Amman January 14 (1914) Dearest Mother, I have got my letters from
 Damascus and among them yours of the 31st, which was indeed welcome.
 My troubles are over.  I have today permission from the Vali to go
 where I like.  The permission comes just in time for all my plans were
 laid and I was going to run away tomorrow night.  They could not have
 caught me.  However I am now saved the trouble - and amusement!  - of
 this last resource.  The delay has had the advantage of giving Fattuh
 a few days to pick up strength.  He looks, and is, much better than
 when he joined me, but one does recover from typhoid in the twinkling
 of an eye.  Now, I think, he will be able to travel without fatigue.
 Tomorrow I camp again at Ziza, in order to pick up two rafias - one of
 the Beni Sakhr and one of the Sherarat who will serve us as guarantors
 when we meet their tribes, as we probably shall in a few days.
 I have made the acquaintance of all the leading inhabitants of 'Amman!
 Today I attended a Circassian wedding and drank tea with the
 Protestant congregation which numbers 15 families.
 Your news is not all good.  I am so sorry for Sylvia and I regret the
 little cousin whom I have never known.  Will you please give Sylvia
 and Anthony my love and sympathy.
 I never thanked you for your letters and enclosures from papers which
 I received last week.  There was much excitement in my camp over the
 pictures of my family in the Asquith party.
 I very much regret Spencer Lyttelton.  Poor Sarah!  two brothers in
 six months.  I was very fond of Mr Spencer and I remember what a dear
 he was when he was at Rounton.
 Goodbye my beloved Father and Mother.  Your affectionate daughter
 Gertrude

 FIRST PAGE MISSING?
 (Friday January 9) As I said before, paff!  I'm caught.  I was an
 idiot to come in so close to the railway, but I was like an ostrich
 with its head in the sand and didn't know all the fuss there had been
 about me.  Besides I wanted my letters and Fattuh.  Well, I've got
 both.  Fattuh turned up yesterday morning, just arrived from Damascus,
 still looking pale and thin (and no wonder) but with a clean bill of
 health from Dr Mackinnon.  And do you know I really believe that his
 coming makes up for all the misadventure.  I have missed him
 dreadfully, my faithful travelling companion.  Never in the world was
 anybody given more devoted service and friendship than he gives me.
 He was in the seventh heaven at being with us.  Well, meantime none of
 the 4 men whom I had sent in to Madeba and Ziza to buy stores had
 returned.  In the middle of the morning one of the camel drivers
 arrived with chopped straw and after the camels and I had lunched (I
 on all the luxuries Fattuh had brought from Damascus) I rode off to
 Mshetta, which is only an hour from my camp.  As we came back, Ali,
 the camel driver, looked up and said "Are these horsemen or camel
 riders going to our tents?" I looked, and they were horsemen, and what
 is more they were soldiers and when we rode in they were sitting round
 our campfire.  More and more came, to the number of 10 and last of all
 a very angry, rude (and rather drunken) little Jack in Office of a
 Chowwish who said they had been looking for me ever since I left
 Damascus.  There it was.  We put on a good countenance, and when the
 chowwish stormed we held our tongue.  I sent off at once telegrams to
 Beyrout and Damascus to the two consuls, but I had to send a man with
 them to Madeba, and the chowwish intercepted them and put the man, one
 of my camel drivers, into the Ziza castle, practically a prisoner.
 Thither he presently sent Fattuh also, on some imaginary insult (F.
 had said nothing) and then he ransacked our baggage and took
 possession of our arms and posted men all round my tent.  All this he
 had not t he smallest right to do with an icy calmness for which God
 give me the reward; and later in the evening he began to feel a little
 alarmed himself- and sent to ask me whether I would like Fattuh back.
 But I refused to have Fattuh routed out again, for the night was as
 icy as my demeanour, and I, shivering in bed, had some satisfaction in
 thinking of how much those UNWELCOME guardians of mine were shivering
 outside.  The temp erature was 22 degrees and there was a frozen fog.
 Today we have waited for the Qaimmaqam of Salt to turn up or send
 permission for us to go elsewhere - he is the nearest[?] authority - I
 only wish he would come.  The chowwish left us in the early morning,
 to the care of 6 or 7 soldiers, and turned up in the evening very
 affable.  We have spent the day not unpleasantly, gossiping with the
 soldiers, mending a broken tent pole; and also in very long periods of
 gossip in Fattuh's tent, one member of the expedition or another
 dropping in to share in the talk.  and I am busy forging new plans;
 for I am not beaten yet.  But I fancy this road is closed and I shall
 probably have to go up to Damascus and start afresh via Palmyra.  The
 Baghdad Residency is the best address for me.  It's all rather comic;
 I don't much care.  It's a laughable episode in the adventure, but I
 don't think the adventure is ended; only it must take another turn.  I
 have done some interesting work in the last 3 weeks - just what I
 meant to do, but I have not enjoyed the thing much up to now and my
 impression is that this is not the right road.  I think I can do
 better; anyhow I will try.  God ordains.  Fattuh observes cheerfully:
 "I spent the first night of the journey in the railway station, and
 the second in prison, now where?"
 Saturday Jan 10.  So far all is well.  The Qaimmaqam not having
 arrived this morning I came down to 'Amman and here I found him on his
 way to me, a charming, educated man, a Christian, willing and ready to
 let me go anywhere I like by any road I please.  The Commandant here,
 a Circassian, ditto.  But there comes in a question of conscience.  I
 don't want to get the Qaimmaqam into any trouble by taking advantage
 of his kindness, so I have telegraphed to Damascus for permission to
 visit the ruins round Ziza and if I get that (I see no reason why I
 should not) I shall have relieved my friend of all responsibility and
 shall be free, as occasion offers, to go my own way.  I am bound to
 say that I shall be glad when the permission comes.  It was curious
 riding through hilly ways and cultivated country today after these
 weeks of desert.  But such weather!  wind and sleet and it's blowing
 like the devil tonight.  They wanted me to sleep in the serai, but I
 preferred my tent.  This is such a wonderful place.  If only it is
 fine tomorrow I shall like seeing it again.  I was here with the
 Rosens 14 years ago.  But it has been a heavy road for the laden
 camels, up and down hill.  Your camel is not a mountain bird in this
 part of the world.  They all know me in these parts.  I have met here
 a nephew of Namrud, the man who helped me into the Jebel Druze in 1905
 - vide the Desert and the Sown.  And they are all as nice as can be.
 Altogether the misadventure is rather fun so far.  What will Damascus
 say?  Well, I shall know tomorrow.  But I can take no other course
 than that which I have taken.
 January 11.  The reply has not yet come from Damascus, but the
 Qaimmaqam thinks they can't refuse the permit, so I wait with an easy
 mind.  I am sending letters up to Damascus tonight and this shall go
 with them.  I have spent the day receiving and returning visits from
 the notables of 'Amman - and it has been very amusing.  Also I took a
 long walk with the Qaimmaqam in the afternoon and had an interesting
 talk with him.  He is a very nice man, but these Christians always
 give me a hopeless feeling.  They walk blindfold and won't look facts
 in the face.  It is not easy for them to work with the Mohammadans,
 but if you think they meet them half way - well, it isn't so.  Yet
 this is a capable man and intelligent.  I have liked being with him
 and with the good old Circassian magnates - I expect I shall be here
 tomorrow too.  There was no sun today, but tonight it is fine again
 and I have a good deal of photography to do tomorrow.  Ever dearest
 Father your very affectionate daughter Gertrude I have written to Sir
 Louis.

