mrs. Wilson [Mrs. Gerald Wilson, of Mansfield, near Darlington] that the yellow hollyhock seeds have come and I've sown them in my garden and in all the gardens of my Arab friends. I may mention I've got daffodils in flower — the first daffodils seen in Mesopotamia.
To F.B.
BAGDAD, Sunday, April 10, 1920.
I'm leaving it to Father to describe an experience which I'm sure he'll do at length. This is only a word to tell you that it's wonderful having him. It is most interesting to see him sizing up our problems and he happens to have arrived at a very crucial time. I think we're on the edge of a pretty considerable Arab nationalist demonstration with which I'm a good deal in sympathy. It will, however, force our hand and we shall have to see whether it will leave us with enough hold to carry on here...
What I do feel pretty sure of is that if we leave this country to go to the dogs it will mean that we shall have to reconsider our whole position in Asia. If Mesopotamia goes Persia goes inevitably, and then India. And the place which we leave empty will be occupied by seven devils a good deal worse than any which existed before we came.
With these few words, I remain your affectionate daughter.
To H.B.
BAGDAD, Thursday, 6th May, 1920.
It was a delightful surprise to have a letter from you this morning. I wonder how anyone can complain about anything when they have a father like you. I can't tell you what it was like to have you here. One takes for granted where
you are concerned that no matter how unfamiliar or complex the things may be that you're seeing and hearing, you'll grasp the whole lie of them at once, and it's only when I come to think of it that I realise what it is to have your quickness of intelligence. Anyhow, I feel certain that you know the general structure here as well as we know it ourselves and I'm enchanted that you should, not only because it makes my job so much more interesting knowing that you understand it, but also because it's good for us all that you should be able to put in a word for us at home...
Says Mizhir: "Some people have faces so heavy that they make the world dark; and some faces so light that everyone rejoices to see them." Hadhrat al Walid has a light face, God bless and preserve him.
To H.B.
BAGDAD, Sunday, 9th May, 1920.
With what different feelings I write to you now that you've been here! All the news seems to be of the utmost moment now you know all about it. The first and chief is Frank's engagement to Phyllis Goschen. I'm very very glad about it. I like her.
Captain A. L. Smith [Lionel] came to dine. We had a long and satisfactory talk about the education of Arabs. I'm not quite happy about what we're doing; nor is he. It's all very well to say we mustn't start secondary schools till we have really first-rate material, both in teachers and pupils, but we can't wait for that. We must get a move on and be content with second best, for the people here are so immensely keen to be provided with higher education and if we hold back they will think we are doing it on purpose to keep them back. You have to look at it from the point of politics as well as of education.
Letters From Baghdad Page 50