Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  This afternoon I went into the desert which was fairly dry and now I'm going to pack for I go to Ur to-morrow.

  Iltyd and I are going to a little music party given by the Vernons to- night. I like the Vernons.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, May 5th, 1926.

  [This is during the Strike in England.]

  Everything else is swallowed up in the thought of what is happening to you. The scanty news in Reuter gives one some impression of the terrible upheaval. One peers into the future much as one did at the beginning of August, 1914 — absit omen! ...

  On Saturday night I had a bridge party to while away the time before my train left which wasn't till 11:30...It was rather a hot journey down to Ur, just hot enough to do nothing but laze and read a novel, but I restored the balance by unusual activity on arrival. There was a lot of pottery belonging to us left at the Expeditions Haus. I had brought 4 cases to pack it in and my museum clerk — to help — the capable station master provided us with men to carry the cases out across the desert and soon after 6 o'clock we were busy packing up by the light of a lantern and with the willing assistance of the Arab guards. It took us about two hours, after which we walked back in the night over the deliciously cool desert...

  The King arrived from Basrah about 5:30 a.m. on Monday. We were all ready to receive him, the Mutasarrif, Administrative Inspector, sheikhs, I, etc. When he had finished with salutations we decided to go off at once to the excavations and come back to breakfast after. H.M. and I stepped into the Mutasarrif's car and the others followed in taxis, a Minister and a varied lot of officials who were with H.M. It was a most successful visit; the King was much interested — we got through before 8, when the sun was just beginning to be a little hot, having seen all that Kings need see. Then breakfast in the King's car with a couple of Ministers and nice Mr. Bury (irrigation). Subsequently I returned to my own compartment. It was a special train and we stopped nowhere but at Diwaniyah where we moved into a restaurant car for lunch (I lunched with a Minister and two Saiyids, one a Senator, one a Deputy) and again at Hillah where the King sent for me to have tea with him. It was now cool again and H.M. and I, a Minister and a courtier played bridge till we reached Bagdad at 6:45 p.m. on April 3rd. There I learnt that the strike had begun — Ken came in before dinner with the news. Since when we have all talked of little else.

  Telegrams continue to come from the Colonial Office we suppose that Sir John Shuckburgh is transported thither in a government lorry.

  We suppose and we wonder and we wish we knew more. Incidentally I don't know whether letters will reach you or how long they will be delayed, so I shall not write any other than this.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, May 11th, 1926.

  Your letter of April 28th, written on the eve of the strike reached me by last mail; I wonder whether letters will have got through in the first week and fear that the next letter may be delayed. We have no news but Reuter and you may imagine how eagerly we await it. Indeed anxiety is never out of my mind; there has been word of disturbances at Middlesbrough and to-day there are railway accidents. These things don't make one feel easier. s You ask about my plans for the summer. This doesn't seem to be the moment to make any plans which involve expenditure, for I don't know whether I shall have any income or whether any of us will. My duty to the museum is of the first importance. I can't go away and leave all those valuable things half transferred and the work goes very slowly. It will take months and months, I think. I have made a little headway this week. The alterations in the building itself are finished and a few simple fittings in one of the lower rooms were ready so on Sunday morning I called on Squadron Leader Harnett to help and we placed all the big gate sockets (dull things but valuable) on the bench along the wall that had been made for them, or rather we superintended the placing of them by porters. In the middle of the wall I had had a solid cement pedestal set up and onto this we hauled (I didn't) a great roughly blocked out Babylonian statue. When we had done, we were quite pleased with the look of it, but we have not got any further for we are waiting for a wooden pedestal for a statue which is to stand in the middle of the room and some shallow boxes in which to set some broken bits of relief in cement. In one corner I am going to reconstruct the tomb of a deified king of Ur which was found this year, and as that is about all which the room will hold for the present (I mean, I have nothing more for that room), it ought not to take very long to get it finished. It will look, no doubt, rather home-made, but even now it is beginning to look like a museum. When it is ready, I want quickly to make a catalogue of it — no great task — and then get the King to open it so as to show people that we are doing something...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, May 13th, 1926.

  I don't see how I can possibly make any plans for the moment so of course keep the pageant where you like. I think it is extremely unlikely that I can afford to come back and out again this summer — it's a very expensive business. It would be worse to finish the museum and then be told not to come back here if I thought that the best course which I probably shall. Bernard is going on leave in about 3 weeks and when he is away Sir Henry rather leans on me, not so much to do things as to talk them over. He is full of plans for big administrative work, which doesn't in fact touch me. They interest me very much, his schemes and I think them on the whole very good.

  Oh dear, I wonder what it is all like with you — what it will be like after, if there's any sort of an "after." ...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, May 18th, 1926.

  I had scarcely posted my letter last week, when we got news of the ending of the general strike, but that doesn't mean the ending of difficulties and you are still in the thick of them. Indeed, I don't know whether your worst difficulties are not just about to begin...