 January 19.  I must begin a chronicle though Heaven knows where it
 will be sent off.  We left 'Amman on the 15th, I having given the
 authorities at 'Amman an assurance that the Ott.  Govt.  was not
 responsible for me.  This amounted to little, for wherever I went
 without gendarmes the Govt.  had the right to wash its hands of me.
 And I could not take gendarmes into the desert.  I rode up that day to
 the farm of some Christians in the hill above Ziza, where I was given
 a regal entertainment - Also Nimrud, the man who helped me in 1905,
 came up and spent the night there.  I was delighted to see him.  I
 must tell you I was in some trouble about my muleteers.  The three men
 I had brought from Damascus were very uncertain as to whether they
 would come on with me.  I think they really dreaded the perils of the
 road.  While we were at 'Amman, we had fetched another man from
 Damascus, a nephew of my old guide Muhammad; his name is Sa'id.  It
 was as well we did so, for on the 16th, just as I was staring the 3
 Agail threw down their camel sticks and declared that they would not
 come.  I had Sa'id, and my negro camelherd, Fellah, a peasant, on
 their farm (his name is Mustafa); and I engaged as third man an Agaili
 who had followed us from 'Amman in hope of getting work.  His name is
 Ali, not to be confused with Ali Mansur, the postman guide of 1911 who
 is still with me and will never, I think, leave me.  Besides these I
 have Salim, another nephew of Mohammad's, whom I took at first in
 Fattuh's place; he is an admirable servant and a very nice, well
 educated man; I like him immensely.  And finally I have Fattuh, the
 lynch pin of the whole party.  So we set out.  My hosts provided me
 with 2 rafiqs, a man of the Sherarat of whom I have not seen much, and
 a man of the Beni Sakhr, Sayyah, who is a delightful companion.  They
 themselves rode with me till beyond Ziza and then by the Mecca
 railway, they, Nimrud and I, and various slaves and retainers made a
 hearty lunch and I parted from them with a deep feeling of gratitude.
 They clasped me by the hand, embraced Mohammad and Fattuh and set us
 forth with many deep voiced blessings.  I crossed the Mecca railway
 and turned my face to Arabia.  We rode all next day across the
 undulating country of the Beni Sakhr and passed occasional herds of
 camels and flocks of sheep.  A young Shaikhling of the Sukhur joined
 us, he and his slave, and spent the night with us.  Guests, the sacred
 word.  He was a charming boy, cousin to the great sheikh Hathmel, and
 he was very anxious to come on with us, he and his slave.  Next day we
 went on our way over hills and wide shallow valleys entirely covered
 with flints and came in the afternoon to the Ummayad palace of Tubah.
 It had been sufficiently planned by Musil, but very insufficiently
 photographed and I spent a very profitable afternoon working at it.
 We camped among the ruins and found a good clear water pool in the
 sandy bed of the valley on which they stand, but the men were rather
 anxious that night, as the desert to the E.  of us was "empty" ie
 there were no Sukhur beyond us, and they feared the possibility of an
 'Anazeh raiding party, making for the grazing camel herds we had
 passed in the morning.  This thought, I need scarcely tell you, keep
 me awake - I should sleep but little in the next few weeks if I were
 to be disturbed by such things - and when I woke I found there had
 been no raiding party and my goods were safe and sound.  It was 34
 degrees when we started before dawn, and 70 degrees when we camped at
 2 o'clock.  It is difficult to adjust one's toilette to a thermometre
 which behaves in this fashion.  We have ridden through a flint country
 all day, no water in the valleys and consequently no people.  We
 brough our water with us from Tubah.  We are camped in a dry valley
 bed not far from the great land mark of all this country, the 3
 pointed hills which are called the Thlaithuwat; the blessing it is to
 have a point for my compass bearings is more than I can say!  Since
 there is no water there is not much fear of raiders, but we kep watch
 for casual robbers, who if they found us watchful would turn in as
 guests and if they found us sleeping would lift our camels.  Beni
 Adam!  as Muhammad says, Sons of Adam!  I listen all day as we ride,
 to tales of raid and foray.  But it is a fine country this open
 desert, and I am enjoying myslef mightily.
 January 21.  We rode all day across flint strewn desert on the 20th.
 At midday two camel riders came up behind us and proved to be Jad'an,
 the great shaikh of the Agaili and one of his men.  They had spied us
 as we passed under the Thlaithuwat and taking us for a raiding party
 had followed us to see where we were going.  "We took you for foes"
 said he.  "No, praise be to God" said I "we are friends." So he rode
 on with us for an hour, for company and then turned back to reassure
 his people.  And we came at 2 o'clock to the last of the castles
 Ba'ir, as yet unplanned and unphotographed.  I have spent the day here
 and all that can be got out of the ruins I think I have got.  The plan
 is a very old type and the place may be 8th century.  It is very
 famous on account of its wells, and in summer and autumn, if the
 Sukhur are not camped here, all the ghazzus pass this way.  I have
 therefore heard more raiding stories here than ever before, and I will
 tell you one.  Muhammad, Sayyah (my rafiq) and I were sitting on the
 edge of the biggest well, which is about 20 metres deep and M.
 observed that when he first knew Ba'ir this well was filled up.  A
 party of the 'Isa had fallen here on the Sukhur and killed a horseman.
 The Sukhur killed of the 'Isa two camel riders.  The 'Isa were
 thirsting and the Sukhur, before they made off, threw the two dead men
 and their camels into the well and rolled in a few big stones on top
 so that the 'Isa might not drink and follow them.  "Haram" said I "it
 is forbidden." "No" said Sayyah "their thought was good." "The Arabs
 are devils" observed Muhammad.  "Devils" said Sayyah.  "They are the
 very devil" said I and with such conviction that Sayyah looked up and
 laughed.  You may take that as a good example of our usual
 conversation.
 Friday 23.  We have marched for 2 days across exceedingly featureless
 country, indeed for most of today there was nothing on which to take a
 bearing but my camel's ears which are not a good line.  We march for
 an hour or two across flint strewn uplands, glistening black, and then
 down and up the banks of a deepish valley - dry of course, and then
 onto the upland again.  All the valleys here run approximately E and
 W.  Last night we had some rain and in the first deep valley to which
 we came there were small standing pools which the camels drank
 greedily.  But the rain has scarcely touched the valley in which we
 are camped and I fear it has swung off E.  and that we shall get no
 advantage from it.  We are carrying water and since we are rather
 uncertain whether we shall reach pools tomorrow, we are using it
 sparingly.  No baths and little washing of any kind.  It has turned
 cold after the rain, not frosty, but a nipping wind - rather nice,
 however.  Yesterday we picked up a stone with a Safaitic inscription,
 a great deal further S.  that I expected to find such things.  It is a
 desolate land - barren beyond all belief.  But in the valleys we find
 dry bushes on which the camels pasture.
 Sunday 25.  We changed our course a little yesterday, for seeing how
 dry and barren the world was, we decided that the Sukhur must have
 moved off east and that it was no good looking for them.  We reached
 the western edge of the flint plateau and from a high point looked
 through my glasses at the broken hills of Tubaiq to the south.  Then
 we dropped down into a sandy valley and saw in the sand many foot
 prints of camels, coming and going.  But what Arabs had found this way
 we did not know.  We camped in a hollow, where our fires could not be
 seen, and 'Ali, Sayyah and I went off scouting for Arabs.  We climbed
 very cautiously up a high tell and from the shoulder surveyed the
 landscape through my glasses.  But there was no soul in sight.  Today
 we set off in a frosty dawn and marched on down the valley.  Ali and I
 walked on for an hour and waited in a sandy hollow for the camels.
 The footprints were all round us in the sand.  "They are fresh" said
 Ali.  The valley ended in a wide open plain, set round with
 fantistically riven hills, black and rusty red as the volcanic stone
 had weathered.  The light crept round them as we marched across the
 plain.  They stood in companies watching us, and in the silence and
 emptiness were extraordinarily sinister.  Suddenly Sayyah called out
 "There is smoke." A tall spire of smoke wavered up against a black
 hillock.  I must tell you that we were waterless and thirsty - the
 camels had not drunk for 4 days.  We were not at all sure where we
 sould find water, neither did we know int he least what Arabs had
 kindled the fire whose smoke we watched, but the concensus of opinion
 was that it must be a ghazzu - raiders.  These are the interesting
 moments of desert travel.  We decided that it was best to go up and
 see who was there; if they were enemies they would be certain to see
 us and follow us anyway; if they were friends they would give us news
 of the tribes and water.  The latter question, however, we solved for
 ourselves.  We found the big pool for which we had been looking.  We
 watered the camels and leaving the men to fill the waterskins,
 Muhammad, 'Ali Sayyah and I went on to examine that questionable
 smoke.  We crosse a little ridge, and on the further side saw flocks
 of sheep and the shepherds of the Howaitat who came up and greeted us
 and gave us news of their shaikhs.  All was safe and we went on into
 the hills and camped.  Tomorrow I hope we shall be guests of the
 Howaitat.  The big camps cannot be far away for the only water in this
 district is the pool we found this morning, with the exception of one
 small well in the hills to the east.  The Howaitat are great people.
 They raid all across to the Euphrates and have a resounding name for
 devilry - reckless courage.
 Tuesday 27.  Yesterday we rode into the hills.  On our way we met a
 camel rider who told us that a very regrettable incident had occurred
 the night before.  A man who was camping with the Sukhur had attacked
 a small camp of the Howaitat - he had an old grudge against the
 dwellers in it and carried off the sheep.  The Howaitat pursued him
 and killed him; in revenge his brother shot 3 of the pursuers and fled
 to the tents of the Sukhur.  This news caused my Sukhur rafiq, Sayyah,
 to feel very anxious as to the reception he might meet with in the
 tents of the Howaitat and I tried to comfort him (with some success)
 by assuring him that under no circumstances would I desert him.  But
 all turned out well.  We reached the tents of Harb, one of the shaikhs
 of the Howaitat, and were received with all kindness, Sayyah included.
 Harb killed a sheep for us and we all dined with him that night.
 Towards the end of dinner another guest arrived, who proved to be
 Muhammad Abu Tayyi - the Abu Tayyi are the great shaikhs of the
 Howaitat.  He is a magnificent person, tall and big, with a flashing
 look - not like the slender Beduin sitting round Harb's fire.  He
 carries the Howaitat reputation for daredevilry written on his face; I
 should not like to meet him in anger.  Today we have sent the camels
 down for water - all this country drinks from the pool at which we
 filled our waterskins on Sunday and we dare not go on without a good
 provision.  Accordingly I have had rather a long day in camp, sitting
 and talking to Harb and his people, drinking coffee, talking again,
 photographing - they love being photographed.  I took a latitude at
 noon which is much to the good.  Muhammad al Ma'rawi and his nephew
 Sa'id, my camel driver, Sayyah goes back from here and I shall send
 this letter in the hope that it will ultimately reach a post and give
 you assurance that I am safe and flourishing.  We take a Howaiti from
 here and as the Howaitat are all along our way we reckon we ought to
 be sufficiently protected.  I have decided to go to Taimah - you will
 see it in the map - so as to get news of Nejd there.  It is a town of
 the Ibn Rashids.  I count it some 8 easy marches from here.  I expect
 I shall be able to write to you from there.  Would yu mind sending a
 p.c.  to Domnul to say I am all right - Public Service Commission Camp
 India.  In the doubt as to whether letters will make their devious way
 from here I do not write.  Bless you both.  Your loving daughter
 Gertrude.  I've bought an ostrich skin and 2 eggs.  It's not a good
 skin unfortunatly, neither was it dear.  If I see a better I shall buy
 it.  They live out here, but I haven't seen a live one yet.

