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GERTRUDE BELL


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK ■ BOSTON ■ CH1CAOO ' DALLAS
ATLANTA ■ SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limitbd
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OP CANADA, Limited
TORONTO


GERTRUDE REEL
Ronald Bodley
*
and
Lorna Hearst
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1940


TO
Evelyn Bodley-Hunt
(nee Evelyn Bell)


/ /'/'//
FOREWORD
A biographer who undertakes to write the life of a relative
is apt to find himself viewing his subject from too close a
perspective, but though Gertrude Bell's father was my grand-
father's brother, circumstances gave me little opportunity of
knowing her. It was more the setting in which she passed
her life than her personality which first tempted me to write
about her.
My maternal grandfather, Gertrude's uncle, lived for many
years in Arab surroundings, and through this connection I
was brought at an early age into touch with the Arabs and
later on spent seven years among the nomads of the desert.
During this period I became intimately acquainted with
the country, living with the Bedouins in their tents, shar-
ing their food and learning as much about them as it is pos-
sible for an Occidental to leam about an Oriental. Gertrude
like myself felt the charm of the desert and appreciated the
Arab mentality. She penetrated behind the Moslem re-
serve and felt herself liked by a race which instinctively re-
sents the non-Mohammedan. To a lesser degree I created
an intimacy with the desert peoples which has explained
many things in Gertrude's life, otherwise obscure.
At the same time this bond in common and knowledge
of the subject's background has not been entirely an ad-
vantage in writing the biography. Being too close to the
vii


Viii FOREWORD
picture is apt to make one slur over the small details of
desert life which would be new and interesting to readers
unacquainted with the ways of the Arabs. The great Anglo-
Arab scholar, H. St. J. Philby, says in his book Sheba's
Daughters that "writing about Arabia is like talking to one-
self without an audience; so few people know the ground
and it is so hard to know what to explain and what not to
explain . . ."
Bearing this in mind, therefore, I have tried to tell of the
desert as if it were new to me, to convey that sensation of
immensity and desolation which no painter or photographer
has been able to reproduce, and, at the same time, to show
the Arabs as they really are.
Ronald Bodley


INTRODUCTION
The famous explorers and administrators who set out
from Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies to open unknown parts of the world to white men
were pioneers of great courage. They discovered new con-
tinents, they set up new empires, they charted unknown
seas and unheard of lands, but they did so with the aid of
the sword and usually with the ulterior motive of material
gain.
Gertrude Bell mapped great areas of unexplored terri-
tory, she was instrumental in establishing a new kingdom,
she created a better understanding between the people of
the Near East and the Occident, but she gained nothing by
it but the collapse of her health which brought about her
death in the midst of her work. The hardest task for Ger-
trude Bell's biographer is not to underestimate what she
achieved.
Unlike many explorers who went on their expeditions
backed by governments or scientific societies, Gertrude Bell
was, until the latter part of her life, completely alone. She
organized her own caravans, paid for them with her own
money and departed into wildernesses knowing that if she
disappeared no one would come to look for her. In order
to appreciate her journeys the atmosphere in which she
travelled must be constantly borne in mind. One must
ix


X INTRODUCTION
think of her all alone with her Arabs, setting out over those
grim wastes of stones and sands with nothing to support
her but the determination to reach her goal. One must re-
member that attitude towards the "infidel" of the Moslem
who has that ineradicable certainty that the only people
who are worthy of respect and can have any hope of future
salvation are the followers of Mohammed. If this were not
sufficient handicap to someone who had decided to make
her life among Moslems, Gertrude Bell had an even greater
one in being of a sex looked down upon by the followers of
the Prophet. But instead of letting this be a hindrance she
put it to every advantage to gain her ends, and this feminine
creature, who had the will power of a man, became a legen-
dary figure, loved and respected from the Red Sea to the
Persian Gulf.
We take this opportunity to thank those who have
helped us in the making of the book.
Mrs. H. L. Hunt, mother of Major Bodley and Gertrude
Bell's cousin; Sir Maurice Bell, Gertrude's brother; and
Lady Richmond, Gertrude's step-sister, who revised the
original manuscript and supplied interesting material about
Gertrude's life.
Ruth Collier, who also read the manuscript and criticised
it from the point of view of the American public.
And Frances Manson, who pointed out what an original
subject Gertrude Bell's life offered for a book.


CONTENTS
PART PAGE
I. GIRLHOOD i
II. WOMANHOOD 53
III. WAR 143
IV. THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 173
INDEX 259





PART I
GIRLHOOD





CHAPTER I
The sun touched the horizon and set behind the Durham
moorlands. A blackcock called and the grouse settled closer
into the heather—the time was drawing near when their
only respite from the guns would be at night. A fox lifted
his head and cocked an ear; he had a little longer peace
than the grouse before the hounds would be after him
again. A quick afterglow, which faded almost at once, fol-
lowed the sunset, and the night breeze went hissing through
the brush.
Along a dusty road, white in the twilight, a gamekeeper
came trudging. He had that sturdy build and determined
look in his eyes which has given to the North Countrymen
of Britain the reputation of being the hardiest race in the
world. As he reached the crest of the road he paused and
turned towards the west. Sunsets over these wild moor-
lands were not new to him, but they still fascinated him.
Until the sun disappeared the country was all green and
mauve and brown, but once it had gone the landscape be-
came a great rolling, colourless expanse. It reminded him of
the desert.
He smiled reminiscently. Only those who had served
Britain in the East would understand this simile . . . The
desert . . . The gamekeeper looked up expecting almost to
see an Arab on his camel or an Indian Sowar riding up the
3


4 GERTRUDE BELL
road. But the darkening landscape was deserted and silent
except for the hissing of the wind.
The man shrugged his shoulders and walked on.
Ten years now since the Great Mutiny—nearly twelve
since those days of honor besieged in Lucknow and those
hours of triumphal revenge, storming the Kashmir Gate at
Delhi . . . fourteen years since the Battle of the Alma . . .
funny how the Durham moorlands reminded him of those
countries—India—the Crimea . . .
It was now quite dark and the glare of the furnaces of the
iron foundries could be seen flickering against the sky—it
might be Cawnpore burning or the campfires of the armies
before Inkerman. There was some connection too, for
without the foundries of Bell Brothers, wars could not be
fought, ships could not cross the oceans, England could not
exist. Bell Brothers kept those furnaces in the North Coun-
try alive and made it possible for Britons to conquer the
world. Lowthian Bell, Hugh Bell, John Bell and their serv-
ant the gamekeeper were all parts of the great empire-
building machine.
A bend in the road brought the gamekeeper suddenly to
a property, through the surrounding trees of which he could
see the lights of a house twinkling. His own cottage was a
little farther down the road, but he decided to call in at
Washington Hall and pass the time of day with the serv-
ants of the Bell household. The head coachman and the
gamekeeper had been soldiers together in India and he felt
in the mood to "sling the bat." 1 As he crunched up the
drive he noticed that the upper part of the Hall had brighter
lights than usual and several carriages, as well as the local
1 Soldiers' slang; Hindustani idiom for swapping yams.


GIRLHOOD 5
doctor's gig, waited outside the entrance. The gamekeeper
walked round to the back and into the kitchen, but instead
of finding the sedate atmosphere, which was customary at
this hour of the day, everyone seemed to be scurrying about
or talking in whispers. The gamekeeper joined a group of
servants who muttered in a corner, and was about to in-
quire what it was all about when the door of the kitchen
opened and the butler came in. The maids glanced appre-
hensively at the august figure, but the butler's demeanour
maintained the unruffled exterior of the descendant of gen-
erations of gentlemen's servants. He looked about him im-
portantly, nodded to the gamekeeper and, clearing his
throat, said:
"Mrs. Bell has given birth to a daughter . . . Mr. Low-
thian is now a grandfather . . ."
The wind had dropped when the gamekeeper left the
Hall and the stars shone so brightly that they seemed to be
quite close to the earth. The moorlands looked more and
more like the desert, and the gamekeeper had a feeling of
crowds about him. He shook himself and blinked his eyes,
but do what he might he could not escape from that sensa-
tion of hosts of robed people bringing with them all the
odours of the Orient, as they seethed over the Durham
moors and swept past the home of the newborn child . . .
Gertrude Bell was born on July 14, 1868, at Washington
Hall in the county of Durham, the home of her grand-
father, Lowthian Bell.
Lowthian Bell, a great figure of Victorian England, was,
in addition to being the mind behind the growing iron in-
dustry of the North of England, a distinguished man of


GIRLHOOD 7
of. True that wars were brewing on the continent of Eu-
rope, but they were not the business of the British, pro-
vided they did not interfere with their commerce.
It was a comparatively pleasant world to be born into for
such as Gertrude Bell. Her family was wealthy and stood
for the Imperial policies of Queen Victoria's government.
Her life would continue in the atmosphere of County re-
spectability, governesses would come and go until she was
considered educated and could grow up to join in the usual
round of English life of her class. Fox hunting in the win-
ter, grouse shooting in the autumn, the London Season in
the summer and an occasional visit to some Continental
resort. Those were the plans, plans which ninety-nine per
cent of young ladies of Gertrude's breeding would relent-
lessly follow till their deaths. Luckily, however, for Eng-
land, Gertrude belonged to the one per cent which shows
that the exception proves the rule.
Five years after the death of Gertrude's mother, her father
married Florence Olliffe, the daughter of Sir Joseph 0l-
liffe. She was herself a brilliant woman and a writer of many
plays and books. The relationship between step-mother and
daughter was of the most intimate and it is to Florence
Bell that we owe the main facts of her remarkable step-
daughter's life, recorded in the famous series of letters which
were preserved and later published.
To the outside world, Gertrude is chiefly known for what
she did in Britain's service in the East. There are many, in
fact, who picture her as a kind of man, with a female anat-
omy, shouldering the white man's burden in the far-flung
confines of the British Empire. Nothing could be less exact,


8 GERTRUDE BELL
for, while Gertrude's role as an administratrix will be handed
down through history, she was many other things.
Primarily, Gertrude was an exceedingly feminine woman.
She had charm and good looks and in the midst of her
wildest adventures kept the instincts of her sex foremost in
her mind. It was probably more this instinct than anything
else, combined with her force of character, which carried
her along to success. Gertrude understood how to handle
men, but the handling was not that of an authoritative offi-
cer but of a woman who knew that men, of whatever race
or age, are fundamentally weak when dealing with a beau-
tiful and attractive woman. She always took trouble with
her clothes and, whether she was living on the banks of the
Thames or the Tigris, she always turned out better dressed
than anyone else. In the midst of a trek over the desert or
the solving of a dry administrative problem, she would be
writing home for some article of feminine apparel or dis-
cussing a subject dear only to women.
Gertrude had so many interests that had she not followed
her distinguished career she would never have been bored.
One of her chief hobbies was gardening and the rock gar-
den which she planned at Rounton Grange, her Yorkshire
home, became one of the show-places of England. She stud-
ied natural history, wrote poetry even better than she wrote
prose, was a first class historian and archaeologist, could
climb a Swiss crag with the same lack of fuss as she would
cross an unmapped desert and come home to discuss art
with the best art critics of the day. She also found time to
play and there was no one who loved society more than
Gertrude. Fox hunting, she was an expert horsewoman;


GIRLHOOD 9
games, parties, dancing, all came into Gertrude's life and
were enjoyed with as much enthusiasm as the more serious
pursuits. Every asset which birth can give and a greater pro-
portion of physical gifts than usually fall to one person were
hers, but there was never the slightest attitude that she was
in any way superior to the average woman of her time.
At an early age Gertrude showed that spirit which was to
lead her into a life of adventure and there were wild es-
capades in the grounds of her home with her younger
brother Maurice, the present baronet. She had her ponies
and the assortment of pets dear to all children. In the
schoolroom governesses taught the orthodox subjects which
Gertrude assimilated without much trouble and no violent
enthusiasm. Her nature was extremely independent and she
resented discipline from those who could not enforce it.
Nothing pleased her more than to defy a governess until
the harassed woman was obliged to resort to parental au-
thority. Even when her step-mother intervened Gertrude
would only grudgingly and temporarily admit the rule of
the teacher.
Gertrude developed mountaineering instincts when still
a child. She usually spent part of the summer holidays with
cousins in Scotland. A letter written at the age of twelve
describes her first climb.
". . . On Friday we all fished. We fished up a bum with a
worm, Maurice caught two trout and I caught one. We had
our shoes and stockings off all the morning. In the afternoon
we went a beautiful drive and we left the carriage at an inn
and went a long walk and got lots of beautiful heather, flowers
and cotton-grass, if you know what that is. I climbed up a very
steep rock which had very little to hold on by and when I got


lO GERTRUDE BELL
nearly to the top I could not get any further and I could not
get down. Aunty Florence got up round the side and tried to
reach me with her parasol, but she could not. At last I got
down and I was very glad . .."
Combined with this taste for adventure was a more peace-
ful love of gardening and reading. Her gift for letter writing
became apparent when she was still very young, and the
famous correspondence of maturer years was preceded by
childhood letters which are clearly expressed and most
amusing. There are accounts of trips to Scotland, analyses
of books by Harrison Ainsworth and the letters of Carlyle
and Mozart, the progress of a collection of birds' eggs, with
a few business-like barters with cousins, and a description of
Mr. Gladstone addressing a mass meeting in Leeds in 1882.
She played what she calls "raquettes" against the door of
the coach house and speaks with disparagement of having
to study the piano which she could never master, in spite
of having a taste for music.
Such was Gertrude's childhood with all the usual trag-
edies and joys in the lives of normal children and all in a
background of serene family life which so many young peo-
ple of the present day lack. A background of great beauty
too, in a home designed by Philip Webb and decorated by
William Morris and Burne-Jones.
It was not until Maurice had gone to Eton that Ger-
trude's education took a serious turn when, at the age of
fifteen, she was sent to an "academy for young ladies" in
London.
It was not customary in 1883 for girls of Gertrude's class
to be sent away to school, but Mrs. Bell felt that her step-
daughter had a mind and a character which needed some-


GIRLHOOD 11
thing more forceful than a private governess. The school
chosen was Queen's College in London over which a friend
of Mrs. Bell presided. Gertrude did not like leaving home
and, while philosophically settling down to her daily rou-
tine, she was homesick at the beginning of each new term.
Maturity came quickly to her and, in her sixteenth year,
her thoughts were in advance of those of the average school-
girl. Clothes were taking their place in her life, opinions of
people were developing, boys were no longer playmates to
be outrivalled in the climbing of trees, and that determined
character which was to shape her future career was making
itself even more evident. The pretty child with red-gold
hair and sea-blue eyes had become a beautiful girl with an
attractive figure which she kept until her death.
One of the first events of importance in Gertrude's school
life was her confirmation. The immediate reaction was a
number of good resolutions, followed by her first commun-
ion which also caused a passing impression. Religion, how-
ever, never played any real part in Gertrude's life, and while
for a time she attended church she could never be con-
vinced that any particular faith would help her.
London brought her into contact with interesting men
and women whom she accepted at their face value, being
less impressed by social position than by personality. Great
names meant hardly anything to her, and when her grand-
father was created a baronet she wrote confidentially to her
father to say that, while congratulating Sir Lowthian, she
wished that he had been able to refuse the title. It was prob-
ably through Gertrude's influence that, in later years, her
father twice refused a peerage.
She met Jenny Lind but was more attracted to another


12
GERTRUDE BELL
actress, Fanny Kemble, the niece of Mrs. Siddons. The
American doctor, Weir Mitchell, who invented "the rest
cure" made her feel fidgety, while the personality of Mrs.
Humphry Ward soothed her. One day her mother intro-
duced her to Robert Browning and she was "immensely
interested"!
She started going regularly to the theatre and attended
the first night of The Mikado with Arthur Sullivan con-
ducting. She was taken to the Albert Hall to witness a per-
formance of Faust which was still regarded as hardly suit-
able for "jeunes filles"! She began to take dancing lessons
and was one of the first to learn the Hop Waltz which had
been inspired by the new tempos of the young Strauss. It
was considered very modern to do the Hop Waltz and
young men still asked their partners if they would "slide or
hop it"!
Her love of music developed with that of dancing, com-
bined with that still fierce dislike of studying the piano. It
gave her no pleasure to play and she naturally concluded
that her presence at the piano must cause pain and grief to
others. However, some years passed before she could per-
suade Mrs. Bell that this supposedly necessary accomplish-
ment for a fashionable young lady of that period could be
dispensed with. Paradoxically, she liked singing and had a
sufficiently good voice to make her teachers feel that it was
worth developing. As a matter of fact most of Gertrude's
elaborate education was never to be of any practical value
to her and courses in political economy and Oriental law
would have served her much better.
These protests against learning the piano were further
signs of the independent character which was to be the out-


GIRLHOOD 13
standing trait in the whole of Gertrude's life. She still had
the respectful Victorian attitude of daughters towards their
parents and automatically asked permission of her step-
mother to do things, about which girls of today would con-
sult no one, but, if she considered the parental authority un-
reasonable, she had no hesitation in saying so. Even when
the question of employing expressions of mild slang in let-
ters met with disapproval they were received with an im-
mediate remonstrance:
"I think that it is priggish to say—in excellent health," she
wrote to Mrs. Bell in reply to a letter admonishing her for lax-
ity in her English, "—my own expression may be slang but it is
infinitely preferable, I think. Would you have me say when
talking of the sovereign, the Queen of England, Scotland, Ire-
land, Empress of India, Defender of the Faith? If not, why not
the National, for the National Gallery? My life is not long
enough to give everything its full title."
With her father Gertrude discussed politics. She was and
remained always a Liberal and a Gladstonian. Parnell was
at the height of his power and had instituted boycotting
and intimidation in Ireland to enforce his demands for
Home Rule. Gertrude followed these political controversies
with clear logical reasoning, far in advance of her years. She
had no ideas about taking up politics herself and her inter-
est was lively and detached, admiring Mr. Gladstone as she
would Cromwell or Cavour. She, nevertheless, had those
instinctive qualities of statesmanship which were to make
her, thirty years later, into a great administratrix of a coun-
try not her own.
With her interest in politics, her aptitude for history was
becoming apparent and it was clear to her professors that


14 GERTRUDE BELL
she would soon pass beyond the standard of their teaching.
At the end of 1885 she had broached to her father the pos-
sibility of her going to Cambridge, but in the spring of 1886
she decided definitely that she would complete her studies
at Oxford. Having settled this matter in her crisp, deter-
mined way, she dismissed it for the time being and spent
the Easter holidays walking through Devonshire, scaling
cliffs and deep sea fishing, as if the question of her educa-
tion held no place in her existence.
This is a remarkable trait in Gertrude's mental outlook
which repeated itself again and again in her life. Through-
out her adventures in Arabia, during her excavations and
while kingdom-making in Iraq, she was always able to di-
vorce herself from serious matters and give herself up whole-
heartedly to sport or social pleasures. It was the secret of her
energy and success. Statesmen, university professors, big
game hunters, young men about town, thought of her as
fitting into their modes of living and their way of thinking
and would have vehemently denied that she had any other
life than such as theirs!


