Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, May 9th, 1923.

  This is I fear going to be a very scrappy letter for I'm rather overcome with departure...

  Last week Sir Percy left — a very moving farewell...What a position he has made for himself here. I think no Englishman has inspired more confidence in the East. He himself was dreadfully unhappy at going — 40 years service is not a thing one lays down easily.

  To F.B.

  HAIFA, May 21st, 1923.

  The Samuels [Sir Herbert Samuel was High Commissioner in Palestine] were extraordinarily kind. I had some interesting talks with them and felt great admiration for his breadth of view and honesty.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  SEPTEMBER 1923 TO JUNE 1924 - BAGDAD

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, Sept. 11, 1923.

  Here's an interesting experiment: I am going to post this to-morrow by the overland mail, i.e. by car to Damascus. Will you tell me how many days it is on the way, for if it proves a success I shall write to you weekly instead of fortnightly.

  I'm suffering from a violent cold in the head which I've caught from everybody else — there's a plague of colds. Mine began two days ago and to-day I hope to have nearly settled it by staying in all day. That seems absurd with the temperature at 100, but if I had gone out at all I should have had to dine with the King and sit under a punkah all the evening. So I made my excuse and he has kindly put me off till Friday. I was sorry not to go to-day because I haven't yet had a real good talk with him, other people being there when I dined with him before. However it doesn't matter much since things are going quite reasonably well.

  Captain Clayton came down from Mosul on Thursday, the day I posted my last letter, with the Amir Zaid. He and Mr. Thomson and I dined with Haji Naji on Friday. That was a very delightful occasion, an excellent dinner spread on his roof over which nodded the tops of the mulberry trees — such broiled fish and such a lamb roasted whole and such figs from our host's garden! We dined about 7 and getting back early, the other two spent the rest of the evening with me. I had had a dinner party the night before, the Lloyds (he is Mr. Cornwallis's assistant in the Interior and I like both him and his wife) Mr. Jardine from Mosul, Assistant Inspector, and a nice man called Mackay in the A.P.O.C. I enjoy seeing them all again.

  On Saturday I rode out to see the Arab Army play polo. Mr. Thomson plays with them and all their British officers; they are getting quite good. But it's sad to ride out over that great stretch of desert which had been converted first by our army into a wonderful farm and was then taken over by the King. The floods of last spring have sent it back to desert, the roads are blotted out, the irrigation channels half filled in and the young trees which the King planted in hundreds, all killed or uprooted. And all the desert which was under water is horrid to ride on, covered with a cracked mud surface and full of holes.

  I've had a fearful brawl in my household — not the fault of my household fortunately. You remember Mr. Thomson dismissed my gardener, Mizhir, and installed a brother in his place. When I came back Mizhir turned up at once expecting to be reinstated. I refused and finding him a day or two ago making claims to draw water at my pipe I forbade him to come into my garden. Yesterday while I was at the office and Zaya and the new gardener, Jaji Marzuq, were out being inoculated for cholera (doubly inoculated to show 'bonne volonté') did Mizbir and two other brothers come in and beat Haji Ali, my inestimable cook, over the head. Haji Ali quite rightly hauled Mizhir off to the police station next door and I who was lunching at home because of the cold in my head telephoned to a British Inspector. And then I heard shouting and screaming in the street and behold there was Mizhir let out and one of his brothers struggling in the arms of some privates of the Levies with the evident intention of renewing their proceedings with me or any other victim. So I had the police up at once and clapped all three into the police station. So I hope that's happily concluded.

  I've been spending such part of the day as was not taken up in telephonic communication with the police in writing an article about the Iraq for the Round Table. They don't want it in till the end of October however, so I shall have to let it lie for a bit till I can tell of the result of the elections and see how the preliminary negotiations with the Turks are going.

  Sept. 12. I'm better and have come into office — now I must go to the Minister of Justice to discuss the law with Mr. Drower.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Sept. 17, 1923.