 February 4 (1914) I have really delayed too long in beginning my next
 letter to you.  Since I sent off the last by Sayyah - I wonder if you
 will get it?  - we have changed our plans several times, and I still
 hesitate to pronounce that we are really on the road to Nejd, though I
 think we are.  At any rate we are in Arabia, in the very desert and no
 doubt about it.  But you must hear.  When it came to the point of
 leaving Harb's tents I found that the question of who was to serve as
 our new rafiq was by no means settled.  On the contrary, all the Arabs
 and all my men were gathered round the camp fire, with faces the one
 longer than the other.  It seemed that the desert before us, the way
 to Taimah, was khala, empty, ie there were no tribes camping in it.
 It would be, they all assured me, infested by ghazzus who would fall
 upon us by night and undoubtedly rob us if not worse.  Whether this
 were true or no, I had no means of judging, but I take it to be
 against the rules of the game to persist in taking a road against
 which I am warned by all, and moreover there was the conclusive
 difficulty that we could get no rafiq to lead us along it.  Therefore,
 after prolonged consultations, it was decided that we should strike
 east, go to Jog, throw ourselves on the kindness of hte Ruwalla and
 make our way south if possible, and if not possible, east to Baghdad.
 We set out next morning with Harb's brother, Awwad as rafiq, for Jof
 and the Wadi Sirhan in pursuance of this plan.  I did not add anything
 to my letter, though Sayyah was not yet gone, because the future
 seemed so doubtful, and it was as well I did not.  I should have said
 we were going to Jof and it would have been no truer than that our way
 lay to Taimah.  Riding over the low hills - they were delicious, full
 of herds of camels - we came presently to the big tent of 'Audeh, the
 great sheikh of the Howaitat.  'Audeh was away, as we kniew, raiding
 the Shammar, but we stopped for coffee and photographs and then rode
 of east.  But it happened that a man who was among the coffee
 dringkers had given Awwad the information that some of the Ruwalla
 were camped in the W.  Sirhan.  Now as any man of the Ruwalla whom he
 might chance to meet would cut his throat at sight, it was clear that
 he could not conduct us to the Wadi Sirhan, and I was again rafiq -
 less.  I sent him off to the tents of Muhammad, 'Audeh' brother (he
 turned up in Harb's tents the first night we were there, if you
 remember - a formidable personage) to fetch a Sherari of repute who
 had no blood feud with the Ruwalla, and we came into camp and waited
 results.  He returned in an hour or two accompanied by Muhammad
 himself and several others who all stayed to dine and sleep.  Muhammad
 brought me a lamb and a beautiful ostrich skin, and further, over the
 coffee cups, he told me of a ruin in the Jebel Tubaiq, which, if I
 would come back with him to his camp he would take me to see.  Now I
 was very reluctant to turn back, but a ruin is a ruin, and moreover it
 is my job to determine what kind of ruin it may be.  So next day we
 rode back with Muhammad, my men inclined to grumble, and I not a
 little inclined to doubt my own wisdom.  We had got our Sherari guide,
 Musmid, and might have gone on if we wanted.  But after all I was
 right.  In the first place the ruin was worth seeing.  It is a halting
 place on the old N and S road of which Ba'ir is another station; it
 has a Kufic graffito and all complete.  To get to it I rode 5 hours
 across the Jebel Tubaiq, saw and photographed a pre-Mohammadan High
 Place (so I take it to be) and got a far better idea of these
 exceedingly interesting hills.  They are full of wild beauty and full
 of legend, they deserve a good month's study which I may perhaps give
 them some day, and me such friends with the Howaitat.  For I make
 great friends with Muhammad.  He is a good fellow and I like him and
 trust him.  In the 3 days I spent with him - one, indeed, and a long
 one, was spent in riding over the hills and back - I saw him dealing
 out justice and hospitality to his tribe and found both to be good.
 Of an evening we sat in his big tent - he is an important person, you
 understand - and I listened to the tales and the songs of the desert,
 the exploits of 'Audeh, who is one of the most famous raiders of these
 days, and romantic adventures of the princes of Nejd.  Muhammad sat beside me
on0the rugs which were spread upon the clean soft sand, his great figure
wrapped0in a sheepskin cloak, and sometimes he puffed at his narghileh and
listened0to the talk, and sometimes he joined in, his black eyes flashing in
question0and answer.  I watched it all and found much to look at.  And then,
 long after dark, the nagas, the camel mothers, would come home with
 their calves and crouch down in the sand outside the open tent.
 Muhammad got up, drew his robes about him, and went out into the night
 with a huge wooden bowl, which he brought back to me full to the brim
 of camels' milk, a most delectable drink.  And I fancy that when you
 have drunk the milk of the naga over the camp fire of Abu Tayyi, you
 are baptised of the desert and there is no other salvation for you.  I
 saw something of the women, too.  Muhammad's wives and sister - yes,
 those were interesting days.  They were prolonged beyond my intention
 for this reason.  The day I visited the ruin we had sent our camels to
 water at a khabra and bring us water.  You know what a khabra is?  It
 is a rain pool.  Now this khabra proved to be so far away that the
 camels took 15 hours on their way there and back, and one never came
 back at all.  It sat down, and it wouldn't get up, and they left it 6
 hours' away.  That's what camels do, if they are tired and don't mean
 to move nothing in the world or the next will induce them to stir.  It
 was clear that we could not abandon a camel.  We despatched a man in
 the middle of the night to feed and fetch her and waited another day.
 During that day we changed all our plans once more.  Muhammad al
 Ma'rawi came to me and said he though if we went to Jof we should have
 great difficulty in getting on to Nejd, since the Ruwalla are foes of
 the Shammar.  Moreover Masuid, our Sherari rafiq, was prepared to take
 us south - to Taimah if we liked, or if we liked better, S.E.  and
 direct to Nejd.  The ghazzus, the perils, the rifle shots at night,
 seemed to have vanished into this air - I questioned Masuid very
 closely, made up my mind that the scheme was feasible and told my men
 that the less said about it the better.  Nominally we were still going
 to Jof - one becomes very secretive in these countries.  The camel
 messenger came back that night and reported that he had persuaded the
 camel to move on 3 hours - we did not mind her non appearance, for our
 new road lay in her direction.  The real danger ahead, as I made out,
 was the lack of camel food.  If we found no pasturage in the deserts
 to the south we had only 6 days' 'aliq with us - aliq is fodder; we
 should be faced by starvation for the camels and with I did not know
 what for us.  But the reports, if they were to be believed, of the
 country ahead were good and as all other chances of getting to Nejd
 seemed so remote I resolved to take the risk.  Muhammad gave us half a
 load of corn, his crowning act of hospitality- and I gave him a Zeiss
 glass in return for all his kindness.  We set out and rode 3 hours to
 the southern edge of the Jebel Tubaiq, dropping down by a rocky gorge
 into the plain below where we camped.  Here we found our camel, more
 or less recovered and fit to go on next day.  The "trees" were
 greening and there was plenty of good pasturage.  Before us lay the
 country in which we now are a country of red sandstone and the
 resulting sand.  But the early winter rains have been good and the
 sparse thorny bushes growing in the sand have sprouted into green, all
 the rain pools are full, and (so far) raiders non existent.  We have
 with us not only our Sherari rafiq, but still better a man to conduct
 us into the heart of the Shammar country - not a man, a family.  We
 met them in our last Tubaiq camp, at the foot of the hills, a Shammar
 family who wanted to return to Nejd.  Without us for company they
 would not dare to take this direction road, and we are no less
 grateful than they, for if we meet a Shammar ghazzu, we are guaranteed
 against them.  So here we are, camped in red gold sand among broken
 hillocks of red sandstone, with all the desert shrubs grey green and
 some even adventuring into colourless pale flowers.  They smell sweet
 and aromatic "Like amber" said 'Ali sniffing the wind as we came into
 camp this afternoon.  And the camels have eaten their fill.  We march
 slowly, for they eat as they go, but I don't mind.  I never tire of
 looking at the red gold landscape and wondering at its amazing
 desolation.  I like marching on through it and sometimes I wonder
 whether there is anywhere that I am at all anxious to reach.
 February 7.  Three days' journey have not brougth us along very far.
 There is such abundance of green shrubs and flowering weeds that the
 camels stop and graze as we go and yesterday we came into camp very
 early so as to give them a good feed.  A day or two more of this sort
 of country will make a wonderful difference to them.  Yet it is
 nothing but sand and sandstone, long barren hills and broken sandstone
 tells.  But the early ruins have been good and today there were places
 where the rbare desert was like a garden.  It is very delightful to
 see.  Also the rain which fell upon us the day we left the J.  Tubaiq
 was very heavy over all this land.  We find the sandstone hollows full
 of clear fresh rain water and scarcely trouble to fill our waterskins,
 so plentiful is the supply each night.  It is wonderfully fortunate.
 Yesterday we had an absurd adventure.  Besides the Shammar family we
 have a couple of Sherarat tents with us, the people miserably poor
 (they seem to be kept from the ultimate starvation which must overtake
 them by small gifts of flour from us) possessing nothing but a few
 goats and the camels which carry them.  These goats had gone on with
 their lord before dawn; just before the sun rose, the Shammar and
 Sherarat followed on their camels and I went behind them on foot, for
 I wanted to take bearings from a little ridge ahead - we had been
 camping in a very shallow valley.  Masuid was with me.  We may have
 walked about 100 yards when all those in front of us turned round and
 hurried back to us.  "They are afraid" said Masuid "They have seen an
 enemy." Ghadi, the chief Shammari came riding up.  "What is it?  I
 asked "Gom" he answered - foes.  "How many?" said I.  "20 camels
 riders he answered and shouted to my men "To the valley, to the
 valley!" We couched all the camels behind the sand heaps and tamarisk
 bushes, got out our arms and waited.  Nothing happened.  Presently
 Ghadi crept back to the ridge to scout.  Still nothing happened.  Then
 Fattuh Masuid and I went across to the ridge and swept the world with
 my glasses.  There was nothing.  WE waved to the others to come on and
 marching down the hills in complete security, came to the conclusion
 that the 10 camel riders could have been nothing but the Father of
 Goats who was found presently pasturing his innocent flock ahead of
 us.  At night I announced that I intended to take a rafiq of the Beni
 Ma'az, the Goat Tribe, and this not very brilliant witticism threw the
 whole company round the coffee fire into convulsions of laughter.
 February 10.  On Feb 8 we fell among thieves - worse than goats.  An
 hour or two after we had struck camp we met some of the Howaitat who
 told us that Sayyah shaikh of the Wadi Sulaiman was camped a few hours
 to the east.  Since it was pretty certain that he would hear of our
 presence we thought it wiser to camp with him that night and take a
 rafiq from him - otherwise, you understand, he would probably have
 sent after us in the night and robbed us.  He received us with all
 courtesy but it was only pretence.  Presently the one eyed ruffian
 (God remove from him the other eye also!) came into our camp, examined
 all our possessions and asked for everything in turn.  We thought at
 first to get off with the loss of a revolver, but it ended by my
 having to surrender my Zeiss glass also, to my infinite annoyance.  He
 swore that no Christian had ever visited this country, and none should
 go, that he would send no rafiq with us so that he might be free to
 rob us, and finally he proposed to Sa'id and Fattuh that they should
 aid him in killing me and share the spoil.  He got no encouragement
 from them and I do not know wheterh any of the threats were more than
 words.  I clung to my glass as long as I could, but when at last
 Sa'id, who knows the Arabs, advised me to yield lest things should
 take a worse turn, I gave way.  We got our rafiq, Sayyah's cousin and
 are therefore assured against the "accursed of both parents." We took
 also two men of the Faqir, another tribe whom we may meet.  They are
 said to be still more unfortunate in their ancestry than the Wadi
 Sulaiman.  One of their sheikhs was camping with Sayyah and he sent
 his brother and another with us.  This brother, Hamid is a very
 pleasant fellow traveller and I have no fault to find with Sayyah's
 cousin, Zayyid.  But Sayyah has a name for roguery.  It was typical of
 him that he mulcted our Shammar companions of 3 mejidies before he
 would let them go on with us.  They had no money and could not pay but
 Muhammad al Ma'rawi stook surety for them and I shall of course give
 them the ransom, poor souls.  We had a very dull day's journey
 yesterday over rolling pebbly sand hills, nothing whatever to be seen
 - except that once we crossed the tracks of an ostrich.  Today has
 been rather more varied, hills on which to take bearings; and we have
 come into camp in a valley bottom full of green plants for the camels.
 We have recovered from the depression into which Sayyah's conduct
 threw us and we are in good hopes that we shall not meet any more
 sheikhs!
 February 12.  We rode yesterday over a barren pebbly waste and came
 down through sand hills to a desolate low lying region wherein we
 found water pools.  We watered our camels and filled our waterskins
 and then turned our faces S.E.  into the Nefud which lay but an hour
 from us.  The Nefud is a great stretch of sand hills, 7 or 8 days'
 journey across.  Our path lies through the SW corner and I am glad to
 see this famous wilderness of sand.  It is the resort of all the
 tribes during the winter and spring when an abundance of vegetation
 springs from the warm sand, buyt there is no permanent water except in
 the extreme borders and in summer it is a blazing furnace.  This is
 the right moment for it.  All the plants are greening and putting
 forth such flower as they know how to produce and our camels eat the
 whole day as they march.  But the going is very heavy - up and down
 endless ridges of soft pale yellow sand.  Occasionally there are deep
 gulleys hollowed out by the wind and we make a long circuit to avoid
 them, and from time to time the sand is piled up into a high ridge or
 head, a ta's it is called in Arabic, which stands out yellow over the
 banks for its precipitous flanks are devoid of vegetation.  Towards
 midday we came to a very high ta's and I climbed tot he top - saw the
 hills near Taimah to the west and the first of the mountains of Nejd
 to the S.E, Jebel Irnan.  When I came down Fattuh greeted me with the
 news that one of the camels had sat down and they could not make her
 stir.  Muhammad, Fellah and I went back with some food for her,
 thinking she might be weary with walking in the deep sand and that
 with food and coaxing we could get her on, but when we reached her we
 found her rolling in the sand in the death agony.  Muhammad sais "She
 is gone[?]  Shall we sacrifice her?" I said "It were best." He drew his
 knife and said "In the name of God.  God is most powerful." With that
 he cut her throat.  She was, he explained, sick of a malady which
 comes with great suddenness.  Fortunately she was one of the 3 weak
 animals which we have with us.  I should have been been obliged to
 sell her at Hayyil and she would not have fetched more than a pound or
 two.  She is no great loss, as far as that goes; but I am deeply
 attached to all my camels and grieve over her death for reasons of
 sentiment.
 Febrary 15.  We continue our peaceful course through the sands of the
 Nafud, for according to all the information which comes to us from the
 Arabs we meet encamped, it is the safest road and I, who am now so
 close to Hayyil, have no other desire but to get there without being
 stopped.  We are now skirting within its southern border and from
 every sand hill top we see the mountains of Nejd.  Yesterday we camped
 early in order to water - we had seen no water since the khabra.  The
 well, Haizan, was an hour and a half from our camp and I rode down
 with the camels to see the watering.  Wells are very scarce in the
 Nefud; they are found only on its borders and they are very deep.
 Haizan lies at the bottom of a great depression enclosed by the steep
 sandbanks of the Nefud.  Our well rope was 48 paces long; we carried
 two stout sticks with us and a little wheel, with which we made a
 pulley for the rope.  There was an Arab camp near ours and the shaikh,
 Salim, was there with some of his people, watering their camels.  They
 used a pulley like ours.  It was interesting to watch and I took a lot
 of photographs.  There were some who objected at first to my
 photography and asked what it was for.  I asked the Shammar with us -
 the 2 brothers who have come with us from the J.  Tubaiq - whether I
 ought to stop, but they said no, it didn't matter.  And so I went on
 and no word was said.  When you consider what a strange sight I must
 be to these people who have never seen a European, it is remarkable
 that they leave me so unmolested.  Desert manners are good.
 February 19.  Marching through the Nefud is like marching through the
 Labyrinth.  You are forever winding round deep sand pits, sometimes
 half a mile long with banks so steep that you cannot descend.  They
 are mostly shaped like horseshoes and you wander along till you come
 to one end and then drop down into low ground, only to climb up anew.
 How one bears it I don't know - I should think that as the crow flies
 we barely covered a mile in an hour.  But there is something pleasant
 about it too; the safe camping grounds among the sands, the abundance
 of pasture, the somnolent monotony.  But we have done with it; we came
 out of it today.  Two days ago we were held up by heavy rain.  It
 began just as we broke up camp; we marched for 2 hours by which time
 all the men were wet through and I was far from dry.  The clouds lay
 on top of the sand hills like a thick fog and at last my rafiq
 declared that he could see no landmarks and could not be sure of our
 direction.  No Arabs march in rain and I had to give way.  We pitched
 camp and dried ourselves at the immense wood fire.  It rained and
 hailed and thundered most of the day and night and all the world
 rejoiced.  "Today the shaikhs will sacrifice a camel" said my rafiq.
 The camels will pasture in the Nefud for 3 months after this rain.
 Last night we got to the first Shammar camp - the Shammar are the
 Arabs of Nejd - and took us a rafiq the oldest and raggedest shaikh in
 the world.  Bedouin are not noted for strong and steady judgment, but
 he is one of the most bird-witted whom I have met.  And this morning
 we reached the barren sandstone crags of Jebel Misma, which bound here
 the Nefud, and passed beyond them into Nejd.  As we topped the last
 sand bank the landscape which opened before us was more terrifyingly
 dead and empty than anything I have ever seen.  The blackened rocks of
 Misma drop steeply on the E.  side into a wilderness of .....  jagged
 peaks set in a bed of hard sand, and beyond and beyond stretches the
 vacant plain, untilled and unpeopled and scattered over with isolated
 towers and tables of sandstone.  We have camped once more on the
 skirts of the Nefud for the sake of the pasture and tomorrow we go
 down into the plain.
 Sunday 22.  It proved to be a very pleasant place, that dead country.
 The sandstone hollows were all full of water and there was plenty of
 pasturage.  We marched gaily over a hard floor all day and camped in
 the midst of hills, on a sandy floor between high cliffs.  We had some
 Shammar for neighbours about a mile away.  Yesterday we had a dull
 journey over an interminable flat and up sandbanks to another hill
 camp, but this time high up in the heart of the little range.
 Somewhere in the sandbanks we passed the boundary between the
 sandstone country and the granite.  I had noticed that the strange
 shapes of the sandstone hills were not to be seen before us and when
 we came to our camp in Jebel Rakham behold the rocks were granite.  I
 climbed onto the top of one of the peaks and found flowers growing in
 the crevices, small white and purple weeds and thistles and a dwarf
 asphodel - not a great bounty, but it feasted the eyes in this bare
 land.  And today we passed a tiny village with corn plots round it -
 the first houses we have seen since Ziza - there were only 6 or 7 of
 them.  And thereafter we were overtaken again by the Nefud, which puts
 out a long finger to the S.  here, and marched by hollow ways of sand
 in a very hot sun.  We are camped in sandhills today.
 February 24.  We are camped within sight of Hayyil and I might have
 ridden in today, but I thought it better to announce my coming and
 therefore I sent on Muhammad and Ali and have camped in the plain a
 couple of hours or so from the town.  We finished with the Nefud, for
 good and all yesterday, and today we have been through a charming
 country - charming for Arabia - of great granite rocks and little
 plains with thorny accacia trees growing in them and very sweet
 scented desert plants.  We passed a small village or two, mud houses
 set in palm gardens - all set round with a mud wall.  It looks
 wonderfully settled and inhabited after weeks of desert.  I hope the
 Hayyil people will be polite.  The Amir is away raiding and an uncle
 of his is left in charge.
 March 7.  And now I must relate to yu the strange tale of my visit to
 Hayyil.  I broke up camp at sunrise on the 25th and rode towards the
 town.  When we had been on the road for about an hour we met 'Ali on
 his camel - all smiles.  They had seen Ibrahim, the uncle in charge;
 he was most polite, said I was very welcome and ha!  ha!  there were 3
 slaves of his household come out to receive me.  With that he pointed
 to 3 horsemen riding towards us, one of whom carried a long lance.  So
 we came up to the walls of Hayyil in state, skirted round them and
 entered the town by the S.  gate.  Within the gate, at the doorway of
 the first house, stood Muhammad al Ma'rawi - here I was to be lodged.
 It was the summer palace of Muhammad al Rashid, great uncle of the
 present boy.  I walked up a long sloping passage - not a stair, a ramp
 - to an upper court and so into a great room with a roof borne on
 columns and diwans and carpets round the walls.  It was the Roshan,
 the reception room.  Here I sat, and one of the slaves with me.  These
 slaves you must understand, are often very important personages; their
 masters treat them like brothers and give them their full confidence.
 Also when one of the Rashids murders the reigning Amir and takes his
 place (which frequently happens) he is careful to murder his slaves
 also, lest they should revenge the slain.  The men then went away to
 see to the lodging of the camels and the pitching of the tents in the
 wide courts below.  (There are 5 courts to my domain, all mudwalled
 and towered.  It was here that in the old days, before the Mecca
 railway, the Persian Hajj used to lodge.) Thereupon there appeared
 upon the scenery 2 women.  One was an old widow, Lu.lu.ah, who is
 caretaker here, as you might say.  The other was a Circassian who was
 sent to Muhammad al Rashid by the Sultan as a gift.  Her name is
 Turkiyyeh.  Under her dark purple cloak - all the women are closely
 veiled here - she was dressed in brilliant red and purple cotton robes
 and she wore ropes of rough pearls round her neck.  And she is worth
 her weight in gold, as I have come to know.  She is a chatterbox of
 the first order and I passed an exceedingly amusing hour in her
 company.  She had been sent here to spend the day and welcome me.
 After lunch Ibrahim paid me a state visit, slaves walking before him
 and slaves behind.  He is an intelligent and (for an Arab) well
 educated man.  He was clothed in Indian silks and carried a gold
 mounted sword.  He stayed talking till one of the slaves announced
 that the call to afternoon prayer had sounded; then he rode and took
 his leave.  But as he went he whispered to old M.  al Ma'rawi that as
 the Amir was away and as there was some talk in the town about my
 coming, a stranger and so on, he was bound to be careful and so on and
 so on - in short, I was not to leave the house without permission.  I
 spent most of the afternoon sitting in the women's court and talking
 to Turkiyyeh who was excellent company.  My camels badly wanted rest;
 there is no pasturage near Hayyil and we decided to send them away to
 the Nefud with one of my men and a couple of Hayyil men whom Ibrahim
 had provided.  I sold 6 camels - the Amir being away raiding and with
 him all available camels, they are fortunately much in request at this
 moment - 6 which were very badly knocked up by the journey, and sent
 the remaining 13 away next morning.  And then I sat still, in
 honourable captivity, and the days were weary long.  On the 27th
 Ibrahim invited me to come and see him in the evening - I had
 expressed a wish to return his call.  After dark he sent a mare and a
 couple of slaves and I rode through the silent, empty town to the
 Qasr, the fortress palace of the Amirs.  I rode in at the gate and was
 conducted by troops of slaves to the roshan, the great columned
 reception room, where I found Ibrahim and a large company sitting on
 carpets round the walls.  They all rose at my entrance; I sat at
 Ibrahim's right hand and we talked for an hour or more while the
 slaves served us first with tea, then with coffee.  Finally they
 brought censors and swung them before each on of us 3 times and this
 is the sign that the reception is ended.  So I rode home, tipping each
 of the many doorkeepers as I left.  I had sent gifts of silken robes
 to all these people, Ibrahim and the chief slaves and the absent Amir
 - to him a Zeiss glass and a revolvers also.  I was now living upon
 the money which I had received for my 6 camels and it became necessary
 to ask for the 200 pounds which I had deposited with the Amir's agent
 in Damascus.  I was met by the reply that the letter of credit was
 made out to the Amir's treasurer who was away raiding with him, and
 that the money could not be paid to me till he returned.  Now the Amir
 will in all probability be away another month; I did not contemplate
 remaining in Hayyil for a month, even if I had been free to go and
 come as I chose; moreover I was persuaded that the Amir's grandmother,
 Fatima, who is a very powerful person in his court, had been left in
 charge of the treasury and could give (or withhold) as she pleased.
 But I could not risk being left here penniless.  I had just 40 pounds.
 I told my men that it must suffice; that I should call in my camels,
 take the 8 best and go with Fattuh, 'Ali and Fellah to Baghdad, while
 the rest of the men would wait another week till the camels were
 rested and return to Damascus via Medina and the railway.  The money I
 had would just suffice for all of us and for the tips in the house
 here.  So it was agreed and after 2 more days of negotiations I asked
 for a private audience with Ibrahim, went again to the Qasr at night,
 saw him and again heard from him that no disbursement could take place
 in the Amir's absence.  I replied that if that was so I much regreted
 that I should have to leave at once and I must ask him for a rafiq.
 He said the rafiq was ready and anything I wished should be given.
 That morning, I must tell you, he had returned the gifts I had sent to
 him and to his brother Zamil, who is away with the Amir.  Whether he
 did not think them sufficient, or what was the reason, I do not know.
 I took them back with me that evening, said I had been much hurt and
 must request him to receive them.  Which he did.  He had lent me a
 mare in teh morning and I had ridden out with one of his slaves to a
 garden belonging to him, beyond the town.  For this I thanked him and
 we parted on the best of terms.  Next day I sent a messenger out for
 my camels - they proved to be 2 days away - and again I sat still,
 amusing myslef as best I might, and the best was not good.  I had no
 idea what was in their dark minds, cconcerning me; I sat imprisoned
 and my men brought me in rumours from the town.  'Ali, in particular
 has 2 uncles here who are persons of consideration; they did not dare
 to come and see me, but they sent me news.  The general opinion was
 that the whole business was the work of Fatima, but why, or how it
 would end, God alone knew.  I could not tell what was in their dark
 minds concerning me.  If they did not intend to let me go, I was in
 their hands.  It was all like a story in the Arabian Nights but I did
 not find it particularly enjoyable to be one of the dramatis personae.
 Turkiyyeh came again and spent the day with me and next day there
 appeared the chief eunuch, Sa'id - none more powerful than he.  He
 came to tell me that I could not leave without permission from the
 Amir.  I replied that I had no money and go I must and would and sent
 this message to Ibrahim.  But he answered that going and not going was
 not in our hands.  I sent hasty messages to Ali's uncles and in the
 afternoon one of their nephews came to see me - an encouraging sign.
 That night I was invited to the Qasr by the women.  The Amir's mother,
 Mudi, received me and Turkiyyeh was there to serve as introducer[?] of
 ambassadors.  It was more like the Arabian Nights than ever.  The
 women in their Indian brocades and jewel, the slaves and the eunuchs
 and the great columned rooms, the children hung with jewels - there
 was nothing but me myself which did not belong to medieval Asia.  We
 sat on the floor and drank tea and eat fruits, vide, as I say, the
 Arabian Nights passim.  Thereupon passed another long day.  At night
 came Turkiyyeh - the women only go out after dark.  We sat in the big
 roshan here and drank tea, served by one of my slaves - for I also
 have two or three.  A single lamp lighted us and the night wind blew
 through the chunks of the shutters.  No windows are glazed.  I told
 her all my difficulties, that I had no money and could get none, that
 I sat here day after day and that they would not let me go.  Next day
 - yesterday, a Friday - I was invited by two boys of the shaikhly
 house - I won't tell you all the relationships, though I know them
 all!  - to spend the afternoon in a garden near at hand.  I went and
 there were the two boys and all the other Reshid male babies - all
 that have not been murdered by successive usurping Amirs - and of
 course many slaves, and the eunuch Sa'id.  We sat on carpets in a
 garden pavilion, as you may see in any Persian miniature you choose to
 look at, and I again put forward my requests, which were again met by
 the same replies on the part of Sa'id.  I ended by declaring that I
 wished to leave the next day and asked for a rafiq.  Thereat we
 wandered through the gardens and my hosts, the two boys, carefully
 told me the names of all the fruit trees (which of course I knew) and
 the little children walked solemnly hand in hand in their long brocade
 robes.  And then we drank more coffee and at the afternoon prayer I
 left.  After prayers came Sa'id and told told Muhammad al Ma'rawi that
 I must understand that nothing could be done till permission came from
 the Amir.  I went to the men's tent and spoke my mind to Sa'id,
 without any oriental paraphrases, and having done so I rose abruptly
 and left them sitting - a thing which is only done by great shaikhs,
 you understand.  The camels came in at dusk, and I, thinking that in
 the end I should have to stay here for another indefinite time, was
 already beginning to plan where to send them out to graze when - after
 dark came Sa'id and another with 200 pounds in a bag and full
 permission to go when and where I liked.  The rafiq was ready.  I
 replied with great dignity that I was much obliged and that I did not
 intend to leave the next day, for I wished to see the Qasr and the
 town by daylight.  And today I have been shown everything, have been
 allowed to photograph everything and do exactly as I pleased.  I gave
 10 pounds in bakhshish in the Qasr.  As I was returning I was given an
 invitation from Turkiyyeh and I went to her house.  She says she
 explained the whole position to Fatima and I think that the volte face
 is due to her, but however it may be, I am profoundly thankful.  I go
 to Baghdad.  After careful enquiries I feel pretty sure that the road
 south is not possible this year.  The tribes are up and there is an
 expedition feuding from here.  They would not therefore, give me a
 rafiq south and I should have considerable difficulty in going without
 their leave.  So Hayyil must suffice for this year.  Moreover I have
 learnt a good deal about travel in this country and I know that none
 of the southern country can be travelled a la Franca.  If ever I go
 there I must go with no more baggage than I can carry on my own camel.
 Sunday March 22.  We are within sight of Nejef.  I have camped an hour
 from the town because I knew there is no camping ground near it and I
 should probably have to put up in the government serai, which is
 tiresome.  Also I very much want to get through to Baghdad without
 questions and telegrams.  - Oh but it is a long dull way from Nejd!  I
 wanted to come up by the old pilgrim road which has a certain historic
 interest and is also the shortest, but the morning I left Hayyil came
 a slave with a message to say I was to travel by the western road as
 the eastern was not safe.  I believe this tale to have been entirely
 untrue and I fancy their object was to ensure my meeting the Amir, but
 as I did not much mind one way or the other I acquiesced.  Two days
 out we met the Amir's messengers bringing in a tale (which they served
 up to us) of a highly successful raid, the flight of all the 'Anazeh
 before the Amir and the capture of Jof.  They said the Amir was a few
 days further on.  But when we had crossed the Nefud, for 4 days and
 came near the place where he was reported to have been, he had left
 and crossed over to the eastern road and was said to be off raiding
 some tribes further east.  I did not intend to turn back for him and
 it would have been useless for I might have taken days to find him, so
 I went on my way in all tranquillity.  We rode forever over immense
 levels, not a valley nor a hill to be seen and so little water that we
 were almost always too short of it to spend it in washing.  As long as
 we were with the Shammar, and that was for the first 10 days, we were
 perfectly safe with a rafiq from Hayyil.  He rode with us for 8 days
 and we took on another Shammari for the next 2 days.  Then the fun
 began.  We had to get through the Shi'a tribes of 'Iraq, all out in
 the desert now for the spring pasture and all accursed of their two
 parents.  The first we reached were the Beni Hasan and we spent a very
 delicate hour, during which it was not apparent whether they meant to
 strip us or to treat us as guests.  Ultimately they decided on the
 latter course; we camped with them, they killed a lamb for us and gave
 us 2 rafiqs next day.  That day luckily we saw no one and camped in
 solitude.  Early on the following morning we sighted tents and our
 rafiqs were reduced to a state of quivering alarm, for they all kill
 each other just as gaily as they kill you.  One of them however was
 induced to ride up to the tents which he found to be those of an
 allied tribe.  He brought back two new rafiqs, for he and his
 companion flatly refused to go on.  So we rode on for 6 hours or so
 and then again we sighted tents and - meme jeu.  The rafiqs even
 talked of turning back and leaving us.  But again we made one of them
 go up and inquire what Arabs they were and as great good luck would
 have it they were the Ghazalat who are the very people of any real
 importance and authority in these parts.  We camped with them and took
 on an excellent rafiq, a well known man - his name is Dawi.  With him
 we have felt comparatively safe, but if we had not had him with us we
 should have been stripped to the skin twice in these last 2 days.  The
 first morning we came down to water at some horrible stagnant pools
 and found a large company of the Ma'dan filling their waterskins
 there.  The Ma'dan are possibly the worst devils known.  They offered
 Dawi 30 pounds if he would abandon us, for they could not touch us as
 long as we had a shaikh of the Ghazalat with us, for fear of the
 Ghazalat, you understand.  And yesterday afternoon we met a large
 caravan of Ma'dan coming up from Meshhed and in a moment we were
 surrounded by stalwart armed men who laid hold of our camels and would
 have made them kneel.  But Dawi called out to them and when they saw
 him they let go and drew off.  This morning a casual person who was
 tending flocks sent a rifle bullet between the legs of our camels.
 Dawi ran out and expostulated with him before he sent another - we
 protested loudly at the treatment he had accorded us.  "An enemy does
 not come riding across the top of the plain in full daylight" said
 'Ali "and if you feared us the custom is to send a bullet over the
 heads of the riders till you have found out whether they are friends
 or foes." He admitted that he had broken the rules, and for my part I
 rejoiced that he had broken none of the camels' legs.  Even tonight I
 don't upon my honour know whether we are safe camping out here two
 hours from the town, but the men seem to think it is all right, and
 any how here we are - tawakkil Allah!  The edges of the desert are
 always stormy and difficult.  The tribes are not Bedu but 'Arab, a
 very important distinction, for they have not the code and the rules
 of the Beduin.  But these Shi'a people are a great deal worse than
 anyone we have met upon our whole way - not excepting Sayyah ibn
 Ma'rked.  Having penned these lines it occurred to me to go and ask
 'Ali whether he thought we were safe for the night.  He replied that
 he did not and that his mind was far from being at rest.  (He had
 chosen the camping ground himself, I must mention.) I inquired what he
 thought we had better do?  He though we had better go on to a village.
 It was then 2 hours before sunset.  We packed the dinner, which was
 cooked, into our good camp saucepans, struck camp and loaded all in
 half an hour and off we set!  It was a most absurd proceeding but I
 thought it would be still more absurd to have a regrettable incident
 on this last night of our desert journey.  Just at sun set we reached
 a small village of wattle huts and here we have camped.  The villagers
 have received us with much courtesy and the best of our belief we are
 in security at last.
 Baghdad March 29.  Yes, we were safe and we got here without further
 incident.  I drove from Meshhed to Kerbela - Nejef and Meshhed are the
 same - dined and spent the evening with our vice consul, an Indian and
 an old friend - and drove into Baghdad next day.  I went straight to
 the Residency and got my letters.  The Resident, Col.  Erskine is new,
 and has lumbago.  His wife was ill in bed with a cut in the leg.  They
 did not ask me to stay and I went to the hotel and spent a very happy
 evening with my letters.  They have never asked me to the house at
 all!  I went twice of my own accord and now I don't think I need
 bother further about them until they take some steps.  On the other
 hand I have fallen on my feet with some new acquaintances.  Mr Tod,
 the head man of Lynan's company, and his darling little Italian wife.
 I am going to stay with them when I come back from Babylon - I go to
 Babylon for a couple of nights tomorrow.  They wanted me to come to
 them at once but I thought I would have a few days of complete freedom
 here first.  I have seen all my native friends; they precipitated
 themselves and gave me a welcome which warmed my heart.  Also I have
 seen much of Meissner Pasha and his wife.  He is the head of the
 Baghdad Rly construction.  I called and then dined, at a big dinner
 party - Baghdad has grown a weltstadt!  and yesterday afternoon he
 took me all over the railway works, deeply interesting.  And also
 deeply impressive to the imagination.  The slow Tigris and the native
 boats loaded with steel rails, the steam cranes working under the palm
 trees, the great locomotive of the latest pattern standing in all
 stages of completion in the middle of a devastated palm garden, the
 blue clad, ragged Arabs working and singing as they worked and hauled,
 and among them the decisive military Germans, sharp of work straight
 of carriage - it was the old East meeting the newest West and going
 down before it.  Now your letters.  Thank you for them a thousand
 times - 3 from you Mother and 3 from my dear Father and all so
 delightful to receive.  I think you must be in Washington for I have
 no reply yet to my telegram.  Bless you my dearest parents for your
 love and thought of me.  I can't write of it.  I may stay here another
 week or so when I come back from Babylon.  Then across the Syrian
 desert to Damascus - quite safe and easy.  I will telegraph from
 there, but I think I shall go up to C'ple and so home.  I have written
 to Louis Mallet suggting myself to him.  I should like to tell him my
 tales and hear his.  I love Baghdad and this country much better than
 Damascus and Syria and I do not know when I shall be here again so
 that I gladly stay a day or two longer.  Besides I shall get another
 mail which is good - perhaps 2.  It's queer and rather enjoyable at
 first, the sense of being in perfect security, but one soon loses the
 realization of it.  Things move here, but as far as the Turks are
 concerned they move backwards.  The government has all fallen to
 pieces again since I was here 3 years ago at the end of Nazim's
 regime.  It's hopeless - what hope is there?  It moves slowly, but I
 may live to see the end of Turkey - alas!
 Goodbye my dearest dear parents and much love from your devoted
 daughter Gertrude
 I have written to Hugo, Elsa and Moll from whom I had delightful
 letters, but told them nothing of the journey saying that you would
 send them this letter if they wanted news.