CHAPTER II
In the May term of 1886 Gertrude went up to Lady Mar-
garet Hall at Oxford. She was not quite eighteen, and the
youthful enthusiasm which sparkled in her eyes made peo-
ple forget that behind that charming exterior there was a
brilliant brain.
To have a girl of Gertrude's background educated at a
school away from home was a departure from the normal,
but to send a young lady to the University was quite excep-
tional. Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall, the two col-
leges for women, had only been functioning for seven years
and were regarded by the older generation of dons as an
undermining influence to their time-honoured and sacred
traditions. The Oxford of those days was nearer to the
Tractarian Oxford than to the modern university. Doctor
Jowett still presided at Balliol and Lewis Carroll could be
seen daily walking across the quadrangle of Christ Church.
It was not so long since Rhodes had left Oriel to build an
empire in South Africa and Ruskin had lectured on art at
the Sheldonian Theatre. Herkomer still guided the budding
careers of young painters, and Oscar Wilde was remem-
bered for his epigrams but not yet known as a writer.
It was an Oxford of cobbled pavings which resounded to
the clatter of dog carts driven by undergraduates; the streets
were lit by gas and young gentlemen wined and dined in
»5


l6 GERTRUDE BELL
the mellow light of candles in silver candelabra. The motor
car was a long way off as a practical means of locomotion;
the telephone was hardly known; submarines, aircraft, radio,
were fantastic ideas in the minds of scoffed-at dreamers.
The only two republics of importance were those of the
United States and France and students of history could find
first-hand knowledge of the governments of other countries
which had little changed during the preceding centuries.
It was a dignified Oxford which did not yet know the
colonial scholar or the radical agitator. It was a rural Ox-
ford, a mediaeval city, surrounded by fields and meadows
from which, as an Anglican citadel, the Catholic was ex-
cluded by pontifical decree. It was an Oxford into which
the women's colleges had come as a preliminary wedge to
shake its ancient foundations and lose it its secluded charm.
But although women had officially invaded Oxford, the
conventions governing the relationship between male and
female students were even stricter than those applied to the
sexes outside a university. A girl alone might not go out
into the street, and at lectures which men attended the
undergraduettes were accompanied by a chaperon and sat
at a safe distance from the undergraduates. Horace Mar-
shall, Gertrude's first cousin who had practically been
brought up with her, was at Trinity, but when the two
young people first met they had to behave almost as if they
were strangers. In a letter to her step-mother Gertrude con-
fessed that she took a stroll with Horace in the Park and
hoped that she would not mind. Later the principal of
Lady Margaret authorized discreet walks with Horace but,
apart from this concession, Gertrude never spoke to a fel-
low undergraduate except at a dance or in the company of


GIRLHOOD 17
other girls. It seems incredible that so prudish a mentality
should have existed such a short time ago or that Gertrude,
who was later to live entirely in the company of men, should
have submitted to this tyranny. But she did it because it was
the custom of the time and, although she occasionally re-
volted, she found it difficult to strike out on a new line
which had no precedent. Her mind was imbued with Vic-
torian principles and she was one day slightly shocked at
meeting a girl who had but lately married and was wearing
a hat instead of the conventional bonnet decreed for those
who had abandoned spinsterhood!
In spite of this sentiment she was considered by some as
being rather advanced in her ideas. To others she gave an
impression of primness which was probably due to her not
being over-expansive. She knew what she wanted, she knew
the kind of people she wished to know and she did not
make friends on sight. The day of nicknames and "darling"
used promiscuously had not come, and Gertrude addressed
formally all those whom she met until a real intimacy had
developed. During practically the whole of her first term at
Oxford she never spoke or referred to a girl without the
prefix "Miss." When she did employ Christian names it
meant that a real and lasting friendship had begun, and
there were many at Oxford who remained Gertrude's inti-
mates all her life.
Prominent among these was Janet Hogarth, who was to
be strangely linked with Gertrude's destinies through her
brother David Hogarth, the famous archaeologist and Ori-
entalist. Years later Hogarth and Gertrude were to collabo-
rate in Arabia and it was due to Hogarth that she found
herself in 1915 launched on her career of empire building


l8 GERTRUDE BELL
while, through the same influence, T. E. Lawrence was
leading the Arabs in revolt.
Little by little a circle of intimate friends formed about
Gertrude, and before her first year at the university was
completed she had become a factor in the life of Oxford
women. Most females who become prominent at institu-
tions of learning base their reputations on mental brilliance,
many on their achievements in the playing fields, a few on
saintliness. Gertrude was not saintly, she played games suffi-
ciently well to enjoy herself and she could hold her own with
the great majority of her fellow students in the classroom.
But her initial prominence at Oxford was for none of these
reasons and belonged to a branch of university life entirely
feminine and remote from the curriculum. Gertrude was
developing a taste for dress.
Paradoxically, she was not a needlewoman, although she
turned out the usual horrors of that era in the shape of
cushion covers and fire screens. She knitted shapeless
sweaters for male relatives and socks which caused blisters
to the wearers, but as she grew older she gradually aban-
doned all forms of sewing as a painful and futile occupation.
Gertrude had the clothes instinct, but at the back of her
mind there was the appreciation of their psychological im-
portance and effect on certain situations. During her final
examinations at Oxford she appeared in a different gown
every day. It is not suggested that her physical charms af-
fected examiners, but even professors have some male in-
stincts left; and, if two candidates of equal merit come up
to be questioned and there is doubt as to the awarding of
the higher mark, the little feminine something may weigh
just that much in the balance.


GIRLHOOD 19
Gertrude did more, however, than actually dress well, she
set a mode which lasted. Female footwear was still of the
boot variety and Gertrude introduced brown low-cut shoes
as more comfortable and practical.
These feminine traits appeared also in her attitude to-
wards the emancipation of women which was advocated by
the majority of the undergraduates. She treated the college
debates on the subject as a joke, maintaining always that
women were women and only in exceptional cases fitted to
take on the responsibilities of men. A strange attitude from
one who was to become one of the world's first states-
women!
Again, paradoxically, Gertrude began to smoke cigarettes
before she was twenty. Ladies of that day did not smoke
and the cigarette in female lips was the monopoly of the
chorus girl and her kind. Smoking was regarded as fast and
unwomanly, and in many houses the men were relegated to
a special room set aside for the specific purpose of indulging
in this malodorous occupation. But Gertrude decided that
she wanted to smoke, so she began in her teens and in-
formed her parents that she had done so, with a plea that
they should not mind.
This feminine and independent attitude did not prevent
her from taking an active part in the outdoor amusements
of Oxford. The playing of games by women was not gen-
eral in 1886 and the females who excelled at sports were
expected to have rough, red complexions and huge, bony
hands. Gertrude proved that these outward characteristics
were not necessary. She swam, she rowed, she played tennis
and even hockey. Her favourite game was tennis, at which
she excelled; she won her college tournament, thereby be-


20
GERTRUDE BELL
ing selected to represent Lady Margaret and having the
chance to play for the University. She attended all the
sporting contests of the Varsity teams with a critical knowl-
edge of good rowing or bad cricket.
The religious side of an English university, which plays
a daily and prominent part in the life of an undergraduate,
interested her from an objective point of view. The dramatic
sermons of the Bishop of Ripon to packed congregations of
eager young men and women impressed her more for the
oratorical powers of the preacher than the message which
he was trying to convey. Before she left Oxford, Gertrude
had decided that there was no particular creed in which
she would like to put her trust and she lived and died
without any determined religion.
She joined in the college theatricals and went through all
the trials which are the happy lot of amateurs putting on
plays. Leading parts were assigned to her but, although her
step-mother was a distinguished playwright, Gertrude had
little enthusiasm for the theatre. Her attitude towards life
was to sample everything until the occupation or pastime
which interested her most had been discovered.
She attended debates at the Union and heard young
Coningsby Disraeli speak against Home Rule, and T. P.
O'Connor, who was the guest of the evening, keep the
"house" in an uproar of laughter and applause replying to
the nephew of the great prime minister. She spoke at her
college debating society, but had not the mentality of a
politician and disliked making speeches.
It was during her time at Oxford that she made her first
trip outside the British Isles and visited rural Germany
where she found difficulty in adapting herself to unusual


22
GERTRUDE BELL
feet to do with as she pleased and that life would normally
be in the same surroundings in which she had been brought
up. There would be none of the uncertainties which today
face girls of twenty, and the possibility of international up-
heavals which might disquiet the majestic progress of late
Victorian Britain were not considered. It was an enviable,
friendly, careless future to which the lovely young B.A.
looked forward.


CHAPTER III
Although Gertrude had specialized in history at Oxford
it had not been with any motive other than to satisfy her in-
terest in the subject. She had little practical knowledge of
the Continent of Europe and was not particularly anxious
to visit it or other parts of the .world. The next episode in
her life was, however, to be the first link in the chain which
was to make of her one of the greatest travellers of her gen-
eration.
Gertrude's step-aunt was married to Sir Frank Lascelles,
British Minister to Roumania, and as soon as Gertrude left
Oxford Lady Lascelles suggested that her niece should spend
the winter with her at the legation in Bucharest.
Lady Lascelles belonged to a school of thought which re-
garded with something akin to distrust highly educated
young women who did not have to work for their living,
and she felt that a month or so in the gay Roumanian capi-
tal would rid Gertrude of some of her "Oxfordy manner."
Gertrude was perhaps highly educated, but she never let
anyone feel that she had taken honours; and if she had not
gone to the University she would have acquired knowledge
by some other method. Lady Lascelles soon found out that
her niece had no trace of an "Oxfordy manner" and was
just as full of the joy of living and eager to have a good time
as any girl who had never read a page of history.
23


26 GERTRUDE BELL
her first meeting with him among a list of guests as "and
Mr. Biilow, who I think is an Austrian diplomat... all nice
people." Later she conceded that Biilow was the German
Minister, but said a great deal more about his beautiful
Italian wife.
"Mr. Hardinge a secretary at the British Legation in Con-
stantinople" she liked. Mr. Hardinge liked Gertrude too
and they took long walks together, talking unceasingly and
oblivious of the dark shadow of Fate which hovered above
them. Charles Hardinge was a rising young diplomatist who
would eventually become Lord Hardinge of Penshurst and
hold the positions of Ambassador in St. Petersburg, Viceroy
of India, Ambassador in Paris, and retire into leisured ob-
scurity. It was Hardinge in 1915, while Viceroy of India,
who was responsible for the sending of Gertrude to Meso-
potamia which launched her on her administrative career
and led to the creation of Feisal's kingdom. But at this
juncture they were merely young people with interests in
common and a mutual admiration.
Gertrude met the Soutzos and the Chrisovelonis and the
Marghilomans and other prominent Roumanian families,
including H6lene Vacaresco, then a lady-in-waiting at the
court and not yet acclaimed as the great poetess. One per-
son impressed her tremendously, the tragic Queen Elizabeth
of Roumania, better known to many under the nom de
plume, under which she wrote, of Carmen Sylva. A beauti-
ful woman, romantic and misunderstood by her stern auto-
cratic husband, she was at once attracted to Gertrude. She
had lost her only daughter at the age of four and her poetic
soul chafed at the formal, dreary life of the palace. Into
Gertrude's ears she poured her romantic ideas which were


GIRLHOOD 27
later to lead her to a semi-disgrace, as a result of helping the
intrigue between the heir to the throne of Roumania and
her beloved lady-in-waiting, Helene Vacaresco.
Gertrude arrived in Roumania in time for the family
Christmas dinner at the British Legation which ended in a
fiasco owing to the rather vague notions in the mind of the
Roumanian cook as to how a plum pudding should be
cooked. Not realizing that the pudding had to remain in its
cloth during the process of boiling, a kind of greasy soup
with bits of candied peel and currants floating about was
served to the horrified company.
As soon as Christmas was over, Gertrude was swept by
her aunt into the gay whirl of the Bucharest winter season.
First impressions of "choses vues" are vividly described in
letters to Mrs. Bell:
"Aunt Mary and I arrived [at the Soutzos'] at eleven and
found the rooms full of people. I was introduced to a great
many of them, and danced many turns of the waltz which was
going on with different men. This is what happens; your dancer
comes up and asks you for a turn. You dance three or four
times round the room with him and he then drops you by your
chaperon with an elegant bow and someone else comes up and
carries you off. You dance nothing through with one person,
except the square dances, and in the intervals you either sit with
your chaperon or you walk around the rooms with your last
partner . . . Far the best dancer in the room was Sztaray, Billy
dances very well, Gerald1 not quite so well, and there was an
Austrian who is in the Roumanian army who danced excel-
lently. I believe he is rather a 'Mauvais sujet' really. He fought
a duel in Sofia in which he did not behave very well I believe,
but he waltzes deliriously. The officers all appear in uniform, of
course, with top boots and spurs, but they dance so well that
they don't tear one in the least. I was introduced to a great
1 Gerald Lascelles, Billy's younger brother.


28
GERTRUDE BELL
many ladies and their daughters. One of the nicest was a Ma-
demoiselle Davila who is a maid of honour to the Queen, is
very pretty and dances beautifully. The maids of honour chap-
erone themselves and this girl, who is about twenty-four, is made
a great deal of and enjoys herself particularly. She took me into
the dressing room where I found a good many women sitting
about talking to the men who were hanging round the door.
Rather to my surprise Davila proceeded to powder herself in
front of the glass and then, still more to my surprise, she pow-
dered all the men who were standing in the doorway! Don't be
shocked! She is really nice though she is a minx. We stayed till
after three, well into the cotillon which I danced with Billy,
then we all came home and sat in the drawing room eating
sandwiches and talking till four . . ."
Gertrude's parents were shocked at the account of Ma-
demoiselle Davila's doings. That a girl should powder her-
self at all after leaving her bedroom was questionable, but
that she should do it in public and before men was unpar-
donable. But even under the austere rule of the King, social
life among the upper classes in Roumania was more "ad-
vanced" than in England. Gertrude records with some
surprise meeting a woman at one of the smart parties who
had been divorced!
An extract from another letter brings back the light-
hearted atmosphere of Bucharest at this time:
". . . Last Sunday which was their first of January, there was
a big ball at the palace which was very good fun. I was pre-
sented to the King and Queen but the King was so like every
other officer that I never could remember who he was and only
merciful providence prevented me from giving him a friendly
little nod several times during the evening under the impres-
sion that he was one of my numerous acquaintance whom I
had not yet seen. Billy and I waltzed over his toes once. 'Ware
King'—whispered Billy, but it was too late. However he didn't


GIRLHOOD 29
seem to mind. I was taken down to supper by a tall befezed
Turk—the Turkish military attache' I think he was. I saw he
looked rather depressed and he presently confided to me the
cause of his grief; it was very serious; his waistband was too
tight and he could not eat any supper! so he stood gloomily
by and helped me to all kinds of excellent dishes while I was
consumed with a desire to laugh. As for Sztaray, he certainly
wears stays. He is the most conceited person I ever met—and I
have seen so many here!—he breaks into all conversations with
an eternal—'Et moi Madame . . .' The other day at the palace
which was rather crowded at first he came up and said to us—
'Et moi Madame, c'est Evident que je ne danse pas . . .' to
which we should have liked to reply that in effect it was quite
evident for he was much too tightly lacedl ..."
Bucharest, like Vienna, lived at night. Nothing very much
took place before the dinner parties, which started com-
paratively late, and no one thought of dancing before eleven.
The big business men left the routine work to their subordi-
nates and, if there were political crises, the Ministers and
diplomatists knew that they would see each other at the
parties. Life by the light of day hardly existed. But Ger-
trude was young, and with that hardy Yorkshire blood in
her veins she could do with a few hours sleep and then
wanted to be out in the fresh air. No one had thought of
out-of-doors entertainments so she set herself to organize
them.
It was mid-winter with deep snow everywhere. Gertrude
made up sledging expeditions and took the party makers
out into the crisp, cold air and brushed away the lethargy
of champagne and cigarettes. She decided that some of the
men could improve their dancing and that all could afford
to learn new steps, so she started a dancing class and taught
Bucharestian diplomacy the Boston! Later in the season she


30 GERTRUDE BELL
suggested tennis as a relaxation and counteractive to over-
eating, but two difficulties stood in her way, the lack of a
proper court and good players. But this did not deter her
and in a few weeks she was holding tennis parties, which
the young bloods and belles of Bucharest, and many of the
older diplomatists, would have no more thought of missing
than a court ball!
Before returning to England, Gertrude accompanied her
uncle and aunt on a visit to Constantinople. It was her first
contact with the Orient and her enthusiasm for all she saw
was instantaneous. She seemed to sense the East, she ap-
preciated all the little details, the people had something in
common with her, the bazaars with all their colours and
smells absorbed her. Her romantic instincts came to the
surface and she was closer to Billy Lascelles than at any
other time.
A passage from Gertrude's book Persian Pictures, pub-
lished some years later, is a master's etching of Constanti-
nople:
". . . From the Scutari hill top the eye is greeted by one of
the most enchanting prospects the world has to show—the blue
waters of Marmora traversed by greener Bosphorus currents,
light mists resting along the foot of the hill-bound coast of Asia,
a group of islands floating on the surface of the water, the Golden
Horn glimmering away northwards, with the marble walls
of the Seraglio stretching a long white finger between it and the
sea, Stamboul crowned with minarets and domes. Flocks of
gray birds flit aimlessly across the water—the restless souls of
women, says Turkish legend—the waves lap round the tower of
Leander, the light wind comes whispering down between the
exquisite Bosphorus shores, bringing the breath of Russian
steppes to shake the plane leaves in Scutari streets. Constanti-
nople the Magnificent gathers her rags round her, throws over


GIRLHOOD 31
her shoulders her imperial robe of sunshine, and sits in peaceful
state with her kingdom of blue waters at her feet..."
In many ways this visit to Constantinople and the Balkans
was the end of the carefree phase in Gertrude's life. There
were many gay periods before her, but somehow that com-
plete ligbt-heartedness and laughter of youth gradually faded
into the background. It was as if the grim wastes of Asia had
rung out the Fate motif which would inevitably draw her
back to the East, never to escape.