  I have been very busy with my museum, but it has not got far yet. I go in at 7 a.m. and spend a couple of hours there before I go to office. On Sunday we can work until it gets too hot and fortunately it is being remarkably cool weather. In a day or two I shall have my own workroom with an electric fan which will make things easier...As for cases, tables and things, they have not begun to materialize yet and for the moment I am occupied with the big stone objects which do not need to be behind glass.

  I forget if you know Sir John Cadman. He is, or is going to be, Chairman of the A.P.O.C. He was here a year and a half ago and brought a letter to me from Willie Tyrrell. He passed through again last week on his way back from Persia, where he had been to represent the A.P.O.C. at the coronation of the Shah. During the 4 days he spent here he succeeded in getting through the agreement with the Iraq Government for the working of the oil at Khanaqin which has been hanging fire for three years or more. I met him every day, lunching with Sir Henry, and was thrilled to hear his account of the way matters were proceeding. If all goes well- and there's no reason why it should not — the Iraq ought to begin to draw royalties next year and to have cheap oil from the Khanaqin refinery. On Sunday, the night before Sir John left, Sir Henry gave a large dinner party to meet the King. Sir John was sitting between H.M. and me and they spent most of the dinner in exchanging sentiments of gratitude and hopeful anticipation. As they had no common tongue, it fell to me to interpret for them. I felt I earned my dinner.

  Sir John had with him as secretary a young Bridgeman, son of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a nice boy. He, and a very attractive and intelligent young soldier in the Iraq army, Captain Edwells, came to tea with me on Saturday, after which I took them sight seeing.

  Iltyd is going to Mosul for a month, which is very tiresome. He dined with me on Tuesday and we played piquet afterwards. He is such a pleasant companion — I miss him very much when he is away. Lionel is also a great stand by. He comes in frequently to tea on his way back from office and we walk together to his house at Alwiyah about a mile away, through what you might almost call fields. But now that the barley is being cut they are gradually relapsing from fields into desert... Ken and I dined with him
last night and had an agreeable evening. We caught some huge hawk moths. Lionel is rather good at lepidoptera. and Ken is an expert. Between us we are getting quite a collection. It is an amusing way of passing the time.

  I lunch always with Sir Henry and we discuss the affairs of the day, public and private, and then, if I have been early at the Museum, I go to sleep for a bit when I get home; in the evening if I am alone I read Babylonian history or books about seals and things so that I may know a little better how to arrange the Museum. It sounds rather a monotonous existence, but it is inexpensive and peaceful which, I am afraid, is more than can be said for yours.

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, May 26th, 1926.

  Your letter of May 11th was the very first news I had of your doings during the general strike. You don't sound as if you were living in a strike at all, but it is wonderful how little difference it made, even in London, I gather from Elsa. But if the coal strike drags on and on, it will be very dreadful and it must end in dislocating life. Molly hasn't written since just after she was ill.

  I am sure that Maurice must have been admirable at Middlesbrough but there were anxious moments, weren't there. Oh dear, isn't it a horrid world.

  I hope you won't think I'm wrong in saying that I can't go away yet and leave all my antiquities unarranged and unguarded. I have been writing to father about it. I'll see later how things go on, but it's so very expensive to return home and then come back here that I think I would rather finish and then go away. It isn't because I don't immensely want to see you and father, but I know you will understand that it means a very great deal to leave everything that I have been doing here and find myself really rather loose on the world. I don't see at all clearly what I shall do, but of course I can't stay here forever; already I feel that when Bernard is here, and Sir Henry, I'm not at all necessary in the office.

  I would have liked to stay in the Department of Antiquities if I could come home every year, but I don't feel justified in asking the Iraq Government to give me anything like a permanent post. The Director here should know cuneiform and be a trained museum official. What I can do is just to tide them over...

  All the same I feel very much torn. Tell me what you think, will you please.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, May 26th, 1926.

  I received by last mail your letters of May 5th and 11th and read them with the deepest interest. Also letters from mother and Elsa, of May 11th, so that I had a good all round view of what things were like. Your forecast as to the duration of the general strike was very good and I was particularly glad that you gave me a resumé of dealings with the colliers because Sir Henry is always asking me about it and your outline was so clear. I am going to have it typed for distribution to my colleagues...Anyhow, I take it that we shall have very little income this year.