 Thursday 23 (April 1914) Behold I'm 11 days out from Baghdad and I
 have not begun to tell you my tale.  I have been put to it to get
 through the long days and I have been too tired at the end of them to
 write.  I drove out from Baghdad to Feluja, on the Euphrates, having
 arranged that my camels were to leave Baghdad the previous day and
 meet me at Feluja.  The day they left 'Ali made an unjustifiable
 request - that I should take a cousin of his with me, the cousin
 wishing to escape military service.  I refused and 'Ali struck.
 Fattuh got him and the camels of with great difficulty late at night;
 in consequence they had not arrived when I reached Feluja - and when
 they came 'Ali had brought the cousin with him!  I was very angry,
 'Ali was in the devil's own temper and I dismissed him on the spot to
 find his way back to Baghdad with the cousin.  He has given me a great
 deal of trouble.  I have put up with a great deal for the sake of his
 long acquaintance, but gross insubordination I won't stand and there's
 an end of him.  My party therefore was Fattuh, Sayyif and Fellah(the
 negro) and I was left without a guide for the Syrian desert.  I am
 travelling very light with two small native tents, a bed on the
 ground, no furniture, not nothing - for speed's sake.  We pitched our
 tiny camp half an hour out of Feluja in the desert by some Dulaim
 tents - it was blazing hot, and what with the heat and the hardness of
 the ground (to which I have now grown accustomed) I did not sleep
 much.  Next day we rode along the high road to Ramadi on the
 Euphrates, where lives the chief shaikh of the Dulaim.  I went
 straight to him.  He received me most cordially, lodged me in his palm
 garden, gave me a great feast and a rafiq from his own household,
 'Adwan, a charming man.  It was blazing hot again and noisy, dogs and
 people talking, and I slept less than ever.  We were off before dawn
 and struck southwest with the desert to the pitch springs of Abu Jir
 where I had been, do you remember, when I was looking for Ukheidir.
 It was there I fell in with Muhammad al Abdullah, the author of the
 song about the motor.  We arrived in a dust storm, the temperature was
 91 degrees and it was perfectly disgusting.  The following day was
 better, as hot as ever, but no dust storms.  We rode on west into the
 desert and came after noon to Wizeh, a place I have long wanted to
 see, where there is a very curious underground spring.  Also a small
 fort which I planned and photographed.  Two days more, west and
 slightly north, with the temperature falling thank Heaven, brought us
 up onto the post road and here we fell in with the shaikh of the
 'Anazeh and I took a new rafiq from him, Assaf is his name, and very
 reluctantly said goodbye to 'Adwan.  We rode down the following day to
 Muhaiwir in the Wadi Hauran, where I had been 3 years ago.  The world
 was full of 'Anazeh tents and camels - a wonderful sight.  It meant,
 too, that with my 'Anazeh rafiq I was perfectly safe.  And in two more
 days we came to the great shaikh of all these eastern 'Anazeh, Fahd
 Beg, and I alighted at his tents and claimed his hospitality.  He
 treated me with fatherly kindness, fed me, entertained me, and advised
 me to take a second rafiq, a man of the Ruwalla, who are the western
 'Anazeh.  I spent the afternoon planning a ruin near him - a town,
 actually a town in the heart of the Syrian Desert!  Only the fortified
 gate was plannable, the rest was mere stone heaps, but it throws a
 most unexpected light on the history of the desert.  There was most
 certainly a settled population at one time in these eastern parts.  We
 had violent thunderstorms all night and yesterday, when I left Fahd, a
 horrible day's journey in the teeth of a violent wind and through
 great scuds of rain.  Today however it has been very pleasant.  I have
 been following the old road which I came out to find and am well
 content to have my anticipations justified.  We came to a small ruin
 in the middle of the day which I stopped to plan.  Fahd told me that
 the desert from his camp to Bukhara, near Palmyra, is khala, empty, ie
 there are no Beduin camped in it.  I always like solitary camps and
 the desert all to myself, but it has the drawback of not being very
 safe.  With our two rafiqs no 'Anazeh of any kind will touch us, but
 there is always the chance of a ghazzu.  Very likely they would do us
 no harm, but one can't be sure However so far I have run my own show
 quite satisfactorily and it amuses me to be tongue and voice for
 myself, as I have been these days.  But I am tired, and being anxious
 to get through and be done with travel, we are making long marches, 9
 and 10 hours.  Oh but they are long hours, day after day in the open
 wilderness!  I have come in sometimes more dead than alive, too tired
 to eat and with just enough energy to write my diary.  We are now up
 nearly a couple of thousand feet and I am beginning to feel better.
 April 28.  On the 24th we began the day by sighting something lying in
 the desert with an ominous flutter of great wings over it.  Assaf
 observed that it was 3 dead mares and 2 dead men, killed ten nights
 ago - ghazzu met ghazzu, said he.  I edged off for I did not want to
 be haunted by their bloody ghosts.  We came down into a valley which
 was full of traces of habitation, mostly only ruin mounds, but quite
 clearly buildings.  It was a very fertile valley, full of waterpools
 and grass.  And then we got out onto an immense barren flat and had
 great difficulty in finding a hollow place with trees for the camels
 to eat and shelter for our fire.  On the 25th we came at midday to an
 encampment of Slubba, a strange tribe of whose origin many tales are
 told.  We called at their tents to buy some butter and I was glad to
 see and photograph them.  They are great hunters; one man was clad in
 a lovely robe of gazelle skins.  They pressed us to camp with them,
 but we rode on for a couple of hours and camped by ourselves.  On the
 26th a gorgeious storm marched across our path into the hills - for we
 had sighted the Palmyrene hills the day before.  It did not touch us
 but we rode through a world darkened by it, and watched and heard.
 After it had passed malicious little rains came on us from every side
 and troubled us all day.  In the middle of the morning we met a man
 walking solitary in the desert.  We rode up to him and addressed him
 in Arabic, but he made no answer, Assaf, my rafiq, said he thought he
 must be a Persian dervish.  I spoke to him in Turkish and in what
 words of Persian I could muster, but he made no reply.  Fattuh gave
 him some bread which he accepted and turned away from us into the
 rainy wilderness, going whither?  But we rode on towards the mountains
 and missed our way, going too far to the north, till at last we came
 upon some tents and herds of the Sba', an 'Anazeh tribe, and they
 directed us.  We were in sight of Palmyra, lying some 10 miles from us
 in a bay of the hills.  Seeing it thus from the desert one realizes
 the desert town, not the Roman, Tadmur, not Palmyra.  And yesterday we
 rode along under the hills, through Bukarra, an outlying settlement of
 Palmyra, and camped under the walls of a mediaeval khan.  It was
 without interest, the khan, quite late, I should think - I did not
 even trouble to plan it; but today I have found milestones all along
 our way - we must be on a Roman road - the road from the great camp at
 Dumair to Palmyra.  Only 2 of the milestones were inscribed and they
 so terribly battered that I could make out nothing but a few letters
 here and there, not enough to date the road.  We are terribly bothered
 by wind, both marching and in camp, where it shuts us in dust.  We
 march very long hours, and oh, I'm tired!
 May 2.  We rode through the mountains, a beautiful road but I was too
 tired to enjoy it much.  Also we made very long hours, ten and twelve
 a day.  On the 30th we came down to Dumair and it being early, went on
 to 'Adra and camped there, on the very spot where I mounted my camel
 the day I set out from Damascus, four months and a half ago.  Next
 morning, yesterday, through gardens and orchards to Damascus.  I got
 in at 9 or soon after and stopped at the hospital which is the first
 house in the town.  The kind Mackinnons have kept me, may God reward
 them.  I've strained one foot a little - it's nothing but it has been
 a confounded nuisance the last week.  A day or two of rest will put it
 right.  I can't walk much now, and I lie in a long chair out in the
 garden which is a bower of roses and do nothing.  I have letters from
 you and Father and two from Elsa.  I can't understand why you did not
 get my telegram from Baghdad.  I sent one direct to you.  I'm thrilled
 by the Irish business and immensely grateful to Father for the week of
 Timeses.  I have a message from Louis Mallet telling me to come to him
 whenever I like.  I rather think I shall catch a boat to C'ple on the
 8th, getting there on the 12th, stay there a week or less, and come on
 by train, getting to London about the 24th.  I am telegraphing to you
 today.  If I make my delay I will let you know, but in any case the
 the only safe address is C'ple so that my telegram will hold good.  I
 long to hear about your American visit - and all your news.
 But Ireland!  was there ever anything so fatuous as the Ulster plot,
 the Govt.  plot, so far as as I can understand it.  I can scarcely
 believe that it can be true, but if it isn't true why don't they give
 a full and clear explanation?  Well, I suppose you are beginning to
 forget all this excitement, but I'm only at the entrance of it
 remember!  Bless Elsa for her letters.  I'll write to her.
 I don't much like my letters being opened by anyone but you Mother -
 it's not fair to my correspondents who write about all sorts of things
 that concern them.  However you are there now to deal with them.  Any
 letters that look like real letters might be sent to me at C'ple
 unopened I should think - you will judge.
 I'm writing to you from my bed!  Mrs M.  has kept me there.  I can't
 sleep much - I ride a camel through my dreams.  But all this won't
 last long.  Now I shall get up and lie in the garden.
 Ever my beloved parents your very affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 17 May (1914) British Embassy Constantinople.  Dearest Mother, Today
 came a second letter - no a third, dated the 13th from you.  Thank you
 so much.  You will already know that I am quite rested and much amused
 here.  My idea is to leave on Friday 22nd and get to London on the
 25th but I shall talk over plans with the Russells, who have arrived
 from Sardis today and dine here tonight, and then telegraph to you.  I
 wish they were staying here - it would make me feel less as if I had
 suggested myself which is what I did - the first time I've ever done
 such a thing!  However Sir Louis appears to like having me and I think
 he is very much gravelled for want of congenial society.  It's rather
 absurd, since I have never known him at all well, to be quite alone
 here - Tootoo has gone - and spending half my days with him!  But he
 is extremely pleasant.  I breakfast in my room and don't see till
 lunch when there are always other people.  Then we generally do
 something together, go to the bazaars (he adores shopping!) or see
 mosques.  Then we come in and talk for an hour over tea.  At dinner
 there are always other people and he is inviting all the world whom I
 want to see.  Today I was away all day.  I went up the Bosphorus to
 lunch with Khalil Bey, head of the Museum.  It was an adventurous
 expedition for Sir L.  insisted on sending in the launch and at the
 last moment the launch wasn't ready and the ordinary boat had gone.
 So I took a motor and motored up - most delicious it was.  We broke
 two tyres and they drive so recklessly that I soon found the only plan
 was to shut one's eyes and say a short prayer for the souls of the
 dead.  The launch fetched me and took me to another place on the
 Bosphorus where I went to tea with the van Millingens - he is a very
 distinguished and delightful archaeologist.  Then Sir Louis met me,
 having driven up, and we drove back together - most agreeable.  Last
 night there was a dinner party for the new Inspectors General of the
 Armenian vilayets, a Dutch man and a Norwegian.  Turkey will be a
 Babel of international advisers!  The Dutchman and his wife were nice
 people.  There was also a charming Russian 1st secretary and the naval
 attache, Captain Boyle and his wife - she is a sister of Susan
 Townley.  Now I must dress for dinner.  Ever your affectionate
 daughter Gertrude