GIRLHOOD 33
driven alone with a man in a hansom from one party to
another.
Chaperons were everywhere, and one who would let her
charge out of her sight would feel that she had condoned
mortal sin. Even when Gertrude and her friends took part
in amateur theatricals an old lady sat in the wings. On one
of these occasions she fell off the back of the stage and was
discovered after the performance unconscious. When she
was revived her consternation was almost hysterical at the
thought of having remained oblivious, for so long, of the
might-have-beens.
Going for a ride in the country was carried out in a caval-
cade of suitable escorts, including grooms and family coach-
men. The reading of books had a strict censorship, and at
the age of twenty-two, after two years at Oxford and a sea-
son in Bucharest, Gertrude was reproved for reading Bour-
get's Le Disciple.
Because it was the simplest thing to do, Gertrude con-
formed, as far as possible, to the conventions of the day,
but there were moments when she revolted. She made a
trip alone in the underground and one day paid a visit to
her friend Mary Talbot, who had emancipated herself and
worked in the slums of the East End of London, where
maids and chaperons would be out of the question. But her
action was regarded as a departure from the normal and
people like Miss Talbot were looked upon as eccentrics not
to be encouraged.
It was all a form of snobbery, a dying relic of the days
when the upper classes had their squires and ladies-in-wait-
ing, which separated them from the common herd which
waited on itself. The British are a people of tradition, and


34 GERTRUDE BELL
while with the accession of Edward VII these conventions
were considerably relaxed, young girls did not obtain their
freedom from chaperonage until after 1914.
Gertrude was presented at Court, which in those days
was called a "drawing room" and took place in the after-
noon. She made little comment on the ceremony or on
Queen Victoria, but she wrote a detailed description of the
dress she wore. She attended dinners at the Duke of Dev-
onshire's and at the "Joe" Chamberlains' and other well-
known houses of Victorian London. In addition to the
social "pillars" she met interesting people such as the du
Mauriers and Anstey and Sidney Webb and the ill-fated
Sir Redvers Buller. She went to Ascot where she wagered
in a small way, and made the annual pilgrimage to Lord's
with her brother for the Eton and Harrow match.
These social activities did not prevent her from keeping
up with her studies. She defied convention by investing in
a bicycle on which she rode to the British Museum when
she wanted to do serious reading.
Extracts from two letters written in 1892 show how eas-
ily she could change her mood and adapt herself to differ-
ent atmospheres:
"We spent a madly amusing five days in Canterbury, of
which nothing remains to tell except that we danced every
night, saw a good deal of cricket and talked a little. Do you
remember discussing what other girls do with their days? Well
I have found out—they spend their entire time rushing from
house to house for cricket weeks, which means cricket all day
and dancing all night; your party consists of the eleven and
enough girls to pair off with—you discuss byes and wides and


GIRLHOOD 35
Kemp at the wicket and Heam's batting and any other topic of
a similar nature, but it's all great fun ..."
and a few months later she writes:
"I have been reading Latin with great energy. It's a language
of which I know very little but whose difficulties must be mas-
tered somehow for I constantly find myself brought up against
a blank wall by my ignorance of it . . ."
A young man called Bertie Crackanthorpe paid court to
Gertrude at this time, but she was not attracted to him
though, with feminine instinct, she kept him dangling for
a while before dismissing him. She saw a lot of Billy Las-
celles, but the boy and girl romance had faded and he had
become a gay companion. Her romances were all in the
nature of mild flirtations which did not touch her heart. A
lovely, light-hearted girl who did not want her life compli-
cated by temporary affairs. Yet she was moving rapidly to-
wards a crisis in her sentimental life which was not only to
alter her whole existence but change the map of Asia. It all
came about suddenly and unexpectedly through her aunt
of the Bucharest days.
Sir Frank Lascelles had been appointed British Minister
to Tehran and in May 1892 Lady Lascelles invited Ger-
trude to accompany her to Persia. With the joyous mem-
ories of Bucharest fresh in her mind, Gertrude accepted
and gaily turned her back on the restricting atmosphere of
London.
The party, in addition to Lady Lascelles and Gertrude,
consisted of her cousin Florence Lascelles, who later be-
came Lady Spring-Rice, and Thorn, Lady Lascelles' maid.


30 GERTRUDE BELL
Thorn's future also lay in the Orient, for she eventually
married an Englishman out there and settled in Syria
where, many years later, Gertrude used to visit her. Mr.
Bell and Billy Lascelles travelled as far as Paris and saw the
party off on board the Orient Express . . .
The grim notes of the Fate motif which had sounded
warningly in Constantinople in 1888 boomed out again as
the train carried Gertrude towards Tehran. The untamed
Asiatic continent, which captures the minds of Occidentals
as the Western Hemisphere never does the Oriental, was
waiting to dominate and enslave her.
Had not Gertrude accepted the invitation to go to Persia
in 1892, it is to be wondered if the Orient would have com-
pletely claimed her and, through the succeeding circum-
stances, Arabia been invaded by Lawrence and Feisal be-
come the king of Iraq. The sudden twists of destiny which
alter people's lives are hard to understand, but if ever there
is evidence of a small incident altering history it is Ger-
trude's journey to Tehran.
For the moment she was deaf to the mutterings of Fate
drowned by the clattering of the wheels which bore her
across Europe. She had taken Persian lessons before leav-
ing England and, in the intervals of looking out of the
carriage window at the ever-changing scenery, she studied
her Ollendorff, and was delighted on arriving in Constanti-
nople to find that she could decipher the Arabic characters
in the mosques.
Only a few days were spent in Turkey's capital, but Ger-
trude was up every morning at sunrise visiting and revisit-
ing all the familiar scenes.


GIRLHOOD 37
She would remain for hours on the Galata Bridge in
Constantinople, never weary of watching the people who
wandered to and fro, feeling herself one of them. The dis-
dainful walk of the camels, as the stately caravans came in
from Tabriz, fascinated her. The sweet, milkless tea, the
strong coffee, the rich greasy food, which for many years
was to be practically her only diet, were all new to her. The
bare, comfortless caravanserais, with their lack of washing
and sanitary facilities, were not yet accepted as a matter
of course. The huge expanses of treeless country, the rocky
hills, the barren soil—settings in which she would make her
home for most of the rest of her life—awed her. Every little
incident was an adventure, doubly exciting to a girl with a
highly developed sense of observation.
Orientals are reputed to be a dignified and impassive
people, never allowing outside forces to ruffle them. This
characteristic is basically true, but many travellers who have
passed through Eastern ports or visited bazaars of the
Orient regard the inhabitants as the most excitable in the
world. Gertrude encountered the impassive tranquillity of
the Persians, she also witnessed their noisy demonstrations
of grief and anger and, without hesitation, decided correctly
that wailing and beating of breasts at funerals or excitable
bargainings in the markets were mere formality. She prob-
ably never gave a thought to the rendering of this judge-
ment, but it was greatly through this intuitive understand-
ing of the Oriental mind that she was able to achieve what
she did among the peoples of Arabia.
The journey from Constantinople to Tehran was long
and tiring. Every method of transportation was used. Trains,
ships, carriages, saddle horses. By the time the weary little


30 GERTRUDE BELL
caravan reached its destination it had been travelling for
over a month. Today the same journey takes six days.
From Constantinople, a small and dirty Austrian-Lloyd
boat took Lady Lascelles and her charges across the Black
Sea to Batoum and on by train to Tiflis and Baku. They
were conducted as a special treat to see a "curious phe-
nomenon of nature," the Baku "naphtha wells." Gertrude
made a note that the whole country oozed with black, shiny,
viscous fluid but it had such a low market value that it
was hardly worth collecting. The natives used the oil as
fuel for the fires which heated the boilers of their engines
because it was cheaper than wood or coal, the highest price
being less than a farthing for fifty pounds of naphtha!
Thirty years later an international controversy arose over
another "naphtha spring," not very far from the one she
was now being shown, which caused armies to mobilize and
Britain to threaten war. But in 1892 the motor car was not
taken seriously and the airplane did not exist. Gertrude
could probably have bought the whole of the Baku oil
fields for the equivalent of a year's allowance.
The party crossed the Caspian from Baku to Enzelli and
drove and rode to Resht, and four days later was in Tehran.
After the barren, dusty country which had been crossed
during the preceding weeks, Persia's capital looked like the
legendary site of the Garden of Eden. The roses were in
full bloom and rambled over the Legation buildings, cov-
ering them in a mantle of yellow and white and scarlet and
purple.
"It's like the 'Beast's' garden," exclaimed Gertrude, "a
perfect nightmare of roses!"
And as in the "Beast's" garden of the fairy story, there


GIRLHOOD 39
was someone who would make Gertrude see the world
under a quite different colour.
In her first letter from Persia she tells of the Legation
staff, briefly, amusingly but impersonally. Then comes the
description of the First Secretary and in a moment she
knows all about him and her pen runs on:
". . . Mr. Cadogan, tall and red and very thin, agreeable, in-
telligent, a great tennis player, a great billiard player, an enthu-
siast about bezique, devoted to riding though he can't ride in
the least, smart, clean, well dressed, looking upon us as his spe-
cial property to be looked after and amused—I like him . .."
Henry Cadogan, who for the ensuing months was to be
Gertrude's constant companion, was the grandson of the
third Earl Cadogan and at this time was thirty-three years
old.
The impression which he made on Gertrude at that first
encounter was reciprocated and from that day on there
were no parties, picnics, tennis matches or rides in which
the two were not together. Cadogan knew his Persia inti-
mately and understood its problems. He spoke and read
the language, and, while furnishing Gertrude with a Persian
teacher, it was he who taught her how to learn. He sup-
plied her with the right books to read and explained the
difference between Oriental and Occidental idiom. He made
her see the Persians in a different light to that usually ac-
cepted by people of the West, who regard all coloured
men as coolies. Seeing Persia through the understanding
eyes of someone she liked made all the difference to Ger-
trude's stay in the country and influenced her attitude to-
wards Asiatics.
The Persian teacher selected for her by Henry Cadogan


40 GERTRUDE BELL
was called Sheik Hassan, a cultured man whose intermedi-
ary of conversation with his pupil was indifferent French.
He used to ride up to the Legation from Tehran on a mule
and, exhausted by his exercise, sink down with a sigh of
relief on a carpet beside the cool stream which bubbled
through the garden. Gertrude never discovered what Has-
san thought about; he had a poor opinion of Persian poli-
tics and the Shah, but neither had he much respect for
Occidental ways; often he was supremely bored with the
lesson and would yawn deeply and at frequent intervals.
But his teaching must have been efficient, if one judges by
Gertrude's translations of Persian poets and her commen-
taries on Persian literature. Perhaps it was the enthusiasm
of Henry Cadogan, perhaps that persevering character which
never gave up anything which it had begun.
For the moment, the learning of Persian was merely a
means to appreciate all she saw in Tehran. Everything was
new and unexpected and much more exciting than Bucha-
rest and utterly different to London.
Soon after Gertrude's arrival Queen Victoria's birthday
was celebrated with all the usual ceremonial ritual. There
was a review of the tattered, ill-disciplined army by the Shah,
to whom Gertrude was introduced. The Shah was noto-
rious for his off-hand attitude to Europeans, but he was
charming to Gertrude due, she found out later, to his awe
of her uncle who, when things were not being done accord-
ing to his lights, had no hesitation in talking frankly to His
Majesty. The review, and more especially the Persian army,
caused Gertrude endless amusement and she could not re-
sist writing about it in her Persian Pictures:


GIRLHOOD 41
". . . At a street comer a group of soldiers are shaking the
branches of a mulberry tree, and eagerly devouring the sickly
fruit which falls into the dust at their feet. Judging from the
appearance of the Persian army, a foreigner would be tempted
to conclude that it subsisted entirely upon white mulberries,
and was reduced to a state of starvation when the summer was
over. The hands of the paymasters are adhesive in the East; but
a small proportion of his earnings reaches the common soldier,
and mulberries, flavoured with dust, have at least the merit of
furnishing him with an inexpensive meal. His outward man is
not calculated to inspire much alarm in the breast of his enemies.
His gait is slouching, his uniform torn and discoloured; not in-
frequently he wears his shirt outside his trousers, and the ragged
flounce of brownish grey linen hanging below his tunic lends
him an air anything but martial. His temperament seems to be
childlike and peaceable in the extreme. He amuses himself
while he is on guard with foolish games and it is related that on
a certain occasion a person of importance found one of the pal-
ace sentries engaged in knitting stockings and the other turning
an honest penny by the sale of apples . . ."
After the Shah's review there was a garden party at the
British Legation for the foreign diplomatists in Tehran and
a few Persians, and a dinner party that night for the British
and Persians. Gertrude sat between two Persians, one of
whom had been at Oxford and was ultra Occidental, while
the other had never left Tehran and had some grievance at
being placed next a very young girl and made little attempt
to understand Gertrude's Ollendorffian rendering of his
language.
This kind of official banquet was rather the exception
in Tehran and the life of diplomatists was much more in-
formal than in other capitals. «
Gertrude learned the mysteries of hawking and went out


42 GERTRUDE BELL
with the falconers to kill quail. She played tennis on a court
of beaten mud and made excursions into the mountains on
horseback, which led to the discovery that the old-fash-
ioned riding habit was impractical for the kind of expedi-
tions she was undertaking, so she invented a short riding
skirt, but did not yet think of riding astride. She shopped
in the bazaars and made friends with the merchants and in
all she did Henry Cadogan was beside her.
A little more than six weeks after Gertrude's arrival in
the Persian capital, the young secretary had become an es-
sential part of her life and she wrote to her step-mother in
June of 1892:
". . . Mr. Cadogan is the real treasure; it is certainly unex-
pected and undeserved to have come all the way to Tehran and
find someone so delightful at the end. Florence and I like him
immensely; he rides with us, he arranges plans for us, he brings
his dogs to call on us, he plays with our kittens, he shows us
lovely things from the bazaars, he is always there when we want
him and never when we don't . .."
and a little later:
"... I spent the rest of the afternoon in a long and interest-
ing talk with Mr. Cadogan who is a real joy to talk to and
charming besides; we rode back through the dusk and reached
home just in time for dinner . . ."
As the temperature rose with the beginning of the hot
weather the foreign Legations moved to Gulahek, their
summer quarters in the hills. Cholera was stalking through
the bazaars of Persia and it was safer for the diplomatists to
be away in the cool of the uplands. Here life was much
more informal than in Tehran. The Legation was small and
intimate and meals were taken out of doors or under a huge


GIRLHOOD
43
tent. But the place appealed to Gertrude even more than
the capital and she wrote to Horace Marshall:
".. . in this country the men wear flowing robes of green and
white and brown, the women lift the veil of a Raphael Ma-
donna to look at you as they pass; wherever there is water a lux-
uriant vegetation springs up and where there is not there is
nothing but stone and desert. Oh the desert round TehranI
miles and miles of it with nothing, nothing growing; ringed
in with bleak bare mountains snow-crowned and furrowed with
the deep courses of torrents. I never knew what desert was till I
came here; it is a very wonderful thing to see; and suddenly in
the middle of it all, out of nothing, out of a little cold water,
springs up a garden. Such a garden! trees, fountains, tanks, roses
and a house in it, the houses which we heard of in fairy tales
when we were little: inlaid with tiny slabs of looking-glass in
lovely patterns, blue tiled, carpeted, echoing with the sound of
running water and fountains. Here sits the enchanted prince,
solemn, dignified, clothed in long robes. He comes down to
meet you as you enter, his house is yours, his garden is yours,
better still his tea and fruit are yours...
"Ah we have no hospitality in the west and no manners. I
felt ashamed almost before the beggars in the street—they wear
their rags with a better grace than I my most becoming habit
and the veils of the commonest women are far better put on
than mine . . .
"What else can I give you but fleeting impressions caught
and hardened out of all knowing? I can tell you of a Persian
merchant in whose garden, stretching all up the mountain side,
we spent a long day, from dawn to sunset, breakfasting, lunch-
ing, teaing on nothing but Persian foods. He is noted for his
hospitality; every evening parties of friends arrive unexpectedly,
Tie goes out, entertains them,' said the Persian who told me
about it, 'spreads a banquet before them and relates to them
stories half through the night. Then cushions are brought and
carpeted mattresses and they lie down in one of the guest
houses in the garden and sleep till dawn when they rise and re-
pair to the bath in the village.'
"Isn't it charmingly like the Arabian Nights! but that is the


4& GERTRUDE BELL
recurring insomnia, all symptoms of that painful ailment of
the heart which medicines cannot cure. She tried to occupy
herself by organizing diplomatic tennis tournaments on a
bumpy court; cricket was started with ancient balls and still
more ancient bats and puzzled the foreign attaches by its
complicated rules. There was a race meeting at which Ger-
trude won thirty shillings. Some of the races were of the
orthodox breed with members of the corps diplomatique
acting as jockeys, but the majority were Persian contests
with Persian riders dressed in the most astonishing colours.
Some of these latter races were five miles long and it was
not unusual for the winning horse to die after passing the
winning post!
These pastimes kept the diplomatists and their attend-
ants occupied and made them forget the cholera. They also
brought Gertrude and Henry Cadogan into daily and close
contact and it was clear to the most junior clerk that a dis-
ease infinitely more relentless than the plague had made its
appearance in the Legation summer camp.
One evening Gertrude and Henry sat in the deserted
garden of some nobleman of long ago. Fountains played
among the tall, black cypress trees, pink briar roses spread
themselves in all directions and every little rivulet of bub-
bling water was fringed with scented violets. They were
both very still as they sat close in the deepening twilight.
A Persian in a long robe came out of a pavilion carrying a
musical instrument and, seating himself beside a fountain,
began to play. The darkness increased and one by one the
stars flashed red in the sky. The Persian musician was no
longer visible, but he played on, while the breeze caressed
the two with rose-scented kisses and the nightingales called


GIRLHOOD 47
from the trees. It was a setting for Scheherazade, the peace
of the Garden of Eden. Few words were spoken, but when
the lovers parted they shared their secret.
With the morning, Gertrude had to temporarily forget
romance and be practical. In spite of being in Persia, in
spite of the cholera and the fact that she was in love, she
had been brought up to respect the social codes of Victo-
rian England, and, before all, she must ask her parents' con-
sent to an engagement. She had, up to that date, never
referred to Cadogan except formally with the prefix of
Mister and it would not have occurred to her to consider
herself officially engaged or in any way preparing for mar-
riage without the approval of her father and step-mother.
She wrote a long letter, simple and straight to the point,
and then had to wait for the reply. It was a long, straining
wait and with no certainty of an approving answer. Henry
Cadogan had charm and ability and undoubtedly a fine
future in the diplomatic service; but he was a younger son
whose career had not been unchequered, and he had little
private income. Gertrude would have a dowry, but in those
days a young man who wished to many had to show the
parents of the prospective bride that he had enough to keep
her "in the way to which she was accustomed."
So the lovers waited, letting their idyl take its course.
They rode together, they took long walks and vied with
each other in catching trout, using local flies tied by a
Persian nobleman and more attractive to fish than the
elaborate March Browns from Hardy's. They played back-
gammon in the garden of a poetic-minded merchant and
failed to defeat him. Sometimes they used to day-dream


40 GERTRUDE BELL
and see themselves riding out over the desert from Tehran.
They would form a caravan and travel the length and
breadth of Persia and Mesopotamia and Arabia, exploring,
excavating, studying the tribal customs and languages.
Henry would become the great authority on the East and
would be sent out by the British Government to teach the
warring tribes to live in harmony. Gertrude would be his
companion, smoothing out difficulties through tact and
friendliness while her husband took care of Her Majesty's
Dominions.
In their imagination they saw the difficulties with which
they would have to contend, the obstacles which they
would have to surmount, the growing importance of their
work and the eventual crowning with success of their in-
superable determination to succeed.
It seemed impossible to imagine that anything would in-
tervene to alter these plans, so solid were the foundations
which they were mentally laying down. . . .
They were taken to see the treasure house of the Shah.
It was an amazing place in which swords and cups and car-
pets studded with jewels, and golden boxes full of precious
stones were thrown together with glass cases crammed with
quack remedies, and toothbrushes, in priceless cloisonne
bowls, which the Shah had collected during his travels
abroad.
They discussed politics and differed, although Gertrude
tried to bring Cadogan round to her way of regarding the
Home Rule question. They talked about their future rather
despondently, wondering how long it would be before
Henry was earning a large enough salary to marry, while Ger-
trude showed apprehension at the prospect of having to


