Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  Sylvia also came to dine ...On Friday she moved over to me. She has Marie's room which we have made very comfortable and Marie sleeps in the garden room — the sitting room when you were here. My household are thrilled to have her and put themselves in four to serve her...

  On Saturday afternoon we annexed Mr. Warner (our travelling companion who is on his way to the Teheran Legation) and took him off to call on Haji Naji. Haji Naji took us through all the orange gardens, loaded us with fruit and flowers and gave us tea and coffee. It was so delicious- Sylvia loved it...

  I called on all the Ministers, found them all in their offices and had a most satisfactory talk with each one of them : they are worn to a shadow what with having to sit in Parliament all the morning, get through their office work between12and 4 and then attend a meeting of the Government party to settle the line which is to be taken next day in the house. But the system is working excellently...

  They have almost got through the work of the preliminary session (the budget) and hope to adjourn next week. The new session meets on November 1 but their scheme is to open it formally and then prorogue for a month or 6 weeks. I devoutly hope they will for I find the compilation of the parliamentary reports from the very bad reports in the vernacular papers a most exhausting business. One begins by reading all the papers through and then one compiles a composite report drawn from all four.

  On Sunday afternoon Sylvia and I went to the races. It was excessively hot — it has been over 90 every day since we came back — and S. wasn't feeling very fit, though she would not hear of not going...

  She was looking quite enchanting in a black and white muslin gown. She creates a sensation in Bagdad society whenever she appears. H.E. brought us back and sat talking for a bit. Sylvia then went to tea and read while I tackled some of my gradually diminishing pile of papers. At 7:30 I went in and found her very unwell and in great pain. I sent at once for a Doctor; Sinbad is still away but I got hold of Woodman whom we both like very much. Her temperature was 104

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, October 14th, 1925.

  On Monday morning S. was better. I saw her Doctor before I went to the office and heard that he considered her malady to be nothing but the usual sort of internal upset that almost every newcomer goes through before they settle down to Bagdad. I've no doubt the unaccustomed heat had something to do with it ...

  [After this, Sylvia had ups and downs of health, although able at intervals to join in seeing the people and the sights of Bagdad all of which she enjoyed very much. It was finally decided that she ought not to remain in the East, and she returned to England in November, 1925, to Gertrude's great disappointment.]

  Sir Henry has written a quite admirable report on the history of the country since 1920 — taking it up where my white paper left it. The C.O. is going to publish it and you must read it at once. There is a really beautiful page about Sir Percy with a very graceful mention of me at the end. For once in my life I have liked being mentioned by name as part of Sir Percy's material...

  ...no, railway discussions can't be very cheerful at this juncture. I do wish you hadn't such horrid things to do — I feel a real compunction at having such nice ones to do myself.

  ...On Sunday morning I didn't go out — far from it. I had breakfast in bed and tried to make believe that I wasn't an overworked Oriental secretary. I wrote a remarkable memo. on tribal customs, the second. I had spent all Saturday morning over the first at the office.

  ...In spite of all I have said of my activities in the office you must please remember that I am not a Person...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 17th, 1925.

  On Sunday the King at last arrived. Ken took Sylvia and me to the aerodrome where all high dignitaries and notables were assembled. We waited there for about three-quarters of an hour but it was very amusing talking to all the people. At 11 H.M.'s great plane came in sight, convoyed by 9 little planes, a most beautiful spectacle, and made a perfect landing, drawing up exactly opposite the reception tents. H.E., Zaid and Ghazi went forward to greet him as he stepped out, the Ministers, Advisers and I followed, and out he came looking very well and very much pleased while the British guard of honour played the Arab national tune. It was immensely effective and has made a deep impression here on the Arab mind.

  Having made my curtsey I retired into the background while H.M. sat in his tent and received the notables. S. and I drove behind his procession with Ken to the end of the town to see the decorations and the crowd. There is no doubt he has come back with a large and shining halo...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Nov. 25th, 1925.

  ...The two Americans dined with Mr. Edwards who is a very eager amateur. After dinner we three examined pottery which they had picked up on the tells near Khabu, a northern tributary of the Euphrates. I'm going to bore you by telling you that a lot of it was our oldest Sumerian stuff which we have got both in the Southern Delta and round Kirkuk, all of which means that the earliest Sumerian civilization (circa 3300 B.C. a date well within the margin) covered the whole area of the two rivers. Some other pottery they had obviously much later, which they could not place. I had a vague idea that I knew it. I got down one of the Hertzfeld's great Euphrat-Tigris Gebiet volumes and there it was! exactly, exactly the same in his pictures late classical or early Byzantine. I may add that the Americans jumped (too hastily) to the conclusion that they had met in me the first authority on Mesopotamian pottery...

  ...My hat what a social asylum bridge is

  ...Next day Sunday, I went to the Museum where I had an assignation with the two Americans. We spent a glorious hour over early pottery and all of us learnt a good deal — I know I did. On the way home I showed them a couple of mediaeval buildings and an 8th century marble mahrab, the oldest monument in Bagdad. They were thrilled and so was I. We went to the Diala and walked along the bank in palm groves, most lovely though why a bit of desert and a stretch of and a few palms and a sunset should have been so lovely I don't know. It was only God's bright and intricate device I suppose...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 9th, 1925.