  It's been rather hot since I wrote, temp. up to 110 daily and the heavy mugginess which we generally get in September. However, it's needed to ripen the dates which are very late this year and still hanging quite unripe on the trees. I love to see them, it's the nicest part of dates, the great yellow crown of bunches, and as far as I'm concerned they may remain unripe as long as they please.

  It's been very touching the welcome I've had from the big tribal people. Several of them have come in from as far as Diwaniyah on purpose to see me and I don't think one could mistake the fact that they're glad of my return. I feel rather ashamed of the immense confidence they place in one when I consider how little any of us can do really. They trust us as they never trust their own people and they think we have behind us the concentrated force of Great Britain entirely at our disposal, in any matter connected with the Iraq...

  To H.B.

  Sept. 25th, 1923.

  I'm again going to write by the overland mail... The Waring and Gillow furniture has come — it's rather lighter in build than I expected and some of our Iraqis are weighty people...

  On Saturday there was a huge dinner party at the Palace in honour of Sir Henry's accession to the High Commissionership. I sat by Zaid who next morning sent me two guinea pigs as a present — I felt as if I had retired into my remotest childhood as I installed them in a cage in my garden. ...And last night, we spent a delicious evening. Saiyid Hashim, the Naqib's son, invited Mr. Thomson, Ken and me to dine in the Turjmaniyah garden — away towards the Diala. It was a full moon and we loved motoring down and arriving in the peaceful coolness of the garden. We dined on the roof with the famous eucalyptus trees towering over us, and the sweet silence broken only by the gentle ripple of talk...

  We're having great dealings with the Ministry of Pious Bequests in the matter of our library. It's finances are in a bad way and I can't go on struggling to get money for it, so we've conceived the idea of offering ourselves bodily to Auqaf and are now in negotiation with the Minister who favours the suggestion. We discussed it at length at a Committee meeting yesterday, after which I went round to call on Mina Abdud, a wealthy Christian lady. And there dropped in an old Christian of high repute who is a member of the central electoral committee. With him came the Director of Health, and then Jafar Pasha, and we sat gossiping till it was time for me to go away.

  You know I do enjoy myself here. I like being in the middle of this Arab world and on the terms I'm on with it, but I confess even now I have moments of amazement at finding how much we're in the middle of it — for instance when I looked round Sheikh Ali's luncheon table at all those turban-murbans on either side of me!

  To H.B. and F.B.

  BAGDAD, Oct. 1st, 1923.

  All the R'ton doings sound very pleasant, it's curious to have been so lately part of them and now to be so rapt again in to the life of Iraq. But I am immensely happy here, there's no doubt of it...My work in the office grows more interesting — I've got all the tribal questions into my hands now...

  J.M. is full of his furnishings and decorations and I send you separately a drawing of a bit of the King 's throne for which we want a bit of stamped leather. Would you be so very angelic Father or Mother, to order it for me?

  I'm so very sorry to see the death of Aubrey in the telegrams, I feared he was spinning a bad cotton when I saw him in London.

  Oct. 4th. We had a terrific orgy last night! The dinner was excellent, Marie having supplied her best sauces and afterwards we played a preposterous game of cards invented by Capt. Clayton
with pistachios, for counters. Ken Cornwallis kept the score and so well that at the end everyone was proved to have won. Unfortunately no one could pocket his winnings as there was no one to pay, so we ate the pistachios and separated in peace.

  The temp. is rapidly falling — it's been down to a maximum of 95, very pleasant.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, October 13th, 1923.

  My article for the Round Table has also been approved by Sir Henry so it goes to Sir Percy by this mail. It's rather lifeless, I think, but at any rate it puts our case and it's a very encouraging story. On Friday I had a perfectly charming dinner with the Prime Minister en famille. The Minister of justice and his wife were also there. All the women are Turks of C'ple. They scarcely talk Arabic — Muhsin's wife talks none but his sister-in-law and her pretty daughter have learnt some. N.'s wife was very prettily dressed in a blue crèpe de chine gown. It was very agreeable and friendly...