GIRLHOOD
49
spend most of her life outside England! They had little
quarrels, followed by terrific remorses when Gertrude sent
Henry to bed without a last good night.
On September 14th the fatal letter arrived. Gertrude
read it, torn by conflicting emotions. While her parents
wrote sympathetically and lovingly, the engagement was
not encouraged. No definite reasons were given for the lack
of enthusiasm, but it was suggested that Gertrude should
come home and find out whether the glamour of Persian
rose gardens had not had something to do with her ro-
mantic mood.
A few years later she would have probably dismissed her
parents' objections gently but firmly, but, although past
twenty-four years of age, she could not forget the traditions
of the times to which she belonged. She wrote a dutiful
reply to her step-mother and, while not by any means sug-
gesting that she would give up Henry Cadogan, she agreed
to an immediate return to England. Her letter reads:
"Yesterday we sat in the Movara garden and discussed it [her
parents' letter] in all its bearings, we felt we could not go on
pretending to each other any more when things looked so black
for us . . . We talked much of you; I had given him several of
your letters to read for I wanted him so much to know you, and
he does know a little from them and from me how dear and
how beloved you are. 'Perhaps when you go home she will write
once to me,' he said—which sounded so pathetic and made my
own unhappiness seem so endlessly selfish, for I have you for
help and for consolation when I go home and he has nobody
and nothing in front of him but more years of this weary place.
He was devoted to his own mother who died a few years ago—
if only she had been alive she would have known how to help,
as you will know. The thing I can bear least is that you or
Papa should ever think anything of him which is not noble and
gentle and good. That is all of him I have ever known, I wish I


5°
GERTRUDE BELL
could pass on my impression to you untouched and unspoiled,
the side of him he has shown a woman when he loved her—do
you remember Browning? He quoted that to me once long ago
and I wondered vaguely if it were more than form of words.
Everything I think and write brings us back to things we have
spoken of together, sentences of his that come flashing like
sharp swords; you see for the last three months nothing I have
done or thought has not had him in it, the essence of it all.
"It is very horrid of me to write like this, it will only make
you sorry quite uselessly and needlessly. You must not think for
a moment that if I could choose I would not have it all over
again, impatience and pain and the going which is yet to come.
It is worth it all, more than worth it. Some people live all their
lives and never have this wonderful thing; at least I have known
it and have seen life's possibilities suddenly open in front of me
—only one may cry just a little when one has to turn away and
take up the old narrow life again; I am so foolishly hopeful, not
because I see any good way through our difficulties, but only
because it is so impossible to believe that one cannot have the
one big thing one wants more than life when one has had all
the little things one really didn't care much about . . . Oh
Mother, Mother . . ."
Gertrude spent her last days in Persia with Henry, going
over and over the problems of their future. He was tender
and sympathetic as Gertrude assured him that nothing
could separate them, but they parted with a kind of help-
less, hopeless feeling which neither of them was able to
explain. Gerald Lascelles escorted his cousin on the return
journey which was just as long and tiring and without the
joyous anticipation of the outward trip. Gertrude showed
no outward emotion but every turn of the wheels which
took her further from Henry seemed to bruise her heart.
As the ship set out across the Black Sea, she remained
on deck watching the receding Asiatic coast which grad-
ually faded in the mist. Her mind was filled with evil fore-


GIRLHOOD 51
bodings and she felt inclined to beg the captain to turn
back and let her remain in the country where she had
found real happiness . . .
It was cold and wintry when the two travellers at last
reached London. Mr. Bell had come down from Yorkshire
to meet his daughter and comforted her as best he could
while she sobbed out her heart to him. She soon went
north to her home and tried to explain all she felt to her
step-mother.
The parents were baffled. This was not the passing fancy
of a young girl but the grief of a woman desperately in love.
It was the first love of her life and the tone of her voice
and the look in her eyes made them realize that it would
be the last. Gertrude swept aside every objection to her
marriage with Henry Cadogan, until her father consented.
The black clouds of despondency melted under a sunshine
of happiness, the world seemed once more to be at Ger-
trude's feet, but she had forgotten that there were other
things in the Orient to contend with besides parents' con-
sents . . .
* * *
Gertrude never saw Henry Cadogan again. During the
summer of 1893 ^e cholera stretched out its stinking
hands and struck down the young diplomatist. After a few
days' illness he died almost exactly on the anniversary of
his becoming engaged to Gertrude.





PART n
WOMANHOOD





CHAPTER V
The death of Henry Cadogan closed a chapter in the life
of Gertrude Bell and opened a new one in international
history.
Had Henry lived, Gertrude would undoubtedly have
married him and become the wife of a British diplomatist
with a more or less conventional life. She would have prob-
ably done much to further his career, but it is unusual for
British Civil Servants to find the opportunity to do any-
thing particularly outstanding. At the best, Henry Cadogan
might have retired in his sixties after two, possibly three,
ambassadorial posts.
The change of orientation which the death of her fiance-
brought about in Gertrude was literal, for it was due to his
influence that her mind and her thoughts turned towards
Asia.
The East had attracted Gertrude when she first set foot
in Constantinople in 1889, it had fascinated her when she
travelled to Persia in 1892, but there was something more
than the interest which any intelligent person feels for new
countries, especially in the days when journeys were com-
plicated affairs. It was Henry Cadogan who had made her
feel the charm of the East. It was he who had helped her to
learn Persian and understand the literature of the country.
It was he who had developed her sympathy for Oriental
55


56 GERTRUDE BELL
peoples and made her appreciate their problems. Gertrude
did not perhaps realize how deeply Persia and the desert
had become part of her until her fianc6's death. When it
was all over and her grief had subsided, she not only knew
to what extent the East had captured her imagination but
regarded it as part of something which she could never
have. Her journeys, her explorations, her excavations in the
Orient, her eventual administrative posts, became the only
interests in her life and they were woven into the memory
of her great love. Henry Cadogan had found something
unexplainable in Persia and had died in the country with-
out the solution. Gertrude set out to solve the problem and
she too died among those people of Asia, whom Cadogan
had loved, but with the problem solved. In all that follows
in Gertrude's unparalleled career in Western Asia, the un-
derlying motif and incentive cannot be discounted.
For some months after Henry's death, Gertrude's happy
nature faded and she remained alone in her home, grieving.
The realization that none of their day-dreams would ma-
terialize, that Henry was gone and she could never recap-
ture those glorious times again, was almost too much for
her to stand. She had hidden her great hurt as best she
could from her parents and friends, but there were mo-
ments when she revolted against the Victorian standards
which made it necessary for a grown woman to mould her
life on a family's wishes. She brooded over the might-have-
beens, living over and over again those brief moments of
happiness.
Then, one day, the reaction came. She calmed herself


WOMANHOOD 57
and tried to think sensibly. As there could be no turning
back, she must go forward and go forward alone, but not to
that old life of teas and dinners and aimless travels—she
had to have an interest, a supreme objective . . . then the
idea came ...
Why not do the things which she and Henry had planned
in the gardens of Tehran and by the streams of Gulahek?
Why not go back to the East, take the caravan, explore,
excavate, try to fulfil the mission which Henry Cadogan
had set for them both— Alone? New life welled up in Ger-
trude as these thoughts took shape and she discovered that,
while her lover could not be with her physically, in spirit he
would be near her in all these ventures.
Thus gradually her buoyant courage asserted itself and
she realized that she had things to do.
Perhaps what helped her most in this crisis was her af-
fection for her father. It was more than the usual instinc-
tive love of a daughter, and amounted to an almost blind
adoration. While at Queen's College and at Oxford, she
wrote letters which were exclusively for her father's ear and
after the tragedy of Henry Cadogan she drew him even
closer. She consulted him on the smallest details of her
daily life as well as on problems encountered in her work.
She wanted him beside her during the long periods she was
away from home:
"... I can't help feeling a dreadful tightening at the heart
at the thought of not seeing you within measurable time," she
writes. "I do sometimes want you so much that I can scarcely
bear it..."
.. Your most beloved letter of November 26th—I was glad


5» GERTRUDE BELL
to have it—it made me feel quite warm inside. I'm perfectly
aware that I don't merit so much love, but the nicest thing
about love is that you can have it without merit. . ."
First of all tempted to return to Tehran, Gertrude saw
that this would only reopen the wound, and during the
next five years she travelled all over Europe and once
round the world, concentrating her energies on writing.
As an immediate result of this first visit to the Orient,
a book entitled Persian Pictures was published. In it the
life of the town and the bazaars, the rose-scented gardens
and the desolate places so near to them, the nomads, the
merchants and the noble Persians, are described with a deft
touch which makes the reader feel the atmosphere of the
country and see its people. To those who know the inside
story of Gertrude's life it is easy to sense a sad young heart
finding expression in these pages. The book is written as
personal impressions, but "we" is invariably used. In every
line there is the feeling of two people very dear to each
other sharing all the loveliness of old Persia.
Gertrude did not want these intimate thoughts to be
given to the public and for some time opposed any idea
of publication of the book. When finally she yielded to
the pressure of her parents, who felt that it was unfair to
keep a beautiful piece of literature hidden away, the book
was brought out anonymously and it was not until much
later that it was re-published under her name. The volume
is still in circulation and gives no feeling of being "dated."
This is sufficient comment on its merit and there is little
doubt that had Gertrude decided to concentrate her energies
on writing of this kind she would have held her place with
Burton or Fitzgerald.


WOMANHOOD 59
She eventually published a number of volumes of prose
and poetry;1 and whether she was deliberately writing verse
or describing what she saw, in her letters and travel books
she maintains a rhythm which is uncannily Oriental with-
out being stilted or forced.
In our book sufficient passages of Gertrude's prose have
been quoted to illustrate her craft in this branch of litera-
ture and the following are taken at random from her adap-
tations of Persian poetry:
I cease not from desire till my desire
Is satisfied; or let my mouth attain
My love's red mouth, or let my soul expire,
Sighed from those lips that sought their lips in vain.
Others may find another love as fair;
Upon her threshold I have laid my head
The dust shall cover me, still lying there,
When from my body life and love have fled.
Each curling lock of thy luxuriant hair
Breaks into barbed hooks to catch my heart,
My broken heart is wounded everywhere
With coundess wounds from which the red drops start.
Yet when sad lovers meet and tell their sighs,
Not without praise shall Hafiz' name be said,
Not without tears, in those pale companies
Where joy has been forgot and hope has fled.
* * *
The nightingale with drops of his heart's blood
Had nourished the red rose, then came the wind,
And catching at the boughs in envious mood,
1 Books by Gertrude Bell: Persian Pictures; Safar Nam eh; Poems from
the Divan of Hafiz; The Desert and the Sown; The Thousand and One
Churches; Amurath to Amurath; The Palace and Mosque of Ukkaidir;
Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia.


6o
GERTRUDE BELL
A hundred thorns about his heart entwined,
Like to the parrot crunching sugar, good
Seemed the world to me who could not stay
The wind of Death that swept my hopes away.
Light of mine eyes and harvest of my heart,
And mine at least in changeless memoryl
Ah! when he found it easy to depart
He left the harder pilgrimage to mel
Oh Camel driver, though the cordage start,
For God's sake help me lift my fallen load,
And Pity be my comrade of the roadl
* * *
Wind from the east, oh Lapwing of the day,
I send thee to my Lady, though the way
Is far to Saba, where I bid thee fly;
Lest in the dust thy tameless wings should lie,
Broken with grief, I send thee to thy nest
Fidelity.
* * *
The days of Spring are herel the eglantine,
The rose, the tulip from the dust have risen—
And thou, why liest thou beneath the dust?
Like the full clouds of Spring, these eyes of mine
Shall scatter tears upon the grave thy prison,
Till thou too from the earth thine head shalt thrust.
* # *
But while Gertrude made no attempt to revisit the
scenes of her great happiness, her mind was set on the East
and she continued her studies of Persian and began to leam
Arabic. She employed native teachers in London and by
1896 had read the Koran and much of the Arabian Nights
in their original tongues. But again, as at Oxford, that mix-
ture of youthful enthusiasm for life and study remained. In
a letter from London she talks enthusiastically about a


WOMANHOOD 6l
fancy dress ball and the costume she wore and then of
spending the morning at the British Museum "reading the
life of Hafiz with a Latin crib!"
She went to Italy and lived for some time in Venice
where her first step was to learn Italian. She was there in
April of 1896 for the arrival of the Kaiser on board his great
white yacht The Hohenzollern. Venice was decked with
banners and flags; as in the days of the Doges salutes were
fired, and King Humbert and Queen Margherita went on
board the yacht to greet William II and take him on shore.
This ceremony was actually the public confirmation of the
Triple Alliance which was to cause so much trouble in
1914, and in a letter to her father, commenting on this
event, she cryptically remarks:
"I only wish it had not been that particular emperor we were
welcoming!"
She was, however, to come into much closer contact with
William II as, in 1897, she once more went to stay with
her aunt who was now British Ambassadress in Berlin.
A curious kaleidoscope these visits to Lady Lascelles. In-
consequent Bucharest society, a tragic queen; romance in
Persian rose gardens; and now the stiff formality of that
imperial autocrat whose unhealthy mind was soon to throw
the world into chaos.
But even the humourless magnificence of the megalo-
maniac Emperor did not quench Gertrude's sense of hu-
mour. On January 22 she was presented at the German
Court and ends an account of her nervousness during the
ordeal with:


62
GERTRUDE BELL
"... the 'Allerhbchst' looked extremely well in a red uniform
—I couldn't look at the empress much as I was busy avoiding
Aunt Mary's train. She presented me and then stood aside
while I made two curtsies. Then I wondered what the dickens
to do next, but Aunt Mary made a little sign, so I 'enjambed'
her train and fled . . ."
She skated at Potsdam and was eventually brought into
personal contact with the Emperor and Empress at a State
performance of Shakespeare's Henry TV.
The procedure was rigid and pompous. Chaperoned by
a lady-in-waiting, Gertrude and her cousin Florence were
taken to the theatre and sat in the second row of chairs,
for, although the Imperial party was in a box, no one, not
of blood royal, could sit in the front row. During the interval
the two English girls were sent for by the Kaiser and found
him in an anteroom behind his box drinking tea with the
Empress. Gertrude thought the Empress stiff and alarming
but the Emperor eager to make her feel at ease. An im-
pression of twitching nerves, talking all the time without
waiting for answers. He told Gertrude that Shakespeare's
plays were never properly acted in England and it was only
the Germans who really studied or understood Shakespeare.
Gertrude, with her usual directness, was about to challenge
this statement when, luckily for her, a chair, on which one
of the courtiers was sitting, collapsed under him and broke
up the interview.
She attended two Court Balls, at one of which Florence
Lascelles danced the gavotte before their majesties, but the
whole atmosphere was too artificial for Gertrude's tempera-
ment and her instinctive dislike of the Kaiser continued.
She could not take the man seriously and his nervous man-


WOMANHOOD 63
nerisms seemed to dominate the magnificent setting in
which he lived. At one of the Court functions she met the
ill-fated Archduke whose assassination was to precipitate
the world war of 1914, but her mind only recorded a plain
individual in a gorgeous uniform. A ball at the British Em-
bassy she enjoyed, but she felt none of those waves of care-
free enjoyment of the gay parties in Bucharest or the in-
formal gatherings in Tehran with Henry Cadogan to laugh
with when the guests had left. This visit had a note of
hidden tragedy as it was the last time that Gertrude was to
see her aunt. Lady Lascelles died on April 3, 1897, leaving
an irreparable blank in Gertrude's life.
Almost immediately after her return from Germany,
Gertrude started on a trip round the world with her brother
Maurice which was to take them six months.
Oddly enough, this first long journey did not make much
impression on her. That is to say the life on board ship, the
passengers, the games, the sea itself, entertained her, but
the ports of call were of no more importance than railway
stations during a train journey. Gertrude had to become
closely acquainted with peoples to comment on them, and
if she could not take part in their lives, speak their lan-
guage and see through their eyes it was waste of time think-
ing about them.
The travelled attitude of the tourist, who takes a round-
the-world cruise and comes back laden with photographs
and cheap curios from the ports where his luxury ship has
called, was not Gertrude's. At the time of her death, she
had visited most of the countries of the world but she
would only admit to knowing a small area between the
River Tigris and the Red Sea.


04 GERTRUDE BELL
The moment she returned to London, she set to work
again with her professors of Arabic and Persian. She had
made no plans, but her desire to go back to the East was
taking definite shape. Before making the final move, how-
ever, she travelled to Greece with her father, where she
encountered Doctor Hogarth, the famous archaeologist,
and the brother of her Oxford friend, Janet. Doctor Ho-
garth was, at the time, excavating the six-thousand-year-old
city of Melos. Gertrude's flair for archaeology, a flair which
she had already shown at the age of seventeen when ex-
amining Roman tombs with her brother at Rochester, at
once made itself evident, and for the next few days she
remained at Melos absorbed in Hogarth's work while he
was delighted to find someone so charming and so intel-
ligent.
Gertrude's last venture, before she set out to begin her
travels in the Orient, was in Switzerland, and gives the first
glimpse of the fearless spirit of adventure which the femi-
nine and attractive exterior concealed.
Ever since she had climbed trees as a child and Devon-
shire cliffs as a young girl, she had been interested in moun-
taineering and had done a good deal of this in Switzerland.
In August of 1899 she decided to climb the Grand Pic de
la Meije in the Dauphin6, a peak only attempted by the
most experienced Alpinists. Gertrude had not this experi-
ence, but she undertook the ascent of that rocky crag, the
crossing of the glacier and its treacherous crevasses, with
the same unconcern as she would have played a set of ten-
nis. Every kind of contretemps presented itself during the
scaling of the mountain, but she reached the summit and


WOMANHOOD 65
got down again, in spite of a blizzard which kept her and
her guides clinging to a precipice for some hours.
This adventure in the Dauphine" was the closing scene of
what might be called the normal section of Gertrude's life.
She was just thirty-one, at an age when most girls would
decide that it was time to many and settle down to the
formal life of England. She had loved and, through no fault
of her own, had lost, she had travelled and studied, she had
met most of the contemporary distinguished people of her
time and there seemed enough to make looking back a suf-
ficient satisfaction that her life had not been wasted. And
yet Gertrude was still on the threshold of real achieve-
ments, and during the course of the next twenty-six years
was to make for herself the name which would rank with
Clive and Stanley and Lawrence of Arabia.