  To-day I have worked like a beaver all the morning — Bernard being away I had to do a lot of his work...I have a terrific amount to do — the annual report and an article for the Encyclopoedia and I don't know what more.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, December 30th, 1925.

  I've had some adventures myself. Following the example of everyone in Bagdad — nearly — I had a terrific cold in the head last week and when I wrote to you I had been indoors for two days, but I didn't tell you "not wishing to trouble you." Bernard was in bed with a cold too so it was all most inconvenient...

  On Sunday I put on more clothes than I have ever worn before, and with a hot water bottle on my knees, went up with the King and Ken and Iltyd in a closed trolley to Khanaqin. We got to the farm about sunset, found some of the new furniture arrived and spent a happy time arranging it, the King and I began then to feel very tired and went to bed immediately after dinner. Next morning I felt rather bad; they all came in to see if I wanted things and were in favour of not going out shooting. However I shoo'd them off and Zaya looked after me till 5 when they came in. I felt rather better and had them in before dinner to play a game of Bridge with me in bed. But the next day I was pretty bad so Ken sent for the very good local doctor only to find that he was spending Xmas away and immediately, without telling me, telegraphed to Bagdad for a doctor. By that time I wasn't taking much notice, except that I had a general feeling that I was slipping into great gulfs ...Finally at 6 arrived Dr. Spencer. He brought with him a charming nurse, Miss Hannifan, who sat up with me all night. They were both of them convinced that I had got pneumonia, but not a bit of it. Next morning it was clear that it was no worse than pleurisy and a pretty general congestion. So they delayed the departure of the morning train by an hour, thus do we behave with our railway management, and took me down to Bagdad ... They sat a good deal in my compartm
ent and amused me, I had a very comfortable journey. An ambulance met me at the station and took me straight to hospital, I told Ken to go and sit on my letters for I didn't think I could bear them while I felt so weak, but he did far better, for he found your telegram of the 24th in my house and sent it straight down to me. So by the 27th I was feeling that acute anxiety was over — I hope I am right.

  [This refers to Hugo. See last paragraph of this chapter.]

  I have spent two very quiet days in bed. Marie comes in the morning and Ken and Iltyd to tea. The Prime Minister paid me a visit this morning and Sayad Afhan came the morning before, and Elsie Sinbad to-day before lunch. Sinbad came in yesterday coming as soon as he got back to see how I was going on. Otherwise, — with the strong backing up of Dr. Spencer, I've refused to be flooded with visitors after the Arab fashion, and I'm quickly getting well. I have had a night nurse up to now, but I feel sure I shall not need her after to-night — Miss Isherwood, I like her very much too, but Miss Hannifan is a nurse who almost makes it worth while to be ill. And lest you may think that I'm tottering about on edges of graves, I may tell you that Drs. Spencer, Woodman and Dunlop all declare that if I hadn't the most remarkable constitution I should certainly have now been dangerously ill with pneumonia.

  [This December and January were overshadowed for Gertrude by the deep anxiety which she shared with us about her much-loved brother Hugo. He contracted typhoid on his voyage home from South Africa with his wife and children in the autumn of 1925, and when they arrived in England on December 11th, he was desperately ill. Hope was almost abandoned. In the third week of December, however, his condition improved, and at Christmas and the New Year the cloud seemed to be lifting. Then he had a relapse. He died on February 2nd, 1926.]

  CHAPTER XXVI

  1925-1926 - BAGDAD

  To Hon. Mrs. HENLEY.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 9th, 1925.

  ... I am anxious about Hugo. My parents write me that they hear by wireless that he has pneumonia on board ship coming home and I know no more. If anything happened to him it would be such a terrible blow...

  To the same.

  BAGDAD, Dec. 23rd, 1925.

  ... You can't think what a memory you have left with me, of courage and delicious companionship, and of distinguished wit and high character. I often think about you and I always think how fortunate I am to have you for a cousin and a friend.

  You will realise that I am terribly unhappy about Hugo...My heart aches for my darling mother and father and for his poor wife. Isn't it all tragic. If it weren't for love and friendship the world would be a bitter place, but thank God for them, and I will try to make my corner warmer and kinder. I feel I have so much more than I deserve.

  To the same.

  BAGDAD, Jan. 15th, 1926.

  ... I don't suppose you can imagine how often I have missed you and how much. Not only to talk to for myself...we seem to have left such a lot of things untalked about, we Must have wasted our time — but also when there are other people here, to throw the ball so that we may catch it and throw it back. Mr. Cooke says "she woke us all up" and that's perfectly true, but being awake to what companionship can be like it is hard to have it snatched from me. I keep seeing in imagination all your darling ways and your charming grace and hearing echoes of your delicious voice — but there it is...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, January 6th, 1926.