 15 May (1914) [British]Embassy Constantinople.Dearest Mother, I ought to
 have telegraphed yesterday for I arrived on the evening of the 13th, but
 I was held back by not being quite certain what to say.  I proposed to
 to Sir Louis that I should leave on Monday, but he said No, that there
 were several people I shhould like to see and it was silly to go away
 so soon.  Now Flora writes from Sardis that she is coming on Sunday or
 Monday and I think I will wait and see what are her plans before I
 decide definitely.  Anyhow I shall now stay longer than till towards
 the end of next week and I think I will telegraph today that I am
 arriving on the 24th probably.  I have left your letter with dates in
 my room - I am writing in the garden - I think you are in London that
 week, but I will go up and look presently.  If you are at Rounton I
 should come straight there.  Sir Louis is perfectly delightful.  He is
 tremendously full of his job and we have talked for hours.  He was so
 welcoming that I instantly forgot my hesitations in proposing myself.
 I found him in the garden when I got in about 6 o'clock - so thankful
 to escape from the horrid French boat and my cabin the size of a
 pocket handkerchief - ans we fell to discussing flower beds and tree
 choppings in the most civilized manner.  It was nice to be talking
 about gardens again.  I nearly embraced the butler, not from any
 personal feelings - though they might have counted, for he has been
 here since the O'Conors' time and greeted me as an old friend - but
 because he stood for so much!  What will happen when I see Perkins I
 don't know.  And who do you think is staying here?  Tootoo!  Her
 husband nearly died of pneumonia on the boat coming up from Corfu; she
 arrived knowing no one but Sir L.  whom she knew a little, and wrote
 to him for advice.  He sent the husband to the English hospital where
 he has recovered and is coming out tomorrow when they both go to a
 hotel.  And Tootoo was taken in here.  Such a changed Tootoo!
 disappointed and bored by life, very pretty still, but thin and
 pinched and full of complaints.  She would have done much better to
 marry Maurice - tell him with my love!  A young secretary, Charles
 Lister, dined, and we talked till near midnight of Turkey and Arabia.
 Yesterday morning I went to see Khalil Bey, director of the Museum and
 there met Mr Norton, an American archaeologist whom I knew, and Mr
 Armour, an Americanm millionaire who is largely financing the Sardis
 excavations.  I asked them to come and see me and Sir L.  proposes to
 ask them to lunch.  Also Khalil and anyone else I like - he is a dear
 certainly.  Yesterday the Commercial attache lunched, Mr Weatly, a
 very interesting man who knows his Turkey like the inside of his
 pocket.  He stayed talking to me for two hours, which I liked
 immensely - Sir L.  had gone to the opening of the Chamber, when he
 came in we went driving till tea time and then sat long over tea
 talking and talking.  It isn't often that you find ambassadors so
 deeply interested in the country to which they are accredited.  A
 secretary dined and the 1st dragoman and his wife.  The Ryans (Mr
 Fitzmaurice is away ill) not very interesting but we had a very merry
 dinner.  The truth is, as I said before, that Sir Louis is so
 pleasant.  I'm being very lazy today - it's so delcious sitting in
 this garden and doing nothing.  Besides I must write to all the people
 with whom I stayed in Syria.  There is no news about Lord Cromer so I
 hope he is better.  I wrote to him yesterday.  Is Domnul coming to
 Rounton for Whitsuntide?  It would be nice to have him.  And I am
 delighted to hear that Florence will be in England - not for long I
 suppose.  Thank you both for your letters, Elsa likewise, bless her.
 Did I tell you about my strained foot?  it's better, but I feel it
 still a little.  I've entirely recovered from the exhaustion of the
 Syrian desert.
 Ever your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 95 Sloane Street Tuesday (10 November 1914) Dearest Mother, I met
 Harold Dixon at Northallerton and travelled with him.  He had received
 a telegram from a man he did not know saying that Clive's kit was at
 the Cavalry Club and that he would be glad to see Harold and tell him
 about "poor Clive".  I fear that can have no meaning but one and
 Harald was very unhappy.  Poor poor Lilian.
 I did not dare to wait for you lest you might not be able to come and
 I find myself in difficulties but I felt sure that you would appear
 the moment I had left- which was exactly what did happen, confound it.
 I met one of Maurice's officers at Northallerton, returning from the
 Stockton wireless.  He said (in private) that the Admiralty were very
 nervous about a raid on Elswick and he did not think they would be
 sent abroad as long as there was that danger.  Elsa is coming to see
 me at 10 and I will leave this open and tell you what she says about
 the mittens.  I leave Marie here for the moment, she has one or two
 things to do for me - I may send for her.  Your affectionate daughter
 Gertrude
 Clive was shot through the body on the 5th leading a counter attack
 and died that night.  He was commanding the regiment.  Isn't it
 dreadful.
 Elsa will give the 500 mittens so that's all right.  Still I suggest
 that mittens might be put on the list of Red X work for you know they
 don't last for ever and when a battalion goes out they will ultimately
 want more, don't you think so?