WOMANHOOD 67
some rural French village, but after a year or so of this
peaceful existence in a temperate climate they have gone
back to the desert to end their days in its haunting arid
wastes.
Gertrude had these feelings from the very beginning of
her contact with the desert and wrote in her book The
Desert and the Sown:
"I looked out into the night and saw the desert no longer
empty, but set thicker with human associations than any city.
Every little line of it took on significance, every stone was like
the ghost of a hearth in which the warmth of Arab life was
hardly cold, though the fire might have been extinguished this
hundred years. It was a city of shadowy outiines, visible one
under the other, fleeting and changing, combining into new
shapes elements that are as old as time, the new indistinguish-
able from the old and the old from the new.
"There is no name for it. The Arabs do not speak of the des-
ert or wilderness as we do. Why should they? To them it is
neither desert nor wilderness, but a land of which they know
every feature, a mother country whose smallest product has a
use sufficient for their needs. They know, or at least they knew
in the days when their thoughts shaped themselves in deathless
verse, how to rejoice in the great spaces and how to honour the
rush of the storm . . . They had watched, as they crossed the
barren watercourses, the laggard wonders of the night, when the
stars seemed chained to the sky as though the dawn would
never come ..."
Gertrude returned to those barren countries of the East
because she could not help it, and by the time she had been
there a few weeks she knew that nothing would take her
away for any length of time. There is no other explanation
to give, no ulterior motive to explain why she practically ex-
iled herself in those desolate countries for the greater part


WOMANHOOD 69
Again writing in The Desert and the Sown, she says:
"And for this reason he [the Occidental] will be wiser if he
does not seek to ingratiate himself with Orientals by trying to
ape their habits, unless he is so skilful that he can pass as one of
themselves. Let him treat the laws of others respectfully, but he
himself will meet with a far greater respect if he adheres strictly
to his own. For a woman this rule is of first importance, since
a woman can never disguise herself effectually. That she should
be known to come of a great and honoured stock, whose cus-
toms are inviolable, is her best claim to consideration."
Another quality which helped Gertrude to feel so happy
in this life, so remote from her upbringing, was a sense of
humour and an ability to see the comic side of Oriental
life. What the Occidental, and especially the Briton and
the American, will not take into consideration when deal-
ing with the people of the East, is that their mentality, ac-
tions and ways of thinking are almost exactly opposite to
Western conception. Even speech in the East is not used
for the same purpose as in the West.
If an Arab is asked to dine or make an appointment, he
will not answer "Yes" or "No," but "Inschallah," which
means "If God wills it." In other words, he will not tempt
Destiny, and if Allah does intervene he will not keep the
appointment or make any excuse about it. This apparently
casual attitude infuriates the Occidental until he realizes
that irritation only amuses the Arab as a demonstration of
human frailty. There were times at the beginning of Ger-
trude's career among the people of Western Asia when she
used to give way to exasperation, but controlled her irrita-
tion when she understood that it led her nowhere. A sense


70 GERTRUDE BELL
of the absurd and a sense of humour, she decided, carried
her much farther than any kind of blustering superiority.
During her wanderings she kept a record of all sorts of
queer and amusing conversations.
Gertrude is riding with two Bedouin guides. She is bored
with her own thoughts and starts a conversation by asking
one of the men called Yunis if he ever goes to Aleppo. "Oh,
yes," replies Yunis. He always goes there when his sons are
in prison. Gertrude quickly edges away from delicate ground
and inquires how many sons Yunis has. Eight, each of his
wives has borne him four sons and two daughters, but his
second wife cost him a great deal of money. In fact she
caused him much trouble as he took her forcibly from her
husband and had not only to compensate him but to pay a
heavy fine to the judge.
Gertrude, eager to hear of the woman's reactions, asked
if she liked this mercenary transaction.
"Without doubt," replied Yunis, "it was her wish."
Inquiring about ruined cities of an old man supplied as
a guide:
Gertrude: What should I ride out and see?
Old Man: Many churches there are, a very great many.
Gertrude: Where?
Old Man (waving his arm vaguely towards the mountains):
Over there, that side.
Gertrude: What is the name?
Old Man: Ali.
Gertrude: No, not your name, the church's name.
Old Man: Chandlik.
Gertrude: Aren't there any in other directions?
Old Man: Not any at all.
A Bystander: Many, a great many, over there there is one.


WOMANHOOD 71
Gertrude: What is the name?
Old Man: Ali.
Gertrude: Not your name, the church's . . .
And so on and so on.
Conversation with the cook:
Gertrude: Oh, Fattuh, to whom does this polar garden belong?
Fattuh: To a priest, lady.
Gertrude: Doesn't he mind our camping in it?
Fattuh: He didn't say anything.
Gertrude: Did you ask him?
Fattuh: No, my lady.
Gertrude: We must give him some bakhshish.
Fattuh: At your Excellency's command. (A pause.) My lady...
Gertrude: Yes?
Fattuh: The priest is dead.
Gertrude: Then I don't think we need bother about the bakh-
shish.
Fattuh: No, my lady.
At breakfast the cook has made some excellent little mut-
ton sausages.
Gertrude (wishing to improve her Arabic): Oh, Fattuh, what
is the name of these?
Fattuh: Effendim, these? Their name is sossiglio.
And discussing life's problems with a venerable Kadi:
"'In Europe,' said the Kadi, 'I have heard that men of sci-
ence are your prophets.'
"'And they make answer that they know nothing,' I ob-
served. 'Their eyes have explored the stars, yet they cannot
tell us the meaning of the word infinity.'
"'If you talk of the infinite sky,' remarked the Kadi, 'we
know that it is occupied by seven heavens.'
"'And what beyond the seventh heaven?'


72 GERTRUDE BELL
"'Does not your Excellency know that the number one is the
beginning of all things?' said he. 'When you have told me what
comes before the number one, I will tell you what lies beyond
the seventh heaven!'
"The Pasha laughed and said that if the Kadi had finished
his argument he would like to ask me what was the current
opinion in Europe in the matter of thought reading.
"'For,' said he, 'a month ago a ring of price was stolen in my
house and I could not find die thief. Now a certain Effendi
among my friends hearing of my case, came to me and said:
"' "I know a man in the Lebanon, skilful in these things!"
I said, "Do me the kindness to send for him." And the man
came and he sought in Horns, until he found a woman gifted
with second sight and he worked spells on her until she spoke
and said:
"' "The thief is so and so and he has taken the ring to his
house."
"'And we sought in the house and found the jewel. This is
my experience for the event happened under my eyes.'
"I replied that thought readers in the Lebanon made better
use of their gifts than any I had heard of in London and the
Pasha said meditatively:
"'It may be that the woman of the bazaar had a complaint
against the man in whose house we found the ring. God
alone knows, may His name be exalted!'
"And so we left it."
It is pure Arabian Night and as Gertrude listened to these
men she could feel Shah Zaman and King Shahryyar com-
ing to life, with the slaves and the princes and the lovely
Scheherazade and Dunyazad, in the same setting where she
now found herself. She saw and felt as they did and by this
understanding discovered the secret to success among the
people of Arabia.
The Arab belongs to a proud and ancient race with tradi-
tions dating back long before Mohammed. He has never


WOMANHOOD 73
really been defeated by any nation of the Occident and has
himself invaded and occupied half Europe. He does not be-
have in a superior manner to Europeans and he resents any
superior attitude on their part. If then someone from a land
which he knows to be the head of a great empire comes and
lives with him, shares his food and his hardships and, above
all, joins in his conversation on an equal footing, he at once
loses all his reserve and there is nothing he will not do to
show his appreciation. Neither can this intimacy be acquired
by a mere wish to do so. The Arab has to feel that he is
liked.
Gertrude liked the Arabs and they liked her, the rest was
just a matter of letting things take their course.
Gertrude's first expeditions covered the beaten track
round about Jerusalem until, feeling safer with her Arabic,
she determined to penetrate into the interior of the coun-
try and set off in March of 1900 with her own caravan.
Compared with her journeys to come, this one was "tame."
Nevertheless, for a woman alone, with an imperfect knowl-
edge of the language and none of the country, it must be
regarded as an adventure.
Having bought a horse and engaged a cook, Gertrude set
out from Jerusalem at the beginning of March. Her caravan
consisted of saddle horses, and donkeys to carry the tents
and the provisions. Riding was second nature to her, but
she had always used a side saddle and worn a habit. The
days were still a long way off when women would don the
breeches of men and Gertrude compromised by having a
divided skirt made which enabled her to ride astride.
As she moved away from the main roads, she fell in with


74 GERTRUDE BELL
other travellers, traders and nomads and pilgrims, and con-
tinued with them as far as they went. She talked and joked
with them, shared their meals and gained their confidence.
The eating of Arab food, squatting on the ground, seemed
to come as natural to her as dining at home and she never
felt the least afraid of these men, many of whom were out-
laws. Her summing-up of these desert people, based partly
on instinct and partly on observation, was more accurate
than either Burton or Doughty.
"... The nomads," she wrote, "can no more give you a sense
of companionship than the wild goats; they are equally uncon-
scious of the desolation which surrounds them—even if you fall
into speech with one of them, there are few common topics on
which you can converse. He will question you as to your na-
tionality. You try to explain that you are English and come
from far across the seas; and he listens attentively, though you
know your words throw no light on his boundless ignorance . .."
"Boundless ignorance" precisely explains the nomad. He
has no education, does not want any and expects nothing
of the world beyond enough to eat and a few rags to cover
his body. Story books and motion pictures have created a
kind of legend about the desert Arabs with their inscrutable
faces and meditative silences supposed to conceal depths of
wisdom. They conceal nothing except stupidity. Sometimes
a chief is encountered who has had a Western education,
but he is alone in a vast horde of illiterates.
One of the hardest things to realize about these people
is that none of them ever possessed a permanent home or
resided in a house. They are born under a tent, they are
brought up there, and they will die and be buried under a
heap of stones. Their whole outlook on life has been the


WOMANHOOD 75
open plain, the sky, the storm, the rain, the fierce sun of
the desert. The family, which means everything, has been
centred round the group of tents.
These tents are not, as might be supposed, gorgeously
decked residences. They consist of a kind of very large blan-
ket made of coarse camel's and goat's hair. This blanket is
stretched on posts and pegged down on three sides, leaving
the fourth open. On the floor are placed rugs and carpets
and a few hard cushions stuffed with millet.
When the nomad is married the tent is divided into two
parts by another blanket and the man lives on one side and
his wife and children on the other. When the camp is
struck, the posts are removed, the blankets are rolled up and
the whole is placed on the back of a camel or donkey.
This first expedition led Gertrude past Pisgah, where
Balaam cursed Israel, and Moses' last resting place on
Mount Nebo.
"The Moses legend is a very touching one," she wrote. "I
stood on the top of Pisgah and looked out over the wonderful
Jordan valley and the blue sea and the barren hills, veiled and
beautified by cloud, and thought it was one of the most pathetic
stories that I have ever been told."
And if Gertrude had been a reader of the Bible she
would have seen how even more tragic was the fate of this
great leader who, after endless patience with the Israelites,
was forbidden to take them into the Promised Land be-
cause he once lost his temper with their eternal grumbling:
". . . and the Lord spake unto Moses," tells the Book of
Deuteronomy, after Moses had been mercilessly sentenced:
"Get thee up into this mountain unto Mount Nebo, which is
in the land of Moab, which is over against Jericho; and behold


JO GERTRUDE BELL
the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for
a possession: And die in the mount and be gathered up unto thy
people . . . And Moses went up from the plain of Moab unto
the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is over
against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gil-
ead unto Dan . . . And the Lord said unto him, This is the
land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob,
saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it
with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses
the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, accord-
ing to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in
the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth
of his sepulchre unto this day."
At Madeba she encountered an American press photog-
rapher who told her that if she was going any further inland
she should have some sort of armed escort. Gertrude thanked
the man and, rather against her will, called on the Turkish
authorities and found them none too cordial and definitely
suspicious. She later discovered that these suspicions were
based on an idea that England had her eye on this part of
the country, which, as things turned out, was not far wrong,
though a little premature. Realizing that the situation called
for tact she immediately became very feminine and helpless
which, combined with the fact that she had a camera and
was prepared to take pictures of the Turkish officials,
smoothed all the difficulties away. This was Gertrude's first
test of diplomatic ability to deal with Orientals and she bore
it in mind for future occasions.
The next morning the escort appeared in the shape of a
big, handsome, cheerful Circassian soldier mounted on a
white stallion; and the little caravan set off. It must have
been a pleasing picture, the daughter of the Yorkshire iron-
master, but lately at the Court of the Kaiser, riding her


WOMANHOOD 77
horse like a man with the good-looking escort at her side.
Behind, the cook on a donkey and a motley collection of
Bedouins churning up the dust as they followed the track
which eventually leads to Mecca.
The vision of the gamekeeper on that July night thirty-
two years before was beginning to materialize.
As a matter of fact it was just as well that Gertrude had
taken the advice of the American photographer about the
escort. Shortly after leaving the superb ruins of the seventh
century palace of Chosroes I, which she had been photo-
graphing, three yelling tribesmen, armed to the teeth, came
galloping towards the small procession. It looked like trou-
ble. However, when the men saw the soldier they halted
their charge, remained undecided for a moment and, with a
curt greeting, rode away disgusted at losing what looked
like a fine prize.
Gertrude's primary object in making this journey was to
get the feel of travelling alone in the desert and to improve
her Arabic, her second was to have some practical experi-
ence of archaeology which, up to date, she had only studied
in theory. The palace of Chosroes was a feast of inscriptions
and sent her enthusiastically to examine the Moabite town
of King Sihon and the mighty crusader fort at Kerak. Follow-
ing the old Roman roads she deciphered what was written on
the milestones of the period and spent some hours beside
the tomb of Aaron! She also found time to make careful
notes about the desert tracks and the water points. Al-
though the data seemed of little practical value to her at
the time, some sort of instinct must have influenced her;
for all the facts about the country which she compiled dur-
ing these wanderings were found invaluable to the British


JO GERTRUDE BELL
General Staff in 1915 and later to Lawrence when the war
moved into Arabia and Palestine.
All this delving into dry archaeology and topography,
studying the language, and harsh physical experiences did
not erase any of the femininity or the romantic element in
Gertrude. She wrote about the flowers of the desert and
either wore them or kept them in a mug of water in her
tent. None of the details about the Arab women, which
would go unnoticed by a male explorer, escaped her and she
saw and described the settings of the desert people with the
mind of an artist.
"These people are gipsies," she wrote to her step-mother,
"some of them have just been dancing for me round my camp
fire. It was quite dark, with a tiny moon, the fire of dry thorns
flickered up—faded and flickered again and showed the circle
of men crouching on the ground, their black and white cloaks
round them and the woman in the middle dancing. She looked
as if she had stepped out of an Egyptian fresco. She wore a
long red gown bound round her waist with a dark blue cloth,
and falling open in front to show a redder petticoat below.
Round her head was another blue cloth bound tightly and fall-
ing in long ends down her back, her chin was covered by a
white cloth drawn up round her ears and falling in folds to her
waist. Her feet, in red leather shoes, scarcely moved but all her
body danced and she swept a red handkerchief she held in one
hand, round her head, and clasped her hands together in front
of her face. The men played a drum and a discordant fife and
sang a monotonous song and clapped their hands and gradually
she came nearer and nearer to me, twisting her slender body till
she dropped on the heap of brushwood at my feet, and kneel-
ing, her body still danced and her arms swayed and twisted
round the mask-like face ..."
At the beginning of April Gertrude began the return jour-
ney and reached Jericho on the 6th, describing the city as,


WOMANHOOD 79
in proportion to its size, having the largest proportion of
mosquitoes and fleas of any inhabited spot of the globe!
The following week she was back in Jerusalem where she
found a large quantity of mail from England to which she
conscientiously replied, discussing Italian art with her sister
who was in Florence as if she had no other interest than this
subject!


WOMANHOOD 8l
The Druze played an important part in the Great War by
remaining neutral and causing a lot of uneasiness to the
belligerents who did not know which side they would take
until, eventually, in 1918, partly through Gertrude's influ-
ence and Lawrence's personality, they joined the allies and
helped in the Revolt in the Desert.
Gertrude shared Lady Hester Stanhope's high opinion of
the Druze and considered them to be a people worthier of
trust than the Arabs. This was not the conviction of the
Turkish authorities who were strongly opposed to any Euro-
pean, and certainly to a white woman, venturing into the
Druze mountains. But the Turks did not know Gertrude or
appreciate the hundred subtle ways she would approach a
difficult problem. All they could see was a female who trav-
elled like a male and treated the members of the opposite
sex as equals. They did not suspect that she did this merely
as a matter of convenience and when it came to a question
of mind versus mind relied entirely on her woman's in-
tuition.
Reaching a place called Bosrah, from which could be seen
the volcanic peaks of the Djebel Druze, Gertrude called on
the local governor and, to his questions as to her destina-
tion, replied that she was making for Damascus. This state-
ment was received with an incredulous smile. Gertrude then
added that she wished to go via Salkhad, which is in the
heart of the Druze territory. The governor immediately ob-
jected that there was nothing to see in Salkhad. Gertrude
said that she wanted to go there all the same. The governor
again objected that the country was very dangerous. Ger-
trude did not mind. The governor paused, baffled by such
obstinacy, and then said that he had received a message


82 GERTRUDE BELL
from Damascus forbidding him to authorize any foreigners,
and particularly white women, to go into the Druze coun-
try. Gertrude knew that this was not true, but she pre-
tended to be very disappointed and said that she quite un-
derstood and would remain in Bosrah. She returned to her
camp and confided a plan to her cook.
The governor had evidently believed Gertrude as little as
she had believed him, for towards evening a message came
saying that he would pay her a call at sunset. Gertrude sent
back a message that she had been taken ill and was retiring
to bed. One hour later the governor appeared at the camp,
but the cook told him that his lady was very sick and could
see no one. The governor, not in the least convinced, in-
quired if the lady was marching on the morrow. The cook
replied that he did not think so. The governor was non-
plussed and after loitering about for a while said that Ger-
trude must on no account leave Bosrah without first seeing
him. He then went back to his quarters.
At two o'clock in the morning Gertrude got up and,
rousing her servants, quietly packed up the camp. It was
bitterly cold as she paced up and down praying that no
sentry would look over the castle walls. No sentry did and
at three the little caravan was under way. There was no
guide, but Gertrude had a rough map and hoped to pick up
someone on the road. Time was lost getting clear of Bos-
rah's tortuous alleys and once she was stopped and thought
that she would be held, but a little glib talk bluffed the gate-
keepers and by dawn the party was away in the mountains
and fairly safe from pursuit, as the soldiers would not ven-
ture into Druze country. Areh was reached at eight-thirty,
where the Druze Sheik welcomed Gertrude and the wel-


