Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  Sir Percy had been unwell but on the day of the Coronation he began to recover and is now quite fit again, so I who had kept all people off him for a week quietly arranged for the deputations to pay their respects to him. We had two days of it Friday and Saturday morning. It would be difficult to tell you how many people there are in the office one and the same time. It was immensely interesting seeing them — there were people I had never seen before and a great great many who had never seen Bagdad before. Basrah and Amarah came on Friday, Hillah and Mosul on Saturday; they were the big deputations, of these Mosul was the most wonderful. I divided it into three sections — first the Mosul town magnates, my guests and their colleagues, next the Christian Archbishops and Bishops — Mosul abounds in them — and the Jewish Grand Rabbi... The third group was more exciting than all the others; it was the Kurdish chiefs of the frontier who have elected to come into the Iraq state until they see whether an independent Kurdistan develops which will be still better to their liking...

  After they had had their quarter of an hour with Sir Percy all in turn came down to me. The Kurds came last and stayed longest. The Mayor... said that they hadn't had an opportunity to discuss with Sir Percy the future of Kurdistan, what did I think about it? I said that my opinion was that the districts they came from were economically dependent on Mosul and always would be however many Kurdistans were created. They agreed but, they must have Kurdish officials. I said I saw no difficulty there. And the children must be taught in Kurdish schools. I pointed out that there would be some difficulty about that as there wasn't a single school book — nor any other — written in Kurdish. This gave them pain and after consideration they said they thought the teaching might as well be in Arabic, but what about local administrative autonomy ...I said "Have you talked it over with Saiyidna Faisal — our Lord Faisal?" "No," they said. "Well you had better go and do it at once." I suggested. "Shall I arrange an appointment for you?" "Yes," they said. So I telephoned to Rustam Haidar and made an appointment for yesterday afternoon — I'm longing to hear from Faisal what came of it. Fun isn't it? Faisal ...asked me to tea.

  We spent a happy hour discussing (a) our desert frontier to South and West and (b) the National Flag and Faisal's personal flag. For the latter we arranged provisionally this, i.e., the Hijaz flag with a gold crown on the red triangle. The red I must tell you is the colour of his house so he bears his Own crown on it. Father, do for heaven's sake tell me whether the Hijaz flag is heraldically right. You might telegraph. Its a very good flag and we could differentiate it for the Iraq by putting a gold star on the black stripe or on the red triangle. The Congress will settle it directly it meets. Do let me know in time, Also whether you have a better suggestion for Faisal's standard...

  There's no doubt that this is the most absorbing job that I've ever taken a hand in...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Sept. 11th, 1921.

  Faisal's first Cabinet is formed. On the whole we are well satisfied. Out of the 9 Ministers, 6 are eminently capable men, well-fitted for their job...

  Faisal has got into his new house, on the river above Bagdad, it's small but its really very nice. On Wednesday one of the A.D.C's telephoned to me to ask me to dinner — I went up by launch. Have I ever told you what the river is like on a hot summer night? At dusk the mist hangs in long white bands over the water; the twilight fades and the lights of the town shine out on either bank, with the river, dark and smooth and full of mysterious reflections, like a road of triumph through the mist. Silently a boat with a winking headlight slips down the stream, then a company of quffahs, each with his tiny lamp, loaded to the brim with water melons from Samarra. "Slowly, slowly," the voices of the Quffahijs drift across the water. "Don't ruffle the river lest we sink — see how we're loaded." And we slow down the launch so that the wash may not disturb them. The waves of our passage don't even extinguish the floating votive candle each burning on its minute boat made out of the swathe of a date cluster, which anxious hands launched above the town- if they reach the last town yet burning, the sick man will recover, the baby will be born safely into this world of hot darkness and glittering lights and bewildering reflections. Now I've brought you out to where the palm trees stand marshalled along the banks. The water is so still that you can see the Scorpion in it, star by star; we'll go gently past these quffahs — and here are Faisal's steps.