 Tuesday Clandon (10 November 1914) Dearest Mother, I arrived at lunch
 time today and lunched with Lady O and the staff.  After lunch Lord O.
 took me over everything.  The whole of their house is turned into a
 hospital and they are lodged in a house in the village with them for
 the present at any rate.  There are 100 wounded Belgians, some of whom
 are now beginning to recover and to be sent out to convalescent
 hospitals.  They may at any time have a fresh batch.  They have a bery
 nice matron, 4 sisters, 11 nurses and about 20 V.A.D.s .  I am to be
 inducted into my jobs toward morning, but I haven't got nearly enough
 Red X clothes, for I shall have to wear them all the time, and I am
 going to London tomorrow for an hour or two in the afternoon to get
 more.  I left Marie there and I shall not have her here.  She would
 have to be lodged in the village and I don't want her.  I shall see
 her tomorrow and will tell yu when she will come home.  I feel rather
 confused through having seen so many many people all at once.  I
 expect it will be some days before I begin to feel my feet.
 The Os are very friendly.  I wonder what it will be like!
 Your affectionate daughter  Gertrude
 I hear a hospital is being opened in Guidlford so that the Stracheys
 will have their billet!

 Friday 95 Sloane Street Dearest Mother, May I please give you some
 orders for Marie.  The watch she sent here is not the right one.  I
 want the gun metal watch in a green leather wristband.  This is very
 important.  I know it is at home.  I want it sent to Dibdins to be
 cleaned, and returned by them here.  I shall need it if I go abroad.
 Marie did not send the blue brocade gown here as I told her to do.
 VERY stupid and careless of her.  If I had not by good luck brought
 one up from Clandon I should have had nothing to wear.
 I will send her the silk shirt as a pattern as soon as it comes back
 from the wash.
 I shall want her to make the flannel shirt quickly.
 I'll write tomorrow to you.
 Your affectionate daughter  Gertrude.
 She is to send here too my blue green silk day down from Osporat.

 17 November Clandon (1914) Darling Father, Read the enclosed from
 Harold Russell and sent it on to Mother.  It looks as if I were pretty
 sure of a job presently and what he suggests sounds well suited to my
 powers.  It would be very interesting wouldn't it.  I am afraid I
 can't come up this week.  The Onslows are both in London for a day or
 two and I am in charge.  If she comes back tomorrow night I might get
 up for dinner on Thursday when I gather you will still be there.  It
 would be very nice to have a talk with you.  And would you if I
 telegraphed that I was coming, ask Domnul to dinner?  Also will you
 please tell Ellen to send me an ABC for this month at once.  Their
 latest here is September!  I went for a walk on Sunday afternoon and
 dropped in to tea with the Stracheys on my way home.  They have 20
 wounded Belgian convalescents and Amy is more official than words can
 say.  The first thing she asked me was whether we used all the army
 forms.  I replied boldly yes, though we don't!  One of their first
 convalescent was a coal black negro from the Congo.  He succeeded in
 concealing a huge knife in his bed with him.  His opening remark was
 "En Afrique pas de prisonniers." He drew his finger significantly
 across his throat and added "Mange".  As he was suffering from nothing
 but a nearly healed sprained ankle Amy felt herself justified in
 returning him to the Belgian Legation, with thanks.  St Loc observed
 mildly "It was a curiously unexpected result of the war to have one's
 best bedroom occupied by a cannibal." He told me of the invasion
 scheme, Iceland and so forth, of which you certainly know.  His
 information was not official but he said I was not to repeat it, and I
 haven't.  Herbert writes to me of great activity among German
 transports and armed vessels, but he doesn't think a serious landing
 can be effected apparently.
 Send on this letter to Mother with my dear love to her.
 Your affectionate daughter Gertrude

 Clandon Park Hospital Guildford 21 November 1914 Dearest Mother, I
 have a telegram this morning from Boulogne asking whether they can
 count on me on Sunday or Monday.  So I've said I'll go Monday.  I am
 going to London this afternoon in time to go to the Red X and see
 Arthur Stanley if possible.  I shall cross by the afternoon boat on
 Monday.  It's rather exciting isn't it!  My address till I tell you
 anything else will be Headquarters British Red X Boulogne.  As soon as
 I know where I can lodge I will give you that address.  I'll write
 from London Gertrude
 Certainly tell Fatehr to do what he likes with Reinach's remarks.  I
 may be at 95 for Wed.  night.  Will communicate with him.

 Clandon 12 November (1914) Dearest Mother, Of course let us use
 Florence's kind gift - as much as you like of it.  Elsa and I will
 share the balance, whatever it is, of the mitten bill.  I'm quite glad
 to have some of the price taken off me for there are constant small
 things cropping up here - little things they ask for and that one
 gives and besides I have a weekly contribution to the Belgians at
 home.
 I have been sorting and distributing French novels all the afternoon
 after hanging about and doing nothing most of the morning.  Could you
 send me an old Bradshaw?  I mean a last month's copy, or any that is
 done with.  A man has begged me for an English railway guide!  He said
 it would interest him so much to read it!
 Your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 Clandon 12 November (1914) Dearest Mother, I find your letter at the
 house, so I write again.  Here is Stewart's letter.  I fear we are not
 to have the whole lot for nearly 3 weeks.  Elsa and I are prepared to
 share them between us.  If anyone else contributes, then we had better
 pay each of us half of the balance - thus Mrs Jones's 3 pounds would
 knock off 30/ from each of us.  Don't you think that's the best plan.
 As for paying, the best way perhaps is for yu to deduct from the bill
 any contributions and then tell Elsa and me what our shar comes to
 when we will send you our cheques.  Or if you like to send the bill to
 me and Mrs Jones's cheque, or whatever the contributions are, I'll
 communicate with Elsa and send the cheque myself.  G.