  I had to work 8 solid hours that day on a despatch Sir Henry had asked me to draft for him no less than a comprehensive statement of the whole Iraq case for the frontier negotiations. I was very glad H.E. asked me to do it and it interested me immensely. Moreover he is pleased with it. It will now have to be shown to the King and the P.M...

  I've been spending most of the morning at the Ministry of Works where we are starting — what do you think? the Iraq Museum! It will be a modest beginning, but it is a beginning ...

  To H.B.

  Oct. 30th, 1923.

  The Naqib, the last time I saw him, expressed the hope that You had observed in what superior Arabic his letter was written. Few, he said, would have produced one like it. I replied that I had called your attention to the fact. There was a glorious stormy sunset and the tallest rainbow I've ever seen. It went on long after the sun was below the horizon, lifting itself higher and higher above the earth till it nearly touched the zenith. Light rains now are very beneficent. The weather has become delightful, a temperature rarely above 89 and cold dawns...

  My household is in a great jig about the King's coming to dinner and Marie has quickly made a complete new set of lovely shades for the electric lights! ...It has begun to rain — it has been showery for the last two days. It's nice and early for rain; all the desert tribes will go out to pasture and keep quiet...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 7th, 1923.

  I seem to have been socially very busy. On Friday morning we had the formal inauguration of the American School of Archaeology. There's no concrete school as yet because there's no money and no Director and no nothing. But I made the acquaintance of a charming man, Dr. Hewett, head of the American school in Mexico. He and his wife came to see me in the evening...On Sunday, the weather being heavenly, I got on to a pony at 10 o'clock and rode off to Fakhamah, 10 miles above Bagdad to see an old friend of mine, Faiq Eff. He greeted me with open arms and insisted on giving me lunch; very good it was, a ragout, sour curds and burghul, a sort of crushed wheat. While it was being prepared we walked in his date gardens and he told me of his recent journey to Syria to see a boy of his who was at the American College at Beyrout and has now gone to England to study. I've written to Professor Denison Ross about him. ...

  Did I tell you that Rishan has been missing for nearly a fortnight? He turned up to-day, very thin and very explanatory. But he doesn't say where he has been.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 14th, 1923.

  On Sunday I had Ken to dinner to meet Dr. and Mrs. Hewett. He's head of the American school in Mexico and told us most interesting things about American archaeology and anthropology. I expect you know — I didn't — that while they have all the ancient beasts they haven't ancient man. He didn't develop there and America was peopled from Asia via Behring Straits — at quite a comparatively late period.

  The Hewetts have now gone to Mosul. They're charming people, both of them. When they come back I'm going to take her to see an Arab family. She has never been in the East before and is deeply interested in everything.

  Thank you both a thousand times for your kind shoppings and writings. In reply to Mother, I'm afraid the brocades will be too expensive but I long for the patterns to arrive.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 21st, 1923.

  The Hewetts left. He wants me to come and lecture in America, but I shall not; think of the newspaper interviews!...

  Sir Henry is in Basrah, meeting Lady Dobbs; I'm looking forward very much to her coming. It will be very amusing to have someone so alert and intelligent.

  Nov. 22nd. Major Maclean tells us there's a new race game which everyone in London is playing. That would be the very thing When I have sticky dinner parties with people who don't play Bridge. Would you be very kind and send me this apparatus if it's not expensive...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 29th, 1923.

  My chief news is the arrival of Lady Dobbs. We all went to meet them at the station on Friday and found that Sabih Bey had spontaneously arranged an elegant reception, carpets on the ground and a police guard, the King's chief A.D.C. and all the officials. Poor Lady Dobbs was rather taken aback.

  She has with her a little cousin, Miss Miller, very bright-eyed and alert; she is learning Arabic for all she is worth. The meeting over I hurried home — it was 2 p.m. and found the magnates of the wilderness waiting in my garden by appointment — I had arranged to photograph them. Audah Abu Tai, Nuri al Shalan who is Fahad Bey's opposite number in Damascus — head of the western — and Ali Sulaiman of the Dulaim, our Dularn of the Euphrates.