  And you still can't form the remotest conception of how marvellously beautiful it is...I also rode with Nuri on Friday morning; we went down to breakfast with Haji Naji.

  As we rode back through the gardens of the Karradah suburb where all the people know me and salute me as I pass, Nuri said "one of the reasons you stand out so is because you're a woman. There's only one Khatun. It is like when Sidi Faisal was in London and always wore Arab dress, there was no one like him. So for a hundred years they'll talk of the Khatun riding by."

  I think they very likely will.

  It may have escaped your notice that we are in the middle of Muharram. From the first to the fifteenth the Shiahs mourn for Hussain, the Prophet's grandson, who was invited over from Mecca by the Iraqis to be Khalif, and when he arrived got no support from them, was opposed by the army of his rival Muawiyah at the place where Karbala stands now, saw his followers die of thirst and wounds and was killed himself on the 15th. One small son escaped and from him Faisal is descended (so is the Naqib for that matter).

  Incidentally when Faisal came, that story of his ancestor was in my mind. The parallel was so complete, the invitation, from Iraq, the journey from Mecca, the arrival with nothing but his formal following. If the end has proved different it's because I said "Absit omen" so often.

  Well the Shiahs are mourning hard. It takes the form of processions every night, lighted torches, drums and beating of breasts. Some of the young men in our office invited me to dinner on Friday to see the processions...Presently the wild drums drew near, the glare of torches filled the sky and the processions turned into the courtyards. Torches, and men leading horses in gorgeous trappings, and men carrying large banners, and men with trays of lights on their heads. And then a black-robed company which spread out in two rows across the court, and they were swinging chains, with which they beat their backs — the black robes were open to the waist at the back so that the chains might fall on their bare skins. They swing them very skilfully with a little jerk at the top of the swing so that the chains barely touched the skin, but the effect was wonderful — the black figures in the glaring torch light, swinging rhythmically from side to side with the swing of the chains and the drums marking time. Next came the breast beaters, naked to the waist; and they stood in companies and beat their breasts in unison to a different rhythm of drums. Each procession surged through the courtyards, swung their chains, beat their breasts and surged out into the street; and another followed it interminably...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, September 17th, 1921.

  I'm glad you take an interest in my letters, bless you. It's not at all true that I have determined the fortunes of Iraq, but it's true that with an Arab Government I've come to my own. It's a delicate position to be so much in their confidence. I'm very careful about not obtruding myself on them, I let all the "come hither " emanate from them. When they want to come and ask my advice I'm always there; when they're busy with other things I go about affairs of my own...

  Last Tuesday was the fifteenth of Muharram, the "Ashurah." It's the culminating day of mourning for Hussain, the anniversary of his death...They enact the whole history of Hussain's death, the attack of Muawiyah's hosts, the little band killed one by one, the burning of their tents and the cutting off of the heads of the dead to send to Muawiyah...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, September 25th, 1921.

  We've had a hot week — temp. up again to 108 — but suddenly it dropped yesterday to 92 and to-day, for the first time for five months, I'm sitting in my little sitting-room with doors and windows open and no fan. It was so heavenly this morning when
I went out riding at 6 (it being Sunday) that I rode right across the desert to Fahamah, close on 2 hours away and breakfasted with my friend Faiq Bey. We sat in his garden, full of roses just breaking into their second flower, while I ate hard boiled eggs, native bread and butter like cream, and Faiq Bey talked. His face ...grew quite perturbed while he related to me the difficulties of cultivators nowadays — the labourers all gone off to better paid jobs in town, or taking up land of their own on the near canals; they think they do you a service for working for ten times their former hire and even so, Yallah, you're lucky if they come an hour after dawn, don't knock off more than four hours at noon, nor leave earlier than an hour before sunset. Poor Faiq Bey! It's progress of course; the country is getting richer and the inhabitants expect more, but it's very awkward for the old society, when progress steps in to dislocate it. And in the end it won't produce anything better than Faiq Bey; straight out of Arcady he steps, with his rosy apple face, his personal rectitude and his industrious days among his palms and orange trees and barley fields...