WOMANHOOD 83
come became an ovation when he heard of the hoodwinking
of the governor of Bosrah. To everyone who came to call on
this strange white woman the Sheik repeated the story of
her getting the better of the hated Turkish authorities and
this, combined with the legends of Lady Hester Stanhope,
enhanced Gertrude's prestige and made of her visit a tri-
umphal success.
She found the Druze to be intelligent, good-looking,
charming people, whose hospitality was overwhelming; and
during the ten days she spent among them she was feasted
and entertained until she could hardly eat another mouthful.
A poet composed an ode in her honour and Gertrude,
not quite knowing how to thank him, said that if someone
in England wrote a poem about her she would give him a
shilling. The Druze bard replied:
"Yes, it would happen."
So Gertrude gave him the equivalent of a shilling and he
gave her the poem.
She was asked to the house of a very important sheik who
had thought it a good idea to serve her tea in the English
style. However, when it came to the actual making of the
tea, he was extremely vague and inquired as to whether or
not the milk should be boiled with the water!
A nargileh was offered her which she smoked, but she did
not like it and was glad when it went out.
While accepting this hospitality she did not let herself
forget that she had work to do. She collected all the infor-
mation she could on desert tracks and water points, discov-
ered some interesting ruins from which she copied the in-
scriptions and made a solemn pilgrimage to the grave of the
prophet Job! When the time came for her to leave these


04 GERTRUDE BELL
reputedly savage tribesmen, they all flocked about her beg-
ging her to come back, and it was with regret that she trav-
elled on to Damascus where she suddenly found herself in
a cosmopolitan atmosphere, sleeping in a bed in an Occi-
dental hotel.
Gertrude was not interested in Damascus and decided to
make another expedition in a different direction, to Baalbec
and the Cedars of Lebanon, then back to the coast at Bey-
routh. This time the authorities made certain that she did
not set out on her own and insisted on her taking an escort
of Turkish soldiers with her. Part of the trip would be over
desolate, waterless country, so, for the first time in Ger-
trude's travels, camels had to be included in the caravan.
The journey turned out to be much harder than ex-
pected, with long stages over a desert, burning hot in May,
and few water points. The guide one day pointed out the
caravan track which leads to Nejd, a forty-day trek without
a spring or a well. One day Gertrude was to make for Nejd
herself, but for the moment she was finding quite enough
to cope with in the deserts of Syria. Sometimes her stages
would take ten to twelve hours and on one occasion she was
in the saddle for sixteen.
This ride was the first occasion when she realized that,
although she was among people who should know their
business in the desert, there were occasions when a little
practical occidentalism did no harm.
Owing to the scarcity of water points, reserves of water
had to be carried on the camels. On arrival one evening at
a place called Kasr el Khair, after a comparatively leisurely
ride but in great heat, it was found that two of the water
skins had leaked and were quite empty, while one of the


WOMANHOOD 85
muleteers, in order to lighten the load of his animals, had
emptied the contents of the skins which they carried onto
the desert. The caravan thus found itself at a waterless
camping site with ten animals and seven people, and noth-
ing to drink beyond what was in their water bottles. The
Arabs, with their fatalistic composure, were quite prepared
to spend the night where they were, hope for the best, and
in the morning, if God was willing, set out in search of a
well. Gertrude considered the problem for a moment and,
feeling that she had no convictions about the providence
of God, decided to make for the nearest water point, re-
puted to be seven hours' march away. The Arabs stared at
her incredulously when she suggested that the caravan should
move on to the water, and took no further notice. She
began to plead, then she threatened and finally mounted
her horse and ordered the men to get on their way, and
grumblingly the stage was covered before she would allow
anyone to rest.
From that day on, the whole of Gertrude's attitude to-
wards the members of her caravan altered. Up to that time
she had felt that perhaps she was unseasoned in desert
travel and the Arabs must know best. Now she understood
that they were a people who had to be either led or driven,
and when handled in this way all the nonsense about Des-
tiny was forgotten.
But to know the psychological moment when patience
must give way to action required an uncanny instinct. The
Arabs will accept leadership or coercion only when every
other roundabout method has been exhausted, and any ex-
asperation during the process will lead to a blank wall of
obstinacy. How accustomed Gertrude became to this men-


86
GERTRUDE BELL
tality can be seen in letters when she describes, without
comment, incidents which would have driven most Occi-
dentals into raging hysterics:
"When I arrived I had asked if there wer^e pack horses. 'As
many as you like can be found,' said the innkeeper. Presently he
returned to say that there were none. 'Then,' said I, 'I will take
a cart to the village at the edge of the hills.' 'Most excellent,'
said the surrounding company, 'the cart will draw you to the
hills and then you will get camels.' 'Camels are to be found
then?' said I. 'Many,' said they. Then arrived the Kaimakam
and the Other, and I explained that I was leaving at once for
Salur with my luggage in a cart. They heartily approved of this
plan. Over the coffee the other let fall a remark to the effect
that I should find no people at all as they had all gone up to
Yaila. 'Then how shall I find camels?' said I. 'Effendim,' said
he, 'there will be no camels.' Finally I resolved to take camels
from him and after waiting for four hours the camels have
appeared."
Immediately Gertrude reached the end of this gruelling
stage she fell asleep and remained unconscious for eleven
hours. To those who have not led a desert life this does not
seem a particular feat for someone who is exhausted; but
when one has tried to rest and undergone the torment of
flies and other stinging insects, the heat, the noise of the
other members of the caravan, who can sleep under any
conditions and do not respect the privacy of their neigh-
bours, it is not as easy as it sounds. Gertrude became im-
pervious to noises and overcame the insect pest by having
made for herself a huge muslin bag into which she crept
when she wanted to rest. She never let this contrivance out
of her sight, though she said that if her camp was attacked
by a "ghazu" of Arabs, her flight would be as one who runs
a sack race!


WOMANHOOD 87
While still maintaining her authority over her followers
when it was necessary, she conformed in every possible way
to the traditions and the customs of the Arabs. This was
not always too easy and there were occasions when she in-
advertently made breaches of etiquette. On this particular
journey she nearly estranged the sympathy of a very im-
portant sheik.
Arriving at a big water point, she found a whole tribe of
Bedouins watering their flocks. The sheik at once made
himself known and invited her to take coffee with him, and
she joined the circle before the black tent. She sat for some
time listening to the desert gossip, until she began to feel
helplessly sleepy. No one was paying the slightest attention
to her, so she got up quietly and slipped away to her camp.
Hardly had she reached it when one of her own men hur-
ried up and informed her that she had committed a fearful
solecism. Apparently the sheik had killed a sheep in her
honour and expected her to dine. Gertrude was filled with
consternation and asked her retainer what she should do.
The man replied that she must give a present and return to
the circle. Now, the only gifts which any Arab of impor-
tance will consider are arms or horses. Gertrude was not
going to give away a horse so she went into her tent and,
wrapping her pistol in a silk handkerchief, sent it over to
the sheik. Peace was made and Gertrude sleepily returned
to the circle and waited two hours for dinner to be served.
This meal procedure of desert Arabs, to those not ac-
quainted with the ways of Bedouins, is at first difficult to
understand. To begin with the nomad has only one meal a
day. When he rises in the morning, he will drink a cup of
coffee or mint tea; and, if hungry in the middle of the day,


88 GERTRUDE BELL
a handful of dates will suffice him. It is not until the sun
is setting and he can relax that he settles down to serious
eating. The meal usually consists of a highly spiced soup
served in a common bowl, into which everyone dips with
a wooden spoon, followed by a dish of meat and vegetables,
which is eaten from the dish with the fingers, and the din-
ner invariably ends with a huge platter of what an Occi-
dental would call semolina. Water or the milk of sheep or
goats is drunk, with coffee and tea later in the evening.
That is the ordinary dinner for a Bedouin, but when an im-
portant stranger comes to the camp a much more elaborate
repast is prepared. If the coming of the guest is known
beforehand, the dinner is ready when he arrives, but if, as
in Gertrude's case, he appears unexpectedly the same feast
will be served which takes a considerable time. A visiting
sheik is aware of this procedure and like all Arabs, having
no sense of time, is quite prepared to wait until it is time
to eat. At this period of her desert journeying Gertrude
was not fully versed in Bedouin lore and probably did not
appreciate that she was regarded as an honoured guest, and
her ignorance cost her a pistol.
The cooking of this special dinner takes literally many
hours; for, in addition to all kinds of meat stews and sau-
sage rolls and sickly almond paste cakes, there is invariably
a sheep roast whole. The sheep is alive and peacefully brows-
ing when the honoured, but unexpected, guest descends on
the camp, so that it has to be captured, killed, skinned,
cleaned and roasted on a spit over the embers of a brush-
wood fire before the guests can assemble before the tent to
dine. The long wait is, however, well worth while, as Ger-
trude discovered, for there is no meat more delicious than


WOMANHOOD 89
that of the sheep laid before the guests in its entirety. No
knives or forks are used and the diners expertly pick tasty
morsels from the carcass with their fingers.
Apart from this small social error, the expedition was
lacking in incident. Gertrude continued her journey, map-
ping and making records of ruins, until she eventually
reached Lebanon. For a few days she camped at Aflea, where
the river Adonis, legendary place of the meeting of Venus
and her lover, springs out of a great cave. From the forests
of Lebanon she collected a number of cedar cones and took
them to England, and today, in the grounds of Rounton
Grange, a real cedar of Lebanon, descendant of the trees
about which King Solomon wrote, rears its evergreen head
to the Yorkshire skies.
Then all of a sudden an urge came over Gertrude to go
home and see her parents and she travelled by forced
marches to Beyrouth and on to Jaffa where she could find
a ship. There was no idea of deserting Arabia, just a pass-
ing nostalgia for her own kind, and she wrote to her father
before sailing:
". . . we shall go to Jaffa tomorrow, as there is a boat and I
am anxious to get home. But you know, dearest father, I shall
be back before long. One doesn't keep away from the East
when one has been in so far ..."
Gertrude had only been in Arabia for just over six
months, but she had absorbed more than the average travel-
ler in six years. She had allowed the desert and its people
to take possession of her heart, and she knew that it was
only a matter of time before she settled for ever among the
vague, friendly wanderers of these stony wildernesses.


CHAPTER VIII
When Gertrude abandoned the white glare of the
desert for the gentler green of England in early summer,
she found an unbelievable change.
The Victorian era was a thing of the past, the Boer War
was dragging itself to a weary conclusion and Great Britain,
disillusioned by the attitude of Continental Europeans dur-
ing her struggle in South Africa, was realizing that imperial
isolation might sound all right, but it was no longer prac-
tical.
The dying of the nineteenth century had passed un-
noticed by Gertrude in the midst of Arabs and Druze, but
a complete metamorphosis, at first not generally appreci-
ated, had come over the world.
Sensing this quickly she adapted herself more easily to
the new tempo than those who had remained at home.
While the reign of Edward VII was not to bring her into
public prominence, it was to establish her among a group of
men who realized the importance of her investigations in
the Near East. Some of these were archaeologists, some
were politicians ... a number belonged to the military
profession.
However, for the moment, there was no question of seri-
ous international disturbances and Gertrude settled down
to a quiet life in England. In fact, she did an unprecedented
90


WOMANHOOD Ql
thing in remaining in the country for a whole year, giving
herself up to County life.
But that was as long as her wandering instinct could
remain dormant, and in July of 1902 she went to Switzer-
land to climb the Finsteraarhorn, a peak respected by the
most hardened Alpinists. She made her headquarters at
Meiringen where she conferred with her guides as to the
best plan for attacking the mountain and, having settled
the details, waited for a suitable day.
At one-thirty in the morning, early in August, the start
was made. The first part of the ascent was across dangerous
slopes, down which unheralded avalanches of stones made
progress risky. Then into rock chimneys and granite towers
which required strength as well as skill to scale. So far there
were no mishaps, but at two in the afternoon the weather
began to look threatening. The guides paused in their scram-
bling and anxiously scanned the black clouds which were
rolling up, but Gertrude was not ready to give in and the
climb continued. By three the trio was within a thousand
feet of the summit and in spite of snow flurries a final
effort was made to reach the peak. But the weather rapidly
grew worse and, finding themselves faced with pinnacles
of rock coated with ice, the guides insisted that it would be
suicidal to go on. Gertrude had to reluctantly agree and the
retreat began.
Even now the decision seemed to have been taken too
late as the clouds completely shrouded the mountain and
the snow storm developed into a blizzard which, with the
oncoming night, made it impossible to see more than a few
feet ahead. There seemed little chance of the party getting
back safely.


92
GERTRUDE BELL
Gertrude's own words vividly tell of the perils through
which she and her guides passed during that descent.
"We toiled on till eight, by which time a furious thunder-
storm was raging. We were standing by a great upright on the
top of a tower when suddenly it gave a crack and a blue flame
sat on it for a second. My ice axe jumped in my hand and I
thought the steel felt hot through my woollen glove. Before we
knew where we were the rock flashed again, it was a great stick-
ing out stone and I expect it attracted the lightning, but we
didn't stop to consider this theory but stumbled down a chim-
ney as hard as ever we could, one on top of the other, buried
our ice axes in some shale at the bottom of it and hurriedly
retreated from them. It's not nice to carry a private lightning
conductor in your hand in the thick of a thunderstorm.
"It was quite clear we could go no further that night, the
question was to find the best lodging while there was still light
to see. We hit upon a tiny crack sheltered from the wind, even
the snow did not fall into it. There was just room for me to sit
in the extreme back of it on a very pointed bit of rock; by
doubling up I could even get my head into it. Ulrich sat on my
feet to keep them warm and Heinrich just below. At first the
thunderstorm made things rather exciting. The claps followed
the flashes so close that there seemed no interval between them.
We tied ourselves firmly onto the rock above lest, as Ulrich
philosophically said, one of us should be struck and fall out.
The rocks were all crackling round us and fizzing like damp wood
which is just beginning to burn. It's a curious exciting sound
rather exhilarating, and as there was no further precaution pos-
sible I enjoyed the extraordinary magnificence of the storm
with a free mind: it was worth seeing. Gradually the night
cleared and became beautifully starry. Between two and three
the moon rose, a tiny crescent, and we spoke of the joy it
would be when the sun rose full on us and stopped our shiver-
ing. But the sun never rose at all, at least for all practical pur-
poses. The day came wrapped in a blinding mist and heralded
by a cutting, snow-laden wind; we never saw the sun in it. I can
scarcely describe to you what the day was like. We were from
four a.m. to eight p.m. on the are're; during that time we ate


WOMANHOOD
93
for a minute or two three times and my fare I know was five
gingerbread biscuits, two sticks of chocolate, a slice of bread, a
scrap of cheese and a handful of raisins. We had nothing to
drink but two tablespoonfuls of brandy in the bottom of my
flask and a mouthful of wine in the guides' wine skin, but it was
too cold to feel thirsty. There was scarcely a yard which we could
come down without the extra rope. But both ropes were thor-
oughly iced and terribly difficult to manage, the weather was
appalling. It was rather interesting to see the way the moun-
tain behaved in a snowstorm and how avalanches are born
and all the wonderful and terrible things that happen in high
places ..."
And so the descent of the mountain went on, foot by
foot. Gertrude and her guides had hoped to make some sort
of shelter that evening, but their progress was so slow that
they had to spend another night crouching on a ledge of
rock. Even then she did not complain:
"I consoled myself by thinking of Maurice in South Africa,"
she remarked, "and how he had slept out in the pouring rain
and been none the worse ..."
But if Gertrude made light of her adventure on these
sleet-swept slopes, hardened climbers of the Alpine Club
appreciated the feat which she had accomplished. Captain
Farrar, writing in the Alpine Journal, said:
"The vertical height of the rock face measured from the gla-
cier to the summit of the mountain is about 3,000 feet. There
can be in the whole Alps few places so steep and so high. The
climb has only been done three times, including Miss Bell's at-
tempt, and it is still considered one of the greatest expeditions
in the whole Alps. Her strength, incredible in that slim frame,
her endurance, above all her courage, were so great that even
to this day her guide and companion Ulrich Fuhrer speaks with
admiration of her that amounts to veneration. He told the
writer, some years ago, that of all the amateurs, men or women,


WOMANHOOD 95
accompanied this time by her step-brother Hugo. He was
considerably younger, having gone to Eton when Gertrude
was in Persia. Although devoted to each other, the brother
and sister had diverging conceptions of life. Gertrude's bril-
liant and energetic mind wanted proof of anything which
was not clear before she would accept a solution. Religion
meant nothing to her, being unable to reconcile obvious
facts with the theories dogmatically laid down by the
Church. Hugo was inclined to be an idealist and a con-
scientious believer in Christianity as a solution to all prob-
lems. Gertrude used to argue with her brother about these
beliefs, but with that tenacious Bell character he remained
unmoved and, not long after the return from the world
cruise, he was ordained a clergyman of the Church of
England.
Although Gertrude was to be in India for quite a short
time, she started to learn Hindustani and tried to form
some idea of the problems which confronted the natives
and their British rulers. She was impressed by the mag-
nificence of the Durbar and the spectacle of India paying
homage to its King Emperor. She was shocked by the aloof
attitude of the British to the Indians and amused at the
way in which suburban English life was transplanted to a
land where it was quite unsuited. She stayed in native states
with Maharajahs, and rode elephants which she did not like
as much as camels. She mixed with wild tribesmen of the
Frontier at Peshawar, and from Darjeeling saw the sun rise
over Everest. Then on to Burmah and up the Irrawaddy in
a small boat. She made friends with Buddhist monks and
Burmese dancing girls. Thence she moved south to the
Dutch Indies, to the Malay States and to Hongkong. China


90 GERTRUDE BELL
delighted her and she spent some time in Shanghai trying
to get to know the Chinese whom she misjudged com-
pletely. The Boxer Rebellion and massacres were but lately
over and she recorded that the country had settled down to
an era of peace and goodwill to the foreigners!
From China a ship took her to Port Arthur where she
enjoyed the Russians and saw the twilight of the Czarist
imperial regime in the Far East. In less than two years the
Japanese would have driven the Russians out of Manchuria
and an ex-Worcester naval cadet, called Togo, would be
forming a navy to menace the rest of the world. But neither
Gertrude nor Hugo foresaw this, in fact Hugo became con-
vinced that Russia was on the eve of taking over the control
of Asia. Japan was also seen just before it became a Power
which counted, but Gertrude did not seem to appreciate
why the Japanese were so cordial to all Britons! Their char-
acter she misconstrued, dismissing them as charming little
people who had lovely gardens and smiled all the time.
Although Gertrude's letters from the Far East are not
very detailed, they are filled with astute comment, but it is
the comment of a spectator and not, as in her correspond-
ence from Arabia, that of one of the people. It is not clear
as to whether she neglected her study of Chinese and Japa-
nese history or was merely not interested in their politics,
but she does not seem to have realized that she was in those
countries on the eve of a crisis which would alter the his-
tory of the world.
She sailed from Yokohama to Vancouver and travelled
east via the Canadian Rockies. Her first natural impulse,
on finding herself in the midst of these giants among moun-