 Boulogne 30 December (1914) My beloved Father.  It's most surprisingly
 kind of you to send me such a handsome present, with Lloyd George and
 everything.  Bless you dearest - I ought not to accept it I think, but
 I do love your sending it so much.  I am going to keep it for things
 here - I have already presented the office with a complete set of
 filing drawers, and if ever they say we are costing too much - but we
 really cost them almost nothing - I can now stump up with a
 contribution.  I long to answer your letter not in writing.  I do so
 deeply sympathise with you about dear Kerley - the trusted friend.  We
 shall all miss him, but none of us as much as you.  It's very bitter
 that it should come just at this time when everything seems to be
 heaped together, all sorow and anxiety.  Do you much mind my being
 here, dearest Father?  I feel as if I had flown to this work as one
 might take to drink, for some kind of forgetting, that it brings.
 Yet, you know it, there's no real forgetting, and care rides behind
 one all the day.  I sometimes wonder if we shall ever know again what
 it was like to be happy.  You sound terribly overworked - I hope
 Mother is not.  She makes light of it all in her letters.  In a way
 the obsession of the war is nearer to one here and in a way it is
 better to be nearer, to be in it, than to be watching it from far off;
 since in my case one can think of nothing else.  I try to look in the
 face the thing that may be before us - but it won't bear speaking of.
 I shall see Maurice I think certainly when he comes out and before he
 goes to the front; I may very likely have a day or two with him -
 that's what I hope.
 The last fortnight has been awful - we hear so much.  The terrible
 waste of life for such small gains.  It's inevitable, I suppose, but
 one's heart aches over it.  We have a man in here tonight, Crum Ewing
 is his name, come to look for his son, a boy of 18, lost in the recent
 fighting - we caught no word of him.  The chances are he is dead, part
 of the immense sacrifice we had to make to retake the trenches the
 Indian troops had lost.  I wish we could, without dishonour to them,
 take them away, the Indian troops - send them to guard Egypt or
 something.  Now that they have lost such an immense proportion of the
 officers who understood them, they are not much good.  It's too high a
 test, the fighting here, and they suffer so much from the climate,
 they are bewildered by the strange conditions and the new men over
 them whom they don't know.  They can't, or don't, dig trenches that
 are any good either for themselves or for those who have to replace
 them.  That's my private opinion; perhaps it is best not to spread it,
 but I tell it to you.  I'm deeply interested about Plumer and wish him
 well.  My letters are not censored now.  I have found a means of
 passing through.
 Goodbye my dearest Father and Mother.  I think of you both very often
 and of our beloved Maurice all the time.
 Ever your very affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 Sunday Clandon (16 November 1914?) Dearest Mother, I write today
 though I fear it won't reach you till Tuesday.  Your letters get here
 at 10.30 and sometimes but exceptionally at 8.  I'm gradually getting
 onto my feet and finding more to do.  They won't let me go into the
 wards to do any nursing on the ground that I shall not be able to keep
 authority over people who during some hours of the day would be in
 authority over me.  I'm sorry because I should have liked to have had
 some sort of experience of all kinds and also because I haven't yet
 enough to do to fill in my day.  But perhaps if I wait patiently I may
 yet get my way.  The Matron is a very nice woman and says she is
 anxious to let me learn all I can.  She was at Brussels in the
 beginning of the war.  Lord O.  went to France yesterday for a day or
 two.  Lady O.  breakfasts in bed and I in my room where I read the
 papers and write letters as long as I can bear the cold!  About 10 I
 go down to the hospital and stay there solid till about 5.30, longer
 if there is anything to do.  Lady O.  is very much done up and these
 last 2 nights she has had dinner in bed.  I've dined peacefully by
 myself, which I prefer.  I go in to see her for a bit afterwards and
 then go and read or write in my room.  Quantities of people seem to
 write to me.  I heard from George Lloyd yesterday.  He is with the
 Warwickshire Yeomanry and is waiting orders to go to France any day.
 No news I suppose about Maurice?  I hope the mittens will be in time.
 Now I must go and get out the wine and beer!
 Your affectionate daughter Gertrude I hope the Belgians are not being
 a trouble.  Marie will help you - but don't let them make claims on
 you.

 95 Sloane Street (21 or 22 November 1914?) Saturday.  Dearest Mother,
 Thank you for your telegram.  I've been to the Red X and got every
 possible facility for my journey.  Also I've seen Flora just back from
 Boulogne and heard what she has to tell.  It sounds very interesting
 but disgustingly uncomfortable.  Diana is out there and Flora is
 coming back in a week.  Address to 36bis Rue Victor Hugo, Boulogne and
 send me all my letters there please.  That's our office for the
 missing, which is my job.  Marie had not sent my watch.  It is a
 gunmetal one in a green leather wrist band.  I should like it posted
 to Boulogne.  Tell her is is NOT HERE with my curses.  I haven't asked
 permission of Sir William because I gather he has resigned - horrah!
 I'm dining with Elsa.  I leave at 2 on Monday afternoon.
 Ever your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 22 November (1914) 95 Sloane Street Dearest Mother, Here is the cheque
 - thank you very much.  The watch is not here and Marie knows
 perfectly well that it is not.  There is a small gold watch here which
 is a.  not mine, and b.  broken.  I want a gunmetal watch in a green
 wrist band.  I always wear it hunting.  She is really abominably
 careless.  It was on my dressing table the morning I left Rounton.
 When I asked her for it here she replied that she could not find it
 and took no further trouble.
 I had a very nice evening with Elsa and Herbert who were both most
 cheerful.  Your affectionate daughter Gertrude
 Will you please hand the enclosed to Father and tell him I don't want
 to take up the 3 shares allotted to me.  Can't I make some money by
 disposing of my option?
 I have found my watch - at the bottom of the linen drawer!


 Boulogne 25 November (1914) Dearest Father, Ian Malcolm comes back
 tomorrow and I will ask him about the motor.  But I think it will
 certainly be wanted.  Some of the hospitals are so far off and the
 motor we have been using is to be withdrawn this week.  I don't think
 it needs a stronger motor than the Humber, certainly not a larger one.
 It's only to carry our enquiring men out to the hospitals to pursue
 their interrogations.  Claud Russell passed through today on his way
 for a few days' leave in England.  All the officers of the 1st
 Division are getting a week's leave as you will know.  There's a lull
 on the frontier.  Claud looked tired but the general impression is
 that we can hold them and that the Germans have shot their bolt and
 can't by any chance get through.  We are about 60 miles from their
 lines here, 2 hours by motor from Herzebroke whence Claud came.  I
 hear you can hear the guns all the time.
 We have had an endless amount of filing, indexing, clerk's work
 generally, today.  And there's a big task ahead for we must make a
 card index.
 It's warmer, Lord be praised.  Living is rather dear here.  My room,
 high up, costs 10 francs a day, no food.  I must see if I can do it
 cheaper anyhow.  And this is a poky little hotel.  But good enough and
 near the office.
 Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.  Would you pay for the
 keep of the motor and George, or not?  I had better know.

 Boulogne Thursday (26th November 1914) Dearest Father, Ian Malcolm has
 brought a motor over with him, so for the moment that's all we want.
 But I can't be certain that we may not want one later, for this whole
 thing is merely in course of organization, a Rouen branch is in
 propsect and I wish you would hold your hand till I see what happens.
 It's fearful the amount of office work there is.  We are at it all day
 from 10 to 12.30 and from 2 to 5 filing, indexing and answering
 enquiries.  Yesterday, after 5, I went to see Mrs Charlie Furse at the
 Central Rly station where she has her outstation and afterwards we
 went together to one of the big hospitals, at the Casino[?] and talked
 to some of the men in one of the wards.  A lot came in with frost bite
 last week; now it's warm and that won't occur.  The Red X won't let
 any women make the enquiries at the hospitals, which is very silly, as
 it would give us an occasional change of work, but of course I shall
 gradually make friends with C.O.s and sisters and go in after 5
 whenever I like.  Mrs Furse lunched with Diana and me today -
 interesting women.  She is doing her job awfully well.  Will you ask
 Gen Bethune to send us out as complete a list as he can of the
 Territorial Battalions - something corresponding to the Army list for
 Regulars.  Now that the Ts are out in considerable numbers we shall
 want it badly.  As complete as possible - anyhow it will be better
 than nothing.  Also can I have some sort of London address book for
 the office?  An old Telephone Directory would do if you would send it
 next time you are in London.  We have no books of reference.
 Now I'm going to have a talk with the Bill Duncombes who are leaving
 next week.  They're nice, but no loss as far as work goes.
 Ever your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 Boulogne November 27 (1914) Dearest Mother, We are going to move into
 a better, and oddly enough cheaper hotel - the Meurice.  Will you
 address my letters there please, Hotel Meurice, Rue Victor Hugo.  Ian
 Malcolm has been here today and very pleasant.  He goes to Paris
 tomorrow.  He says Harold Russell was awfully bad and Flora isn't much
 good, but I think Diana is very capable indeed.  She exchanges with
 Flora next week, for 10 days.  It's a tremendous business.  We have 4
 men to do our enquiries at the hospitals, very nice and pleasant to
 work with.  Their names are Durell, Waterhouse, Dove and Young.  Yes
 and there's another but I misremember his name.  Lord R.  Cecil came
 today but went straight up to headquarters.  I expect we shall see him
 tomorrow.  Ethel Bonham has taken her brother home.  He has had a
 narrow escape.  In the evening after 6 I sometimes go in to one of the
 big hospitals and talk to the men.  It's immensely interesting to hear
 their tales.  They fulminate against German ferocity to the civil
 population.  They love telling about trenches and Jack Johnsons and
 all they did.  There are a good many Germans, with whom I talk.  Our
 men are exceedingly good and kind to them and try to cheer them - as
 far as they can with no common language.  I generally go for a walk by
 the sea from 8.30 to 9 AM - it's the only time I have.  We lunch in a
 tiny restaurant with soldiers of all sorts and kinds and the oddest
 world.  Everybody takes everybody else for granted.  Incidentally it's
 amusing being in France, though I don't see much of France - it's so
 plastered over with English army here.  Tell Father to let me know any
 news.  I hear little.
 Ever your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 Boulogne Saturday 28th (November 1914) Dearest Mother, I hear from
 Phyllis today that you have your convalescents, and even 20 of them
 (where have you put them all?) Now would you not like me to come back?
 I am quite quite ready to come.  I don't approve of doing other things
 when you are wanted in your own place and if you have 20 men to look
 after, it seems to me that you will be rather shorthanded.  Will you
 please decide entirely according to your wishes.  If you send me a
 telegram I will return at once and no more said.  They can get someone
 else here.  You understand I should not be happy here if I thought you
 needed me.  I reckoned that you would be able to manage 11 without
 difficulty, but 20 is a different matter.
 I've had a busy day and I'm just going out to dine with the Duncombes
 who leave tomorrow.
 Please telegraph and I'll come home at once.  Your ever affectionate
 daughter Gertrude.

 Hotel Meurice Boulogne November 30 (1914) Dearest Mother, Thank you
 for your two p.cs.  I expect I shall have a telegram from you tomorrow
 in answer to my letter about coming back.  Please remember that I'll
 come at once if you are overdone.  We have been very busy today making
 our double card catalogue which has to be done over and above our
 work, and therefore mostly in the luncheon hour or after tea when the
 office is supposed to be shut.  It will take days I fear but when once
 it is done the office will be in far better order.  Philip Howell
 passed through yesterday and we lunched together.  He told me lots of
 interesting things which I may not repeat because I'm under oath to
 the Censor to write nothing that I hear here.  Everyone is very
 confident, however, and with good cause I think.  Anthony came over by
 the afternoon boat.  I met him and had tea with him and his general at
 the station.  They went straight on to the headquarters of the Cavalry
 Corps.  A.  looks very well and says he is enjoying himself.  They
 live in a fine house and are very comfortable and happy.  The King was
 here today.  I didn't see him being too busy to go out and look fro
 him.  He visited one of the hospitals and I suppose went on to
 headquarters.  A horrible day - pouring and blowing - it never
 stopped.  So we lost nothing by sitting indoors over our indexes.
 Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude


 Boulogne 1 December (1914) Dearest Mother, The horrible censor says he
 must read all our letters - hitherto we have had them passed unopened.
 Whenever I can I shall send a letter by someone who is going oover,
 otherwise you will understand that censored letters must be very
 colourless.  I don't know why they take so long on the way.  They will
 probably take longer now.  Anyhow I understand why I have not had a
 telegram from you today.  Flora has come and Diana goes back to London
 tomorrow - taking this letter.  We are horribly overworked with our
 index, but when it is done we shall have an easier time.  We have got
 3 men who do our enquiries.  First Mr Durell who is very nice and very
 clever at his job.  He has been here some time and is delightful to
 work with.  He has a wife in India, oddly enough.  Then there are 2
 whom Mr Malcolm brought over to fill Col.  Duncombe's place, Mr Dove
 who has some part in the Round Table, and Mr Deed of whom I know
 nothing.  I don't think either of them very good.  Mr Dove writes us
 Round Table articles instead of concise reports and it will take a
 great deal of tact to persuade so distinguished a literary man to
 adopt a different style.  Mr Deed doesn't seem to get hold of the
 right kind of information either.  Perhaps they will improve.  We who
 have to handle the reports are acutely conscious of these differences
 but we have to walk very warily in making suggestions.  Diana is very
 good and very accurate, I think Flora won't be so quick but she ought
 to know the work as she has been at it a long time.  Anyhow we shall
 all get on together excellently which is the main thing.  I can't in
 my censored letters give you these descriptions of my colleagues!  We
 have so much to do that unless it all goes to perfection we can't get
 through it.  Our present stumbling block is a very slow typewriter.
 He sets everything dragging and though the office is supposed to shut
 at 5 it was past 6 today before we got our letters to sign.  It didn't
 matter as we were working on till dinner time at our index but it
 would be intolerable under ordinary conditions.  Mr Malcolm comes back
 I believe on Thursday and I shall have to discuss this and other
 matters with him.  In time I thinbk we ought to have one of the best
 run offices in France.  We are already scheming to get into closer
 touch with the front which is our weak point.  Lord Robert asked the
 Adj.  General to let us have a representative and he refused
 categorically.  Now we have a great plan for getting hold of army
 chaplains, for it is quite clear that we shall have to make our own
 channels for ourselves.  Also I have several other ideas in my head
 which I am going to put into execution gradually.  I'll tell you about
 them as they evolve.
 We have the most pitiful letters and we see the most pitiful people.
 It's so blessed when one can give them some news, even if it's not
 very decisive.  And at least we can often find out where people died
 and are buried.  But we shall be able to do that much oftener if we
 get our links with the clearing hospitals which is what I am now
 trying to do.  We never know where these hospitals are as their
 position is kept secret.
 Don't let all this discourage you at all from bringing me home if you
 want me.  Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude

 Boulogne December 15 (1914) Dearest Father, What a terrible adventure
 was the fire in the Village Hall!  and what an unnececesary addition
 to all Mother's labours.  It must have been no small matter to
 transport 20 convalescents to the house and lodge them there.  I felt
 I must send a word of sympathy but I shall not write much tonight for
 I have been in the office from 9 AM till 8 PM with short intervals for
 lunch and tea.  We had a heavy day.  Mr Howell dined with us last
 night.  He had just been up to the front on some job and had been in
 the trenches and seen the Sikhs throwing hand grenades into a German
 trench not 30 yards away.  Tehre are rumours that the attack for which
 we have been waiting the last few days has begun but you will read of
 it in the papers before this reaches you.  Mr Mattison left the books
 in the hotel and disappeared like a bandersnatch.  I went to the Hotel
 de Paris today to dig him out (it's the Red X headquarters) but found
 he had gone off with his ambulance and would be back in a day or two.
 So I left a letter of thanks and asked him to come and see me when he
 returned.
 Would you please ask Annie at the County Association office to send me
 the latest arrangements about Soldiers and Sailors wives  -
 allowances, what is given to widows and orphans if the man is killed
 and what to the man if he is disabled.  The orders have been so many
 that I haven't kept them in my head and we want them for reference.
 Your affectionate daughter Gertrude
 What a gallant business in the Dardanelles!

 Boulogne December 16 (1914) Dearest Mother, Your two letters reached
 me today, bless you for them.  But don't write when you are so busy.
 It's really too much.  If you go on having wounded at R'ton don't you
 think I had better come back?  Surely it would be too much for you a
 la langue?  I'll come at a moment's notice.
 Diana has brought me everything I could possibly want - thank you so
 much.  It will be a great comfort not to live from hand to mouth with
 never quite enough clean things.  This is the dirtiest place I have
 ever been in.
 I've got a great chunk of work done these last days and very nearly
 cleared away the mountain of mistakes which I found when I came.
 Nothing was ever verified and we went on, piling error onto error,
 with no idea of the confusion that was being caused.  Now that's all
 done with I hope.  The man from the Round Table, Mr Dove, a funny
 dowdy little man, is a tower of strength.  With his good aid I shall
 keep things straight I think If we are not scrupulously exact we are
 no good at all and it weighed on me.  I think I have an inherited love
 of office work!  A clerk was was I was meant to be.
 Diana brings us news of Scarborough, but we haven't yet heard the
 extent of the bombardment.
 Here we believe that we are on the edge of a big forward movement.  Mr
 Grier, whom I saw yesterday, just down from Bailleul with his
 ambulance, told me it had begun on Monday.  That we and the French had
 been told to take La Bassee at all costs and had failed.  If it's true
 we shal have another stream of wounded here.  The letters I receive
 and answer daily are heartrending.  At any rate, even if one can give
 these people little news that is good, it comforts them to think that
 something is being done to find out what has happened to their
 beloveds.  Often I know myself that there is no chance for them and I
 have to answer as gently as I can and carefully keep from them
 horrible details which I have learnt.  That's my daily job.  Ever your
 very affectionate daughter Gertrude

 Boulogne December 19 (1914) Dearest Father, I am longing to hear of
 how you put on your cocked hat and went to Scharborough to resist the
 German invasion, as I've seen you must have done.  A horrible affair
 wasn't it - but it all seems pale to us with so much worse things
 going on so close.  Yesterday there came into the office an agitated
 couple, very nice people, who had just received a W.O.  telegram to
 say their son had been badly wounded.  They came to us to ask where he
 could be.  So we set about making enquiries, but this morning they
 came in again and said he had come here into hospital, badly wounded
 but still mending, I hope.  We were so much pleased to hear the happy
 issue of their troubles.  I do wonder how you are prospering.  Moll
 and her children are with you - I must find some war picture postcards
 to send them.  It never stops raining and I haven't been out at all.
 One can't go out immediately after breakfast and get wet through and
 sit in the office in soaking clothes.  So I just remain in the office
 all day long and work.  I'm feeling rather too sedentary in
 consequence.  I haven't nearly thanked you enough for the books of
 reference.  They make an immense difference to our comfort.  I saw Sir
 Courtauld Thomson yesterday - I went to see him with a request and
 found him very pleasant and obliging.  I am to see him again and
 discuss the particular scheme I have in hand more at length.  I gather
 that he has made a very favourable impression.
 You know we have a head office in London under Lord Robert.  At 83
 Pall Mall.  Some time when you are in there you might go and see him
 and find out if he is satisfied with the way we run the office here.
 Philip Howell writes me a curious tale of a private who wandered into
 the German trenches and they took him round and said how hateful it
 all was, and when was this damned nonsense going to stop.  And then
 they sent him away again, unharmed.  Well it is damned nonsense of
 course and I expect it's becoming nonsensical and damneder.
 Ever your affectionate daughter  Gertrude

 Boulogne December 23 (1914) Dearest Father, I have found A Way - let
 him remain anonymous - of sending my letters censored and unread.  I
 was deeply interested in your account of the bombardment.  I see the
 King has written you a kind letter about it.  As for your portrait -
 oh not John Collier!  almost anyone else.  They might be good, but he
 can't.  I don't visualize Harold Speed much - Figgis Watts, who
 painted Mother, has done some goodish portraits.  Orpen isn't bad -
 Llewellyn - all better than John Collier.  What about our friend
 Laszlo?  Or Lavery - he would do a nice picture of you.  Only not John
 Collier - I feel very strongly on that point.
 I woke this morning with such a raging desire to see M.  before he
 leaves that I could scarcely bear it.  But I won't come.  It would be
 silly to go all the way to Newcastle to spend 2 hours with him.  I am,
 however, writing to Harold, asking him to let me know if he possibly
 can when and which way the 4th will go, so that I might catch them
 when they disembark and see them.  It would be easy enough to get to
 ----- or ----- I'm on my honour not to mention names!  When once he is
 out it will be a great comfort to be here.  For if he is wounded it is
 almost certainly here that he would be brought, or if not brought here
 I should have exceptional means of getting up to him.  And if he ever
 has a little leave he can come here and see me and I can make him
 happy.  But whatever happens mind you send me at once any telegram the
 W.O.  sends you about him after he is out so that I may at aonce take
 steps from here.  I should not know of anything that had happened
 otherwise.
 I do not believe they will go on trying to storm trenches.  It is
 impossible and they all know it.  The recent efforts may have been
 partly on account of Russia and partly because the French wanted to
 push the Germans over the frontier before the New Year.  But it can't
 be done.  Don't believe what the papers say about advances.  They are
 too small to count, but the loss they imply is terrible.  And I don't
 think the policy will continue, that's my private impression.
 As to my ofice - yes it's dull of course, you know the kind of thing
 it is.  I go in early every morning so as to have a general view of
 the letters and start the day's work before anyone else comes.  Just
 as you do!  Then I'm hard at it without a pause till 12.30.  I've got
 through yesterday's reports - with luck - corrected the book of
 enquiries for the 3 men and dictated the letters.  Meantime Diane does
 the hospital lists.  In the afternoon there is sometimes a little more
 breathing space.  Sometimes I haven't finished copying out the last
 day's reports for my own cards and I go on with that, always there are
 odd jobs left over from the morning because they would have taken too
 long.  And since I've been here there has always been much work at
 verification and re-indexing.  Before I came it was chaos - I may tell
 you in the strictest confidence.  The lists of enquiries were full of
 errors and everybody had a different list of his own quite unlike any
 other.  It's been a great task to get them pulled straight, but I've
 done it at last.  Now I have another on hand - the classifying of
 enquiries, the taking out of those with which we are satisfied we can
 go no further (they are many) and finally the duty of persuading
 London and Paris to adopt my scheme and my classification.  And then
 it has all to be kept up to date.  As also the books of Fabian Ware's
 people who are working at the front and who get the enquiries through
 us - that's the new and admirable arrangement which Lord Robert has
 made.  But the classification for Fabian Ware at the front is
 necessarily rather different than that which applies to us and Paris.
 They can get at things which we can't reach.
 I've got all this into my own hands now - here at least.  That's why I
 didn't want to come home for Xmas.  If I went away it would all fall
 to pieces again.  You see the great advantage I have over the Russells
 is that I'm always here and have all the strings in my hand.  I
 wouldn't care to do the work otherwise.  It was being very badly done
 in Boulogne and excellently in Paris while Mrs Buckler was there, and
 if she goes back there we shall play into each other's hand.  I hope
 she will go back.  But I won't leave ..  here.  It wouldn't be worth
 going on at all if I did.  And as long as I have the running of it,
 it's not, after all, dull.  And it has the blessed quality of keeping
 me hard at work from 8.30 AM til 7 PM.  Don't repeat all this - I need
 not say.  Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude Ian Malcolm
 said "You know I was flooded out with Russells!" Bury that in your
 bosom.

 Boulogne December 26 (1914) Dearest Father, I want you to do something
 for me - or at least to see if anything can be done.  We are
 continuously brought up short by the face that our threads disappear
 into the German trenches and can be followed no further.  We know all
 there is to be know about a given man, where he was last seen, how he
 was left behind in trenches occupied by the Germans - and his body
 never found when we retook them - there remain only two alternatives:
 he must be dead or a prisoner, and we can't find out.  Now I have been
 proposing that some attempt should be made to induce Germany to
 exchange information with us either through the Red X or by any other
 method - that we might send in our lists to them, asking whether such
 and such people are in Germany and theirs to us.  If the men or the
 lists are not forthcoming it is pretty certain they must be dead.  I
 have written to the P.M.  and to Sir Arthur Nice, but I daresay they
 will make answer that nothing can be done.  There is one other method,
 unofficial.  It is through banks.  Cox, I know, gets information from
 Germany through a Swiss bank.  I wish we could open up some line of
 this kind for ourselves.  Do you think our own Nat.  Prov.  Bank could
 do anything through its client bank in neutral countries?  or what
 about the Bank of England?  Could you ask my Lord Cunliffe?  It's a
 wild idea perhaps, but I wish you would think it over.  We could not
 offer reciprocal information; that could only be done through official
 channels and if the Germans refuse these it's their own fault.  In my
 scheme the information would have to be given in order to do a
 friendly turn to the Bank that asked for it.  And it would have to be
 done secretly, I fancy, the central banks finding means of their own
 to get it.  Will you try?
 Diana and I took a half holiday yesterday and walked along the coast
 in frosty sun to where we met Major Armstrong, Domnul's friend.  He
 took us to see the hospital of which he is P.M.O., Lady Hadfield's.
 She is an American, and Hadfield an English steel magnate.  So we
 called on her; she was getting raisins and prunes for dinner,
 exquisitiely dressed for the fact in pure white down to her shoes and
 up to her nurses' veil.  It's a charming hospital.  Major A and
 another doctor walked back with us, and it was very pleasant.  Today
 it sleets and rains and I was at work til 8 pm.  We had a Xmas dinner
 with Mr Durell - one of our staff.  He invited us all to dine at the
 Folkestone.  It was amusing to go and dine somewhere else and see
 other people.  We live such a shell fish life.  I meant to write to
 Mother todau but was drawn off by wishing to ask you about the banks.
 My love to her and I hope we shall never find another Xmas like this
 one - but I don't feel sure.  Your affectionate daughter Gertrude