  To H.B.

  Sept. 29th, 1921.

  Sir Percy who is a very keen sportsman, has got two hawks which are being trained. Every morning there is a hawk party at the office. Our hawks invite their friends and when I come in of a morning I find two or three falconers each with a couple of hawks on his wrist waiting for Sir Percy to appear.

  One of my daily jobs is to read and summarise the local papers. I have as assistant a capital little Soudanese as merry as a cricket. The more work you give him the merrier he grows. His Arabic is excellent and his English far from bad but very colloquial. His comments on the newspaper tosh, are a perpetual joy. Yesterday there was a literary piece by one of our local poets:

  MAKKI: Oh, Lord! this fellow! This is a silly fellow. He talks to the moon. G.L.B. (severely): It's frequently done. Go on Makki, see if there's anything political in it. MAKKI (reading): My sorrows thou see'st, oh moon — Oh, Lord this fellow! No, its all general, nothing serious. G.L.B. : Hurry up then, what's next? etc., etc.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Oct. 2nd, 1921.

  ... I shall have to keep a sort of diary to you now for with fortnightly letters the intervals are too long...

  We send an immense amount of dispatches home by every Air Mail and the 14th and the 30th of each month are days of feverish finishing off of work. Added to which they are the days when my fortnightly report has to be finished, so that Sir Percy may see it on the 15th and 1st, before it goes to the press — I am doing little less than writing a history of Mesopotamia in fortnightly parts. I myself find it an invaluable record, but I've not heard what they think of it at home. The 1st of October saw the 22nd number. Each number is divided into the following parts : 1. Proceedings of the Council of Ministers (as you might say Hansard compressed). 2. Public Opinion — all significant events, or propaganda or newspaper campaigns. 3. Notes on Provincial affairs, the actual history of the provinces, tribal unrest, irrigation. 4. Frontiers.

  It's a great work, it really is. It goes to all our provincial officers as well as to India, Aden, Jaffa, Constantinople, Jerusalem and London, also Teheran. If they don't know everything they ought to know about us it is not my fault...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, Oct. 17th, 1921.

  They really are wonderful, these young Englishmen, who are thrown out into the provinces and left entirely to their own resources. They so completely identify themselves with their surroundings that nothing else has any significance for them, but if they think you're interested they open out like a flower and reveal quite unconsciously, wisdom, tact, and patience which you would have thought to be incompatible with their years...

  My blue gown and cloak have arrived they are very nice indeed. I am so infinitely grateful for the trouble my kind family have taken about them. Lennox Gardens papers please copy...

  I've suggested to Sir Percy that it would be a pleasant change for me to set up as uncrowned Queen of Kurdistan. I don't want to stand in his way if he has a fancy for the job — we might perhaps toss for it...

  Yesterday, Sunday, I shook myself free and motored with Fakhri Eff: to his gardens above Baqubah. We started about 8 on a close hot morning ...and a more beautiful sight I don't think I ever saw. The dates are late in ripening this year and are still hanging in great golden crowns on the palms; below them the pomegranate bushes are weighed down with the immense rosy globes of their fruit and the orange trees laden with the pale green and yellow of ripening oranges- it was a paradise of loveliness; I walked about in a bewilderment of admiration. There was also a big stretch of vineyard where the last of the grapes were hanging on the vines — gigantic bunches of white grapes each sheltered from the sun by a little roof of liquorice stalks. Our lunch was cooked in the open air — excellent rice and chicken and stewed meats, with strained pomegranate juice to drink, and served to Us in an arbour made of a woven roof of boughs...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Oct. 31st, 1921.