WOMANHOOD 97
tains, was to climb a peak, and to her joyous surprise she
discovered three Swiss guides with whom she had made
ascents in the Oberland. Her pleasure was only equalled by
that of the guides and, to climax the trip round the world,
she conquered one of the highest peaks of the Rocky
Mountains.
The rest of 1903 and 1904 was spent in Europe, chiefly
in Yorkshire and London, with visits to Paris and Berlin.
For the moment all idea of travelling and exploration was
forgotten; everyone was eager to meet her and there were
few nights when she did not dine at some fashionable house
in Paris or London.
At one dinner party she sat next the Agha Khan, the
direct descendant of Mohammed, but a "bon viveur" and
one of the richest men in the world. When Gertrude told
him that she was thinking of going to Baghdad he re-
marked:
"Let me know if you go as I would like to give you letters
to my uncles who guard the Shrine at Kerbela. The Marl-
borough Club always finds me."
The holy places at Kerbela, the Marlborough Club, Mo-
hammed, a smart dinner in London . . . such a mixture
could only be possible in the British Empire.
She met Sargent, who later was to do her portrait, and
discussed Greek art with him.
Salomon Reinach, the eminent archaeologist and Ori-
entalist, asked her over to Paris to give her opinion on some
valuable Byzantine MSS. which he had acquired. They
wandered together through the Oriental rooms of the
Louvre and studied Greek "first editions" in the Biblio-


90 GERTRUDE BELL
theque Nationale. A week later she was climbing the Mat-
terhorn from the Italian side, one of the most difficult
ascents of the Alps.
Gertrude was now thirty-four. She had seen practically
the whole of the world, and while Arabia interested her and
absorbed her thoughts she seemed to hesitate before finally
deciding to devote the rest of her life to the study of that
country. The memory of Henry Cadogan was still alive and
the recollections of those happy days in Tehran kept her
mind on that part of Asia. In a letter addressed to her
cousin Edward Stanley, who was civil commissioner to
Nigeria, she revealed what was passing through her mind:
". . . Marcus Aurelius is a good counsellor, if one can follow
his advice. I mostly find myself rebelling against it, with an un-
canny sense of being too hopelessly involved in the mortal coil
to profit by it. What is the use of bending all one's energies to
the uncongenial thing? One is likely to do little enough any-
way, but if one's time is taken up persuading oneself one likes
it or at least conquering a distaste there is very little left to
achieve success with. Find the thing that needs no such pre-
paratory struggle and then do it for all you are worth, if you can.
There will always be black or gray moments when it is suffi-
ciently difficult to do even the thing you like ..."
Gertrude did not take long to make up her mind what
she wanted to do "for all she was worth"; she had un-
doubtedly decided long ago, and in January of 1905 she set
out for Syria. As if trying to test her metal, her initial wel-
come back to the Near East was a sharp bout of fever, but
still inexperienced in this side of Oriental life she dismissed
the attack as she might a cold. The fever temporarily ac-
cepted the rebuff and left the arrogant Englishwoman to her


WOMANHOOD 99
Arab friends who received her with the enthusiasm of
children.
Her objective this time was another Druze district and
she had the usual difficulty with the government authorities
who seemed determined to hamper her expeditions. How-
ever, now thoroughly understanding cumbrous Turkish of-
ficialdom, she got away without trouble and abandoned
herself to the triumphant welcome of the desert.
Without any waste of time she assembled her caravan
and came quickly to the borders of the Druze country.
She just missed a terrific ghazu raid, for, coming to the
camp of the Beni Hassan tribe, she found that five hundred
horsemen had carried off two thousand sheep and all the
tents the day before. Gertrude sympathized with those who
had been plundered and asked them what they were going
to do about it. The survivors of the raid replied resignedly
that they would first of all make the rounds of the neigh-
bouring tribes and borrow a camel here and a camel there
and a few tents. When they were rehabilitated, they would
bide their time until they were organized and then collect
a band of horsemen and raid the raiders. By this means
they would probably regain all they had lost! Gertrude,
commenting on this, remarked:
"It seems a most unreasonable industry, this of ghazu—about
as profitable as stealing each other's washing, but that is how
they live."
The tribe, however, did not seem to take the raid much
to heart, for the next day was the Mohammedan Feast of
Sacrifice when three camels would be eaten. The camp was
festooned with white shirts as this was the yearly occasion


lOO GERTRUDE BELL
of great washing. As soon as the sun set, the Arabs began
firing their rifles into the air with deafening reports and
Gertrude, feeling that she must take some part in the ritual,
stood at the door of her tent periodically letting off her
revolver!
A few days later she saw the preparation for the reprisal
raid.
Dining in her tent at the foot of a great ruined castle
set in the crater of an extinct volcano, she was suddenly
disturbed by shouting and the firing of guns. She came out
of her tent and saw fires burning on the turrets of the castle
signalling to the tribes in the desert to assemble. The walls
were already crowded with warriors who brandished clubs
and swords which glistened in the moonlight, and chanted
a warlike song:
"O Lord our God! Upon them! Upon them! Let the
child leave his mother's side, let the young man mount and
be gone!"
Gertrude scrambled up the rocky slope to join in the
ceremony, and as the sheiks saw her they cried out:
"Upon thee be peace! The English and the Druze are
one!"
To which Gertrude replied, not knowing why, but feel-
ing that something must be said:
"Praise be to God! We too are a fighting race."
The Druze cheered and abandoned themselves once
more to their Pagan ritual, which must have made Mo-
hammed shiver in his grave and wonder whether his years
of hardship, trying to teach his followers to love one an-
other, had been worth while. Long into the night, after
Gertrude had gone to bed, the wild chanting continued,


102
GERTRUDE BELL
Damascus. She found the government authorities relieved
to see her safely back and also most interested to hear about
Druze affairs. But Gertrude was cautious in her replies, feel-
ing that any indiscretion might lose her the intimacy which
she was building up with the desert tribes. At the same
time she was gratiSed to find that she was now being
treated seriously and no longer regarded as a crazy female.
As soon as the weather grew a little warmer she set off
again, this time into Asia Minor. She revisited Baalbek,
passed through Kuseir and Homa until she came to Kalaat
el Husn. She had ridden for ten and a half hours with an
escort of two mounted Kurds and a couple of handcuffed
deserters who were being taken to prison.
One of the prisoners was very talkative.
"'Lady, lady,' he asked, 'have you journeyed to the land of
Hind?'
"'Yes/ said I.
"'May God make it Yes upon you! Have you heard there of
a great king Mohammed?'
"Again I was able to reply in the affirmative and even to add
that I myself knew him, for their King Mohammed was no
other than my fellow subject the Agha Khan, and the religion
of the prisoners boasted a respectable antiquity, having been
founded by him whom we call the Old Man of the Mountain.
"Khudr caught my stirrup with his free hand and said eagerly:
"'Is he not a great king?'
"But I answered cautiously, for though the Agha Khan is
something of a great king in a modem sense, that is to say he
is exceedingly wealthy, it would have been difficult to explain to
his disciples exactly what the polished, well bred man of the
world was like whom I had last met at a London dinner party
and had given me the Marlborough Club as his address. Not
that these things, if they could have understood them, would
have shocked them; the Agha Khan is law unto himself, and if


WOMANHOOD
he chose to indulge in far greater excesses than dinner parties
his actions would be sanctified by the mere fact that they were
his.
"His father used to give letters of introduction to the Angel
Gabriel in order to secure for his clients a good place in Para-
dise; the son with his English education and his familiarity with
European thought, has refrained from exercising this privilege,
though he has not ceased to hold, in the opinion of his follow-
ers, the keys of heaven. They show their belief in him in a sub-
stantial manner by subscribing, in various parts of Asia and
Africa, a handsome income that runs yearly into tens of thou-
sands."
Five hours before reaching Kalaat el Husn she could see
in the distance the magnificent Crusader castle which is
almost as big as Windsor. As the little caravan drew near,
the whole edifice seemed to dominate the surrounding
country and Gertrude halted for a moment to stare up at
the massive walls which had defied centuries, before ap-
proaching the huge gateway which guarded a broad wind-
ing stair up which she rode with her escort. For an appre-
ciable time the horses stumbled along over the dilapidated
steps in almost complete darkness until, after passing six
more great gateways, they came to a vast courtyard in the
centre of the keep. Here Gertrude was received by the
local chief who was most cordial and would not let her
pitch her camp and provided instead spacious, if rather
bare, accommodations. After introductions to various no-
tables, all of whom lived in the castle, she was presented
to two other women guests. One of these was an old Mos-
lem woman and the other a Christian, wife of a govern-
ment official. The son of the Mohammedan lady had but
lately been murdered in a desert feud, but she did not


104 GERTRUDE BELL
seem to take it to heart, for when Gertrude asked her about
it she merely replied:
"Murder is like the drinking of milk here, like the drink-
ing of water."
And so the journey went leisurely on, through Kalaat
Simian and Konia and Payas and Adana. Gertrude was
more or less following the beaten track and, having tem-
porarily given up surveying in favour of archaeology, was in
no hurry. Her mind was set on ruins and finding inscrip-
tions, which she carefully copied, whether she understood
them or not. Her life motif was tending towards the ac-
ademic but without making her lose touch with the people
among whom she travelled. Writing to Florence Lascelles,
she says:
"What a country this is! I fear I shall spend the rest of my
life travelling in it. Race after race, one on top of the other, the
whole land strewn with the mighty relics of them. We in Eu-
rope are accustomed to think that civilisation is an advancing
flood that has gone steadily forward since the beginning of
time. I believe we are wrong. It is a tide that ebbs and flows,
reaches a high water mark and turns back again. Do you think
that from age to age it rises higher than before? I wonder—and
I doubt."
She still lived in her camp, frequented the company of
the natives and underwent great hardships to seek out
Roman or Syrian remains of particular interest. She was
also perfecting her Turkish which was to become useful
during the war.
At this point an Arab came into her life who was to re-
main with her for nearly twenty years. His name was Fattuh
and he had been cook to an Englishman called Lloyd who


WOMANHOOD IO5
handed him over to Gertrude as the kind of trustworthy
factotum whom she might need during her expeditions into
the desert.
Oriental servants either are rascals with no loyalty and
no scruples about betraying their employers, or are so de-
voted they will literally sacrifice themselves in the inter-
ests of their masters. Fattuh belonged to the latter variety
and it is to be wondered how Gertrude could have carried
on had it not been for this Arab to whom nothing counted
before his mistress's well-being. Within a week of taking
him into her service, Gertrude wrote:
"And Fattuh, bless him! the best servant I have ever had,
ready to cook my dinner or push a mule or dig out an inscrip-
tion with equal alacrity and to tell me endless tales of travel as
we ride, for he began life as a muleteer at the age of ten and
knows every inch of ground from Aleppo to Van and Baghdad."
By the middle of May 1905 she had done all the excavat-
ing she wanted and returned to Konia, prior to embarking
for England. Here she met, for the first time, Sir William
Ramsay, one of the greatest authorities on the ruins and
inscriptions of Asia Minor. To begin with, his attitude to-
wards Gertrude was condescending, but after talking to her
for a while he was so impressed by her knowledge and the
instinct with which she had collected her inscriptions that
he begged her to become his collaborator. This she could
not do at once, but two years later she joined him and was
actually able to put him on the way to finding an inscrip-
tion for which he had been searching for years.
A few days after this meeting she embarked for Europe.


CHAPTER IX
Gertrude reached England in June of 1905 and imme-
diately went to Yorkshire. She spent most of the summer in
the country perfecting her famous rock garden and enter-
taining house parties.
Among the special friends who stayed at Rounton Grange
was Captain Frederick O'Connor1 who had just come back
from the taking of Lhassa where he had acted as interpreter
to Sir Francis Younghusband. After the signing of the
treaty with the Thibetans he had remained as British repre-
sentative among this mysterious people, and knew more
about them than any other Occidental. He was about the
same age as Gertrude and had the same thorough knowl-
edge of the Indian Frontier as she of Arabia.
This interest in eastern countries, at that time practically
unknown, created a bond in common and there were ru-
mours of an engagement. But Gertrude did not marry
Frederick O'Connor, or any of the other men who would
have liked to marry her, chiefly because of her own attitude
to the question. In the first place there was always that
mental reserve about the man to whom she had once given
her whole heart. But that was by no means a real obstacle
and only made it impossible for her to love completely.
1 Later, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Frederick O'Connor, C.S.I., CLE.,
C.V.O.
106


108 GERTRUDE BELL
regard to Egypt, what Gertrude was to be to Arabia and
Mesopotamia. Lord Cromer was on the eve of his retire-
ment, after twenty-four years as an administrator of Egypt,
and was amazed to find what a great deal Gertrude knew
about the Near East. She too wanted to learn all she could
about Egypt and was put into touch with the head of the
Azhar, the famous Mohammedan university of Cairo. She
went to call on the learned man, and had hardly entered
the building when she encountered an old friend of her
wanderings in the Arabian peninsula who introduced her to
the dignitaries of the university who, in turn, treated her as
one of them—as usual a strange mixture of social and eru-
dite occupations.
"Yesterday we lunched with the Bernstorffs," she writes
home, "and we are going to their box at the opera tonight. On
Friday, Father and I spent the whole morning with Ernest
Richmond, seeing Coptic churches—most pleasant."
Sir Hugh Bell returned to England and in April of 1907
Gertrude was back in Asia Minor. This time her objectives
were the cities of Ancient Greece: Magnesia, Miletus, Isbarta
... where she wished to obtain some inscriptions for Profes-
sor Ramsay. The weather was wet, the rivers swollen by rain
and many of the bridges swept away. But the mere crossing
of a torrent with the water well over her boots did not
bother Gertrude.
Asia Minor left a strong impression on her:
"Monotonous, colourless, lifeless," she wrote, "unsubdued by
a people whose thoughts travel no further than the next furrow,
who live and die and leave no mark upon the great plains and
the barren hills—such is central Asia, of which this country is
a true part. And that is why the Roman roads make such a deep


WOMANHOOD
impression on one's mind. They impressed the country itself,
they implied a great domination, they tell of a people that over-
came the general stagnation . . .
"It was very still and hot; clouds of butterflies drifted across
the path and there was no other living thing except a stork or
two in the marshy ground and here and there a herd of buf-
faloes with a shepherd boy asleep beside them. At the end of
the lake a heavy thunderstorm gathered and crept along the low
hills to the east and up into the middle of the sky. And so we
came to the earliest record of what was probably one of the ear-
liest trade roads in the world and the forerunner of the Roman
road; and here the clouds broke upon us in thunder and light-
ning and hail and rain and I saw the four Hittite kings, carved
in the massive stone, against a background of all the fury of
the storm. They are seated by the edge of a wide pool, a spring
bubbling out of the hillside, from which a swift river flows away
to the lake; and above them are figures with uplifted hands, as
though they praised the God of Gotat waters . . ."
At the end of May, Professor and Lady Ramsay unex-
pectedly joined Gertrude. They were accompanied by their
son Louis, who had been commissioned by the British
Museum to collect natural history specimens from these
parts. Gertrude was busy excavating a church when the
Ramsays suddenly appeared in two carts. The professor at
once joined Gertrude while Lady Ramsay, the practical
English-woman unaffected by her wild surroundings, set
about preparing tea.
The church in which Gertrude was digging was compara-
tively modern and she had not yet learned that in Asia
Minor there is never a shrine but, if one looks long enough,
a holy place dating from the beginning of history will be
found. Near this particular ruin Gertrude had discovered an
inscription which she could not read and which was evidently
not Christian. She had, however, copied down what appeared


HO GERTRUDE BELL
to be hieroglyphics and rather diffidently showed them to the
professor. Sir William glanced at the notebook, stared, be-
came alert and nearly leaped into the air. What Gertrude
had showed him was a Hittite inscription which he had felt
sure was in these parts, but had never been able to find.
Gertrude glowed with pride as she sat over the teapot with
Lady Ramsay, who was much more concerned over the im-
possibility of making good tea with desert water than over
the writings of the Hittites.
Sir William and Gertrude now worked as close collabora-
tors and the professor soon found that he had to have his
wits alert to keep pace with his pupil. The party moved on
to Daile and Karadagh and Karpuna, making archaeological
history until, at the end of June, Lady Ramsay insisted on
taking her family home. Gertrude, who was enthralled with
her digging, remained until the heat drove her out and
then made her way to Constantinople where she stayed at
the British Embassy and was given an audience by the
Grand Vizier.
As soon as she got back to London she was asked to sub-
mit her surveys to the Royal Geographical Society, and the
Fellows were astonished to find that the material which
she had collected, without any training or technical knowl-
edge, was of immense scientific value. As a result of this she
was given a course in astronomy, the use of the compass
and the general principles of topography. This training
enabled her to make more elaborate maps during her next
journeys and the Geographical Society used her reports to
complete their records on the Arabian Peninsula. From this
date on she was able to lay just claim to the title of ex-
plorer, which is technically admissible only when the travel-


112 GERTRUDE BELL
might have been supposed that, after the years which Ger-
trude had spent among people who treated their women
more or less like beasts of burden, she would have sided
with the suffragettes; on the contrary, she gave her full alle-
giance to the step-mother's group for the fight against the
rights of women.
It was another example of how essentially feminine she
was at heart. From her point of view males were males and
females females, with their respective roles in life. Even in
later years when it fell to her lot to have to govern men,
she did so with the subtleties of a woman.
However, her interest in the anti-suffrage movement was
quite temporary. The charm of the desert was weaving it-
self more and more about her heart and her absences from
its wandering people were becoming shorter and shorter.
Nineteen hundred and eleven marks the beginning of
Gertrude's claim to a place among great explorers. The pre-
liminary ventures had attracted attention because they had
been undertaken by a woman alone, but they had given
nothing of any value to scientists or geographers. Gertrude,
realizing this, now made up her mind to attack Arabia and
carry her conquests farther than Palgrave or Doughty.
On her way East she paused in Rome to "complete her
archaeological studies" but found that she was now regarded
as a "professor" herself. Robert Hichens, then at the height
of his fame, came to hear her lecture, and her audiences
were composed of some of the greatest authorities in Italy,
who wanted to learn from her.
By the beginning of the year she was in Damascus mak-
ing ready for the hazardous crossing of the Syrian Desert.