  That is not the only reason, though it's a very good one, for my wanting to stay here this summer. I hope you won't be very much disappointed. What I vaguely think of doing (but don't talk about it) is to stay with the High Commissioner till Bernard comes back in the autumn; then to resign and ask the Iraq Government to take me on as Director of Antiquities for six months or so. (I'm only Hon. Director now, you know.) I should not in any case stay much longer with the H.C.; it has really ceased to be my job. Politics are dropping out and giving place to big administrative questions in which I'm not concerned and at which I'm no good. On the other hand, the Department of Antiquities is now a full time job. I am trying to get the Cabinet to let me deal with all the things the Germans left at Babylon as I should deal with a new excavation. Privately, I have put up the Deutch Orient Gesellschaft to make the proposal and they have suggested sending out Andrae, who dug at Shergat, to arrange and catalogue the objects, after which I would make a division. I know Andrae very well and like him; the fact that I was working with him would make everything go smoothly and the Iraq Government has complete confidence in me as Director and would not question anything I did. But all this would mean far too much work to be treated as a secondary employment. Yale is nibbling at the biggest mound in the Iraq, and if I have three excavations on my hands besides Babylon and the Museum it is very certain that I cannot do anything else. I am waiting to see how all this turns out, but already I know that I ought to have all my time for the Museum. As it is I now go there from 7 to 8:30 or SO every morning and get to the office about 9. That has meant a pretty strenuous four and a half hours but I find that I can just get through the work, sometimes taking papers home to read in the evening. The weather has been beautifully cool. On Sunday (Whit Sunday) I worked from 7 to 1 in the Museum without any fans. Monday was a holiday in the office though I could not take it all as I had a report to write, but by doing some of it on Sunday afternoon I got from 7 to 1 in the Museum. One big room downstairs, the Babylonian Stone Room, is now finished and I am only waiting for the catalogue, which I have written, to be translated and printed, to ask the King to open it — just to show them that we are doing something. But this is the easiest of all the rooms, big objects not under glass, it is when I come to the upstairs rooms and all the little objects that the difficulties begin. The mere cataloguing and numbering of them is terrific. The cataloguing of things from Ur and Kish for the past three years has been done and I have now nearly finished the things of this year. But the serial number of the Bagdad Museum has to be put onto everything and until each object is in the catalogue we can't number it. There are a mass of things from other places than Ur and Kish which we have not begun on. Then will come the arrangement in cases — none of which have begun to come in yet. I have moved about half the things from the old room into the new Museum and they are lying about, some on tables, some on the floor, a desolating spectacle. In the course of the next ten days it will be even worse, for by that time I hope I may have got almost everything moved over. I don't think I could possibly leave it like this. If in the middle of the summer I felt tired or seedy, I might have got things into enough order to come away for a bit, but it's very expensive to come as far as England as I have Marie to take too. I'll see later.

  The afternoons, after tea, hang rather heavy on my hands...We can't swim yet because the river is so high and the current so strong. This last week I have sometimes gone into the Museum at 5, but it will soon be too hot to do that with any comfort and it is not really a good plan because one gets no exercise. I did it in order to finish cataloguing the Ur and Kish things of this year...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, June 2nd, 1926.

  ... Lionel and I yesterday were busy discussing the programme he is drawing up for a university curriculum. Sir Henry is pressing for a faculty of Fine Arts. Lionel's idea is to combine languages and literature — at least French and English — with history, political economy, all in a three years' course...

  I suggested that, in special historic subjects Babylonia and Assyria should be included. I should like to lecture on that myself, but I don't think the scheme will materialize for a long time ...

  Nevertheless, Sir Henry does put a great deal of vitality into things and I always stand amazed at his general capacity.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, June 2nd, 1926.

  I can't refer to the Times because I have had no papers since the general strike. I can't think why they didn't come last week. Anyway the last Times I received was that of April 28th while your letter from Mt. Grace was dated May 18th. The 'sécateur' for Haji Naji has arrived, however. I have not taken it to him yet because I have been so busy in the Museum. Profiting by remarkably cool weather I've been there between tea and dinner as well as in the early morning. I know he will love it. I will try to take it down to him on Sunday. There is a little basket of fruit from him on my dining room table most mornings.

  To-morrow we have a holiday for the King's birthday and I shall have a whole day for my Museum. That enthusiast, Squadron Leader Harnett, is coming too. We have been engaged in taking down a beautiful late Abbassid inscription (not brick) which was dropping out of th
e ruined building in which it stood...It is coming out very well and Squadron Leader Harnett is now going to clean it and build it up against the wall of the big Arab room. We spent a long peaceful morning on Sunday cataloguing cylinder seals...He is certainly a great asset and he seems to be amused with what some people might consider a very tedious job. I don't, for there is an indescribable attraction about these fine little things. The worst of it is that I can't extract the furniture out of the railway people so we don't get to anything final.

  I haven't told you about the floods for a long time. The Euphrates, after threatening to cover the country up to the embankment of the Hillah railway, thought better of it. The Tigris is definitely going down, but one of the deputies told me the other day that the cellars of his house in the middle of Bagdad, a good deal below the river level, are 4ft. deep in water...

  To F.B.

  BAGDAD, June 9th, 1926.

  I unfortunately overslept myself this afternoon and the King is coming to dinner. I hope you will like the picture postcards I sent to Father of two of the exhibits in the Museum. They do rather fill me with pride. I haven't got any of my cases or tables yet for the upper rooms and I don't know when they will begin to come in. Meantime, with the help of S/L Harnett and occasionally Mr. Cooke, I am getting on with the numbering of all the objects. This year's finds have all been catalogued and numbered and all the cylinder seals are done — we could arrange them at once if we had the cases. That will be an absorbingly interesting task.

  I have an extremely nice Indian foreman who is deputed to do all the odds and ends of jobs that arise — such as building up Bur Sin's shrine. He is so capable and so pleasant. And I shall be very much interested to see what the Arab bigwigs think of the lower room which the King opens next week. The one or two who have dropped in to see us at work have been much impressed.