  I can't tell you how I've enjoyed reading the "Confessions of a Capitalist." It's a book everyone should read and I'm now going to lend it to all my friends. It contains as much good sound sense as there are sentences to the page. I did rejoice over it — things like the fallacy involved in profit sharing, you remember. I can't say that any of it is exactly new to me (except Pareto's law which I hadn't heard of before) for I have been brought up so well that I could hear you saying most of the things I was reading in the book. But he has put it well together and in fact what I really meant to say was "God bless my soul! how any" etc. That's what I feel. I hope it will be widely read, that book, and that it will cause a storm of controversy over which its author will sail joyously with his good heavy facts for a keel. Anyhow, you see you gave me a most successful present and I've been talking about it to everyone who comes to see me ... are all scrambling for it and I'm only wondering which of them will read it quickest so that I may get it on to more people still.

  That and the 3rd vol. of the Cambridge Ancient History which has just come out, have been the staples of my days, but if you want to laugh feebly I can tell you a silly ass book which will help you — "Bill the Conqueror"; I forget the name of the talented author, but he nearly gave me a relapse and I'm sure you would feel that way too. Lionel is now seeking round Bagdad for the rest of his books. "Bill the Conqueror" was supplied by Ken. For good simple nonsense he is not easy to beat.

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, January 6th, 1926.

  I've been having a little quiet illness of my own but it's nearly gone. I was quite bad for a day or two, but now they all saying that they really wouldn't have bothered if they had known the kind of person they were dealing with. For three nights I had the most preposterous sort of nightmares, mostly about Iraq and the treaty and so on, but I'm pleased to remember that one was about flints, which I've been hearing about lately. You'll scarcely believe me but someone (in the nightmare) gave me a flint which had a fossil shell in it and I was so fearfully angry at anyone being such an idiot as to think that a flint could have a fossil shell in it, that I had to wake myself up and say what I thought about it. I found myself saying it and afterwards thought that, 'mutatis mutandis,' it was just the kind of thing that Father would do when he was ill...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, January 13th, 1926.

  My convalescence has been happily spent reading a great deal of archaeology and writing an article for the Encyclopaedia on the Iraq. The article would have been better if I had not been forced to compress so fearfully. Even as it is, I don't think it is so bad, but it has to be vetted by the Colonial office and perhaps they will take the spark of life out of it. I'm now embarked on the Annual Report for the League and am (if the truth were known) postponing my return to the office in order to break the back of it. For it is a terrific effort to get through a big piece of work while one is involved in the daily drudgery. I am, however, quite well, sleep, eat and go out walking daily. Indeed I think that the ten days of enforced idleness has done me a great deal of good.

  The Iraq Cabinet has accepted the new treaty and I don't think there will be any difficulty about it in our Parliament...

  ...You need not be alarmed about our 25 years' mandate. If we go on as fast as we've gone for the last two years, Iraq will be a member of the League before five or six years have Passed, and our direct responsibility will have ceased. It's almost incredible how the country is settling down. I look back to 1921 or 1922 and can scarcely believe that so great a change has taken place...It's all being so interesting. Archaeology and my museum are taking a bigger and bigger place. I do hope this year to get the Museum properly lodged and arranged. It's such fun isn't it, to make things new from the beginning. ...

  Did I tell you I was now started off on flints, the most enthralling study. We have nothing as yet in the Iraq earlier than historic times (4000 B.c. downwards, roughly) but I'm going to set the oil geologists to find the oldest iron terraces and see if we can't pick up palaeolithic flints on them. If you could send me any short and handy treatise on flints I should be much obliged. I gather that, as a mineral, they are not very old, not what geologists call old...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, January 20th, 1926.

  I'm afraid that this will be a short and dull letter for the truth is that I'm being overworked! I have the rather tedious 'corvée' of the annual report upon me and to fit it into the ordinary office routine and take a little necessary exercise is about all I can do. I hope to get through it in the next fortnight and then to go to see the excavations at Ur and Kish which will be very
refreshing...

  You will please note that the Iraq is the only eastern country which pulls together with Great Britain and the reason is that we have honestly tried out here to do the task that we said we were going to do, i.e., create an independent Arab state...

  Your letter and Mother's of Jan. 6th gave such a satisfactory account of Hugo and I also had a most delightful letter from Frances. It is to me more and more miraculous that he should be alive, isn't it to you? To have been so terribly ill under such unfavourable conditions and to have recovered is almost incredible. It is so comforting to think that now every circumstance is favourable...

  What a good plan that Herbert should go with you to Italy. He will be the most delightful addition to the party.

  I did so love Mother's letter of Jan. 6 with the account of Xmas doings and I'm only not writing to her this week because, as I told you, my fingers are worn to the bone!

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, January 27th, 1926.

  ...It has been bad weather and I have done very little but work. The horrible annual report can't make the League of Nations yawn more than I have over it. It's the dullest thing I've ever written. It's so much more interesting to write about wicked people than good ones, and the same applies to states. The better we get the duller we shall be.

  Incidentally I have read the enchanting volume of Page's "Letters to President Wilson." Do you remember when Lichnowsky accuses the U.S.A. of putting off the evil day in Mexico, and Page replies "What better can you do with an evil day than put it off?"

  Now do you know, that is what I feel about leaving here. I simply can't bear to think of it, and I don't...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, 3rd March, 1926.