  ... what an excessive amount of trouble you take about your children and we accept it all as a matter of course — more shame to us. At any rate I do realise from time to time what it is to have someone always watching and caring for one without the care having any relation to the worth of the object it's expended on. The object is worth less than you can guess. I think I may have been of some use here but I suspect I've come very near the end of it...

  To H.B.

  To H.B. BAGDAD, Nov. 25th, 1921.

  I left Bagdad on the 22nd by train for Kirkuk.

  Next morning I got off by motor at about 11, eastward to Sulaiman. The road ran at first through a broken country of little mud hills, confused and ugly because they lack all mountain architecture. Gradually the hillocks gathered themselves together and coalesced into an upland down country with broad gracious curves and grassy hollows where a tiny spring would rise cradled in purple-flowered mint. Before long we reached the summit and saw below us the Chemchemal valley with a range of real mountains beyond it, barren and rock built, and beyond that, range behind range, the Kurdish highlands up to the Persian frontier and further still to the N.E. the great massif of Kandil Dagh lifted its snowy flanks against the sky. Hills and valleys were almost alike, unpeopled and uncultivated; the sere grasses spread their white gold carpet to the rock, the rock rose stark to heaven and there was nothing else in the landscape except at our feet the tiny villages of Chemchemal, flat mud roofs clustered below an ancient Median mound. It is the country of the fierce Hamawand tribe, a living terror to the government and the scattered villages (which from their protective colouring and their site among the hill folds I could not see...) In the pass we met a buxom rosy Kurdish girl with a baby strapped on to her back and a loaded cow walking sedately in front of her — a strange pack animal. As soon as it saw us it took fright and attempted to scramble up the stony bank when, cow-like, it collapsed hopelessly under its load. The baby began to cry, the woman beat the cow and the cow struggled effetely till I thought it would break its legs — such a pother we had made in Kurdistan with our motor! So we flew to the rescue, unloaded the cow, set it on its feet, held the baby till the mother had tied up the loads again and went happily on our several ways...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 4th, 1921.

  Faisal privately doesn't want the Congress to be convened (it's duty is to draw up the Organic law) until he has got the terms of the treaty satisfactorily settled and respective responsibilities of the British and Arab Governments defined. It's this question of responsibility which perturbs everyone; on it the position of the Advisors and indeed most other things rests. Roughly the skeleton of the problem is whether we can assume responsibility for defence if the country is attacked from without...We must be able to satisfy the League of Nations that we can fulfil the international obligations with which the mandate entrusts us, and even if we drop the mandate and call it a treaty, that treaty must make certain reservations which the Arabs must accept...

  T
he word Mandate produces much the same effect here as the word Protectorate did in Egypt...

  But you mustn't think for a moment I have any part in settling these problems. I know about them because Sir Percy tells me about them in outline but I'm merely an onlooker and although Faisal is very friendly and agreeable he doesn't, quite rightly, consult me. I hadn't seen him for nearly 5 weeks what with his being away and my being away, and I very carefully abstain from offering advice in matters the delicate manipulation of which had much better be left to Sir Percy. All I can do and all I try to do, is to give as accurate an impression as I can of what people are saying and thinking.

  I had a well spent morning at the office making out the Southern desert frontier of the Iraq with the help of a gentleman from Hayil and of Fahad Bey the paramount chief of the Anazeh. The latter's belief in my knowledge of the desert makes me blush. When he was asked by Mr. Cornwallis to define his tribal boundaries all he said was "You ask the Khatun. She knows." In order to keep up this reputation of omniscience, I've been careful to find out from Fahad all the Wells claimed by the Shammar. One way and another, I think I've succeeded in compiling a reasonable frontier. The importance of the matter lies in the fact that Ibn Saud has captured Hayil and at the earliest possible opportunity Sir Percy wants to have a conference between him and Faisal to state definitely what tribes and lands belong to the Iraq and what to Ibn Saud...

  Did I tell you that Sir Percy is building an extra room on to my house? It's causing me acute discomfort at the moment but it will be a great blessing when finished.