  I shall now stop photographing for I have done my masterpiece with Audah and I shall not be able to approach it. I'll send you a copy next week — it's a magnificent engraving. But then he's a fine subject, the old eagle.

  On Saturday afternoon we all went to the races, H.M. and Their Exs. It was Lady Dobbs' introduction to our world and she was much entertained. Lady D. is an angel to me.

  We were all rather beaming on Saturday because the Cabinet had just been finally settled quite satisfactorily...Things are going almost incredibly well...

  To H.B.

  Dec. 6th 1923.

  I was having tea with H.M., it was the loveliest oriental scene. He was sitting in his garden near a fountain in full Arab dress, the white and gold of the Mecca princes. And by him, sitting on the stone lip of the fountain, were three of the great chiefs of the desert...Every where round them, tossed over the fountain edge, lying in swathes in the garden beds, gold and orange marigolds — waves and waves of them, with the white and yellow of chrysanthemums above them, echoing the King's white and gold. And the low sun sending long soft beams between the willow birches and the palms, brushing the gold and the orange the white and yellow into a brighter glow. Such a talk we had, too, of the desert and its secular strife...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 11th, 1923.

  I've made a new friend, the Director of Operations at the W.O. General Burnett Stuart, who has been out to have a look at us. I sat by him at dinner at the Air Marshal's on Thursday and told him things a General ought to know — all through dinner from beginning to end...

  The new railway crosses Euphrates by the Barraya and runs through the lovely gardens that gird Karbala. We got in about noon, glorious weather and an enthusiastic reception. I send you a picture of H.M. after he had cut the ribbons across the track, waiting for the trains to steam into the stations. Next to him is Sir Henry, then Col. Tainsh, Director of Railways, then H.M.'s chief A.D.C. then me. The Iraq flag flies from the engine. Then we went under a tent awning, gaily embroidered with carpets spread beneath, where the King received all the notables and sheikhs — he did it with a charming grace. So we sat down in rows, I between H.E. and the Mutasarrif on H.M's right hand and all the sheikhs in their brown robes and the turbaned gentlemen in their black and white; and a cinched, black-visaged Shiah got up and made a speech about the hope of Arab union resting in the King and his family... Next a boy scout read a poem in honour of the King and at the end
coupled "Long live the King" with "Long live the High Commissioner." And after another poem from a school boy, H.M. got up with a fine reply in thanks, his best manner, ending with a great phrase in which he expressed his assurance of success "because we walk hand in hand with the mightiest Power in the world."

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 31st, 1923.

  [They go for a shooting party.]

  We collected beaters in the little village at bridge head and walked down the right bank of the arm of the Euphrates called Abu Shorah for 3 hours. It was glorious. The sun grew hotter and hotter as we walked through the poplar thickets and the green tamarisk scrub and thorns where the partridge lie. We got 55 brace to three guns — Rasim is nothing of a shot and that day didn't hit a bird. At the last we reluctantly decided that we must turn back, crossed the river and shot a gorgeous island, at the end of which the birds rose in great coveys. Unfortunately we had neglected to take any food with us, so having shot 3 hours down we shot 3 hours up and were rather hungry and thirsty before we got back to the cars. Not that it mattered; we had had such tremendous fun that nothing mattered. Also Mr. Yapp deserves a testimonial, for he had made me such a fine pair of boots, lacing up to the knees, that though, as a rule, my skin comes off if you so much as look at it, after 6 hours hard walking I wasn't even rubbed. My costume, I must tell you, was a most successful creation — brown boots up to the knees and a brown tweed tunic down to them. We got back to Babylon an hour after sunset, washed, dined and went to bed. The whole 6 days we were there we never saw Babylon by daylight. We were off an hour before sunrise — aided by a full moon, and home after nightfall.

  We shot for another hour after lunch and then motored home. It was a good Xmas Day spent with friends. Altogether I think no more delightful expedition has ever been made in Iraq.

  Now everyone but me has gone to a fancy dress ball and I'm ending the year by writing to you.