114 GERTRUDE BELL
There were times during this crossing of the Syrian Des-
ert when the little water which the caravan carried froze,
and the water skins had to be thawed over fires before fill-
ing; when snow and sleet fell and the muleteers lost courage
and refused to leave their tents and continue the march.
Gertrude, frozen to the bone, would argue and threaten,
until finally, realizing that words were useless, she would
pull out the pegs of the tent and bring it billowing down
on the occupants who had to get out.
There were occasions when the water question became
acute. Even the camels became problems, as these creatures
will not let water pass their throats when it is cold. One
evening, when they had been on the march for over thir-
teen hours, Ali declared that there was no chance of reach-
ing the wells that night. The only water they had was about
a cupful in Gertrude's flask. Then a camel-herd said that he
thought there might be a water point some two hours away,
so on the party went. Night fell, and still there was no sign
of water; and, as there was a good chance of getting lost,
they all settled down where they were in the deathly cold
of the desert. Gertrude shared her ration of water with Ali
and the faithful Fattuh, and waited shivering for daylight.
The animals could make no complaint, but they were the
worst sufferers. As soon as the grey dawn began to creep
over the barren landscape, they set out again, but it took
them six hours to find water in any quantity. When Ali
had satisfied his thirst, he looked meditatively at Gertrude
and said:
"Where is thy face in Damascus, O lady, and where thy
face now?"
Gertrude whipped out her pocket mirror and looked


WOMANHOOD 115
helplessly at the havoc which the desert wind had played
with her complexion.
But even under such trying conditions, she never lost her
instinctive love for this desolate country:
"We were off at five this morning in bitter frost," she wrote
to her step-mother. "Can you picture the singular beauty of
these moonlit departures! the frail Arab tents falling one by
one, leaving the camp fires blazing into the night; the dark
masses of kneeling camels; the shrouded figures binding up the
loads, shaking the ice from the water skins, or crouched over
the hearth for a moment's warmth before mounting. ... So we
set out across the dim wilderness. The sky ahead reddens, and
fades, the moon pales and in sudden splendour the sun rushes
up over the rim of the world. To see with the eyes is good, but
while I wonder and rejoice to look upon this primeval existence,
it does not seem to be a new thing; it is familiar, it is part of
inherited memory. After an hour and a half marching we came
to the pool of Khafiyeh and since there is no water for three
days ahead we had to fill our empty skins. But the pool was a
sheet of ice, the water skins were frozen and needed careful
handling—for if you unfold them they crack and break—and
we lighted a fire and set to work to thaw them out ourselves . . .
But about midday the wind shifted round to the south and we
began to feel the warmth of the sun. For the first time we shed
our fur coats, and the lizards came out of their holes. Also the
horizon was decorated with fantastic mirage which greatly
added to the enjoyment of looking for ghazus. An almost im-
perceptible rise in the ground would from afar stand up above
the solid earth as if it were the back of a camel. We saw tents
with men beside them pitched on the edge of mirage lakes and
when at last we did come to a stretch of shallow water, it was a
long time before I could believe that it was not imaginary. I
saw how the atmospheric delusion worked by watching some
gazelles. They galloped away over the plain just like ordinary
gazelles, but when they came to the mirage they suddenly got
up on stilts and looked the size of camels. It is excessively be-
wildering to be deprived of the use of one's eyes in this way ..."


Il6 GERTRUDE BELL
In addition to the discomfort from cold the caravan was
in a district notorious for its bandits, and Ali, always on
the alert for ghazu raids, would parade round the camp at
night, yelling:
"We are soldiers, English soldiers!"
But the raiders were keeping warm elsewhere and there
was no one to hear this unexpected news!
If there were no ghazus, there were other trouble-makers
who saw in the white woman's caravan a fine opportunity
for loot. Local rascals used to appear and, picking quarrels
with the muleteers, try to steal saddlery and arms. Gertrude
usually took no notice of these disturbances, but one after-
noon when Fattuh had gone to an Arab settlement to mar-
ket, the sounds of an altercation so got on her nerves, when
she was trying to sleep, that she leapt from her camp bed
and, rushing heedlessly into the fray, routed fifteen young
ruffians. After that the marauders kept clear of the camp
when they knew that the Effendim was about.
And so the journey continued, every day bringing fresh
adventures, fresh experiences, fresh discoveries of ruins and
ancient roads, while Gertrude charted and recorded the
caravan tracks and the water points until finally the Syrian
Desert was conquered and the party reached Hit, which
Gertrude had passed through in 1909.
Little remained of Hit but a great mound, under which
lay cities dating back at least six thousand years, and all
around it pitch bubbling out of the earth. Gertrude was
too tired to do any excavating although she noted that the
Arabs collected the pitch crust for fuel as their predecessors
had done throughout the ages. Hit could wait, she pon-
dered sleepily, but without realizing that six years later this


WOMANHOOD 117
mound would become as familiar to her as the rock garden
at Rounton.
The course was now set towards Mesopotamia. Gertrude
passed through Ukhaidir again and checked some of her
data about the castle. She camped beneath the Tower of
Babel, once part of an immense Babylonian temple dedi-
cated to the seven spheres of heaven, and at the end of two
months trekking by compass struck the first road since leav-
ing Damascus. As they found themselves no longer depend-
ent on their sense of direction, Fattuh exclaimed:
"WE are, praise be to God, skilled in travel—God made
us."
Eventually, in the middle of March 1911, Gertrude had
her first glimpse of the minarets of Baghdad glittering in
the morning sunlight. The four-thousand-year-old city of
Mesopotamia, the once golden home of Haroun al Raschid
and Scheherazade, the town known to the Arabs as "the
abode of peace," seemed to beckon mysteriously to her. The
desert breeze dropped and the tall palm trees lifted their
feathery heads in silence. Since the days when Hulaker, the
Mongol, began to devastate Mesopotamia in the thirteenth
century, Baghdad had lost her glory. Mongols and Persians
and Turks had made her their vassal and she had barely
remained a town of commercial importance; but today,
leading a motley caravan, came a woman who was to re-
instate Baghdad in its position of past glory and make it the
capital of an independent Arab State. For a moment Ger-
trude paused outside the ancient walls, pervaded by a kind
of premonition of the days when Baghdad would become
her only home and, later, her eternal resting place. Then,
quickly returning to a sense of reality, to the neces^y of


Il8 GERTRUDE BELL
a properly cooked meal and a bath, she passed through one
of the gates and was prosaically received by the Resident,
Mr. Lorimer.
The moment that Gertrude relaxed she found that she
was tired and she remained for a few days with her host
and his wife, making only a few minor excursions and
answering innumerable questions about the desert. The
Resident was tremendously interested in all Gertrude had
to tell and wrote a confidential letter to London in which
he stated that, in all his experience of the East, he had
never met an Occidental, male or female, who had such an
intimate knowledge of native matters or had such com-
plete confidence of the inhabitants.
As soon as Gertrude felt herself sufficiently rested, she
said goodbye to Baghdad without any feeling of finality
and turned her caravan towards the coast. Her course
skirted the mountain ranges of Persia, majestic and lovely
in their mantles of snow. Lovelier still to Gertrude, for
those hills looked down over the country which rolled out
to Tehran and its rose-scented gardens, the setting of her
great happiness.
The journey to Aleppo was comparatively simple after
the Syrian Desert, although the caravan had one or two
hairbreadth escapes when crossing the Tigris in flood.
There was, however, one incident of great significance,
although hardly recorded in Gertrude's journal.
Hearing that Doctor Hogarth was excavating near Car-
chemish, Gertrude decided to make a detour so that she
could pay him a friendly call and discuss some of her find-
ings with him. She did not see Hogarth, but she met, for
the first time, a man with whose destiny she was linked.


120 GERTRUDE BELL
note of the name of the woman who had visited him so
that he might call on her when he reached home. Gertrude
had already forgotten about her young host and was urging
on her caravan so that it would reach Aleppo in time for
her to catch the boat to England.


CHAPTER X
Gertrude's journey across the Syrian Desert, though
placing her within the ranks of famous desert travellers,
was still part of the prelude to the important portion of her
life. This prelude had admittedly been well filled, but ex-
cept for her contributions to archaeology and the notes on
the districts which she had visited, which the Geographical
Society and the War Office had filed, she was little known
outside her group of personal friends and those profes-
sionally interested in her activities. She had experienced
sorrow, she had had adventures, there was material in her
letters for a series of travel books and the volumes which
she had published would have justified her settling down
to watch others assume responsibilities. It seems as if she
felt this, as, for two years, she made no journeys of any
importance. Then, one day, was born the daring project
which she had conceived years before. The historic expedi-
tion to Hayil.
Up to that time Gertrude had penetrated among un-
known tribes, she had surveyed desert tracks and discovered
new ruins, but others had preceded her. The journey to
Hayil placed her in the category of world pioneers and, if
she had achieved nothing else, this would be recorded as
an adventure worthy of the most renowned builders of the
British Empire.
121


122
GERTRUDE BELL
Writing of the journey to Hayil, Doctor Hogarth says:
"Her journey was a pioneer venture which not only put on
the map a line of wells, before unplaced and unknown, but also
cast new light on the history of the Syrian Desert frontiers
under Roman, Palmyrene and Ummayad domination. But per-
haps the most valuable result consists in the mass of informa-
tion that she accumulated about the tribal elements ranging
between the Hejaz railway on the one bank, and the Sirhan and
Nefud on the other, particularly about the Howaitat group, of
which Lawrence, relying on her reports, made signal use in the
Arab campaign of 1917 and 1918.
"Her stay in Hayil was fruitful of political information es-
pecially concerning both the recent history and the actual state
of the Rashid House, and also its actual and probable relations
with the rival power of the Ibn Sauds. Her information proved
of great value during the war, when Hayil had ranged itself
with the enemy and was menacing our Euphratian flank. Miss
Bell became from 1915 onwards, the interpreter of all reports
received from Central Arabia . . .
"To another European woman, the days before desert motor
services had been thought of, such a journey would have
seemed adventurous enough. But to Miss Bell, who had been
into Nejd, the crossing of the Hamad seemed something of an
anticlimax. Miss Bell writing in 1914 had no suspicions that,
in a little more than a year, the knowledge and experience ac-
quired during the past four months would become of national
value. Nor could she foresee that, even after the war, Northern
Nejd would return to the obscurity from which she had res-
cued it. Up to this year [1927] her visit to Hayil remains the
last that has been put on scientific record . . ."
To those not familiar with the deserts of Arabia a pic-
ture of this journey to Hayil is hard to visualize. The map
will suggest tracts of uninhabited land and desolate areas
but not the lonely isolation. The actual miles covered
by Gertrude and her caravan would mean little to a


WOMANHOOD 123
motorist on a paved road in Europe; the silence, nothing to a
man in Arizona who can always find someone who speaks the
same language.
The great wastes of stones, the rolling sands, the com-
plete lack of habitations, are difficult to imagine. The Arabs,
hostile to any non-Mohammedan encroachment, hating
even neighbouring tribes and ready to plunder at the least
excuse, the lack of water, the lack of ordinary Western
commodities of life, the lack of intercourse with white peo-
ple, are difficult to picture in a mind accustomed to a nor-
mal kind of existence.
Starting out on a journey of this kind might be com-
pared to attempting to sail across the Atlantic in a small
boat—with this difference, that if the weather were smooth
the trip would be comparatively easy. Embarking on the
desert, the weather would be only a minor consideration.
Quite apart from the vital question of water, there would
be that of the attitude of the nomad tribes, the problemati-
cal fidelity of one's followers, the likelihood of the camels
bearing up, of death in a sandstorm. To the tourist who
gazes out over the desert to see an orange moonrise or a
golden sunset, it is all romance, but to one who has faced
the Sirocco and the drought and the flood it is something
as frightening as a tempest at sea without the reassurance
of a radio station to pick up an S O S.
An expedition of Gertrude without interference by Turk-
ish officials would have been abnormal and on this occa-
sion, as previously, the trouble began before the caravan
had been long on its way. The authorities of the Turkish


124 GERTRUDE BELL
government seemed to be obstinately opposed to any Occi-
dental, and especially Gertrude, penetrating into the interior
of Arabia.
Although bad weather caused a certain amount of delay
and Fattuh had to be left behind, as he contracted typhoid
just before the date set for the departure of the caravan,
the journey began fairly successfully. This caravan was much
more elaborate than any which Gertrude had assembled
previously. It consisted of seventeen camels and their camel-
herds, eight mules and their muleteers, and riding horses.
In addition to the tents and baggage for herself and her
followers, who included Ali Mausar (the postman guide of
the 1911 expedition) and a special guide for the Hayil dis-
trict called Mohammed, there were bundles of presents for
sheiks who might be encountered on the road, and provi-
sions for four months. Gertrude's methodical mind is re-
vealed in a letter to her father written just before her depar-
ture which goes into all the expenses connected with the
trip; these total up to a little over six hundred pounds.
After squabbling with the Turks and cursing the weather
and putting Fattuh in a hospital, Gertrude finally set out
from Damascus on December 16, 1913, and struck south-
east into the desert towards the Djebel Druze. The first
twenty-four hours of travelling confirmed her appreciation
of the value of Fattuh. With the exception of Ali, who was
just a guide, there was not one member of the caravan who
had ever travelled with a European and understood how to
manipulate an English tent or prepare an Occidental meal.
Whereas Gertrude usually struck camp in a period of min-
utes, her start on the second day out took over two hours.
But she knew her Orientals now and the futility of getting


WOMANHOOD 125
impatient or raising the voice, and in a few days she had
taught her followers to be almost as efficient as Fattuh.
Gertrude had dropped back into the atmosphere of the
desert as if she had never belonged anywhere else.
A week later she knew that she was in the desert in
earnest. The caravan was approaching a Bedouin camp when
suddenly a horseman detached himself from the tents and
came galloping towards the party, firing his rifle. Covering
Gertrude and her two guides, the man demanded their
cloaks and their arms, and before the camel-herds and
muleteers could decide whether the wisest policy was to
give in or fight, a host of tribesmen came pouring out of
the camp, firing as they rode. One giant of a man drew a
scimitar and struck the neck of Gertrude's camel to make
it kneel down. Things were beginning to look black when
two tribal sheiks came leisurely to join in the looting. The
moment they were close to the caravan, however, they rec-
ognized Ali, and the threats became apologies and kisses
and the party was taken over to the camp and treated to
coffee.
When she moved on, Gertrude took one of the Bedouins
with her to parley with any other bellicose tribesmen she
might encounter in the neighbourhood.
It was now bitterly cold with a merciless wind hissing
over the stony wastes. Gertrude spent Christmas Day with
one of the great nomad chiefs of the district and gave him
a cloak, while he offered her Christmas dinner, consisting
of the inevitable sheep roast whole, which they ate under
a frosty moon. After dinner the retainers drew near the fire
and, late into the night, told stories of raiding and desert
adventures.


126 GERTRUDE BELL
Gertrude had often sung "While shepherds watched their
flocks by night" in her home church, in a setting of snow
and Christmas trees, but she had never thought how un-
romantic and uncomfortable the birth night of Jesus must
really have been.
New Year's Day of 1914 passed practically unnoticed and
on January 9th the progress of the caravan was brought to
a forced halt.
Gertrude had told Fattuh to come down by train to a
station on the Mecca railway as soon as he was fit, from
there he would have to find his way and pick up the cara-
van as soon as possible. As the days passed and Fattuh did
not put in an appearance, Gertrude began to worry. Her
staff was working as well as could be expected, but it was
not the same as having Fattuh and she felt that all the
months in unknown Arabia without him would be impos-
sible. She accordingly headed her caravan in a westerly
direction to within sight of Siza on the railway. She found
Fattuh, who had just arrived, pale and thin, but eager to
be back with his mistress; she found a large mail and she
also found a Turkish officer and ten soldiers who told her
that they had been hunting her ever since she had left
Damascus. The officer was angry and insolent but Gertrude,
remembering the ways of Orientals, said nothing. Even
when he ransacked the baggage, confiscated the arms and
finally arrested Fattuh, Gertrude never made the smallest
comment. This icy demeanour eventually worried the Turk,
and he came to Gertrude, first condescendingly, then con-
ciliatingly and finally apologetically, asking if he could do
anything for her. Gertrude replied that he could do nothing
until he appeared before a court of justice in Damascus, as


WOMANHOOD 127
she was returning there at once to report the looting of her
camp, her detention, and the unlawful arrest of her servant.
The officer turned pale, became confused and hurriedly
left, only to come back a little later to say that he had con-
sulted the "authorities" and found that there had been some
sort of misunderstanding. Gertrude still made no comment,
until the man, now abject and humble, returned her arms
and Fattuh and implored her to go where and when she
pleased. Without further ado, Gertrude ordered the camp
to be broken; and, still saying nothing to the officer, she
set her course south towards the merciless and practically
unknown wastes of the Nefud wilderness.
For the first time in its history a white woman was pene-
trating into the Great Arabian Desert.
It was a country of flints and dust with here and there
sparse scrub. The sun blazed down making the land to
shimmer and mirages to spring up and vanish as the caravan
approached. Silence and loneliness wrapped themselves
about the little party like an impenetrable veil. Even the
Damascene members of the caravan seemed to suffer from
the oppressive solitude, for after a few days of this monoto-
nous trekking three of them threw down their camel sticks
and refused to go any further. Luckily there was a Bedouin
settlement near by and Mohammed was able to find substi-
tutes for the mutineers.
Water became more and more scarce. A very occasional
well, usually a brackish pool. Gertrude and her followers
relied on what was carried in the skins and the animals did
as best they could. A dry and barren world, an explanation
why the Mohammedan idea of Paradise is a country of
grassy fields, evergreen trees and rivers of cool water.


128
GERTRUDE BELL
The guides did not like approaching camps for fear of
being raided, but when four days had passed without a sign
of water Gertrude decided that a risk must be taken. They
were now in the pasturing area of the famous Howaitat
nomads, a proud, warlike people renowned for their bravery.
When, therefore, a spiral column of smoke was seen rising
from the desert, Gertrude led her caravan towards it. A
magnificent person on a richly saddled horse who bore him-
self with regal dignity came out to meet the weary party.
Gertrude, with her hand on a cocked pistol beneath her
coat, greeted the man who at once smiled. It was Mohammed
Abu Tayyi, the paramount Sheik of the Howaitat, whose
journeys had taken him into the districts where Gertrude
was known. The chieftain went through the solemn Arab
greetings of people of equal rank and begged Gertrude to
be his guest; and, trying to use the proper expressions in
addressing one so noble, she accepted.
"Of an evening we sat in his big tent," she wrote, "and I lis-
tened to the tales and the songs of the desert, the exploits of
Audah, who is one of the most famous raiders of these days,
and romantic adventures of the princes of Nejd. Mohammed
sat beside me on the rugs which were spread upon the clean
soft sand, his great figure wrapped in a sheepskin cloak, and
sometimes he puffed at his narghile and listened to the talk and
sometimes he joined in, his black eyes flashing in question and
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. Mohammed 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 camel's milk. 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."


WOMANHOOD 120,
This was the first and only meeting of Gertrude and Abu
Tayyi, but three years later this chance encounter was to
greatly serve Lawrence when he was fighting his way
through the Howaitat tribal areas.
Gertrude remained for a while with the Howaitat, resting
the animals and taking in supplies of water. When she was
ready to start, she asked the sheik for a guide. But as soon
as she mentioned the route she wished to follow, there was
a silence and queer looks exchanged among the Arabs. The
sheik shook his head. No man could go by that route, it
was an "empty" desert, the only people who ever crossed it
were raiders, the Effendim must not entertain such a proj-
ect. Gertrude insisted and pleaded but there was nothing
which would change the opinion of her Arab hosts. Finally
she had to compromise and make for her destination by a
longer way. The decision was wise for she passed through
a country which was comparatively fertile and the camels
were able to take in a store of food against the more diffi-
cult part of the journey to come. Even by this route, things
did not run smoothly.
Coming within sight of another camp Gertrude decided
that it would be safer to go to it than let the owners come
after her. She accordingly approached and was received
with courtesy; but it was only pretence, for no sooner had
the camels been unloaded than a one-eyed ruffian appeared
and declared that no Christian had ever visited this part of
the country and none should leave to tell the tale. He then
proposed to Fattuh and Mohammed that they should kill
the infidel and share the spoil I Getting no encouragement
from these two, he tried the others, and disgusted at the
unbelievable loyalty of these Arabs to a white woman he


WOMANHOOD 131
Gertrude did not move for a while and sat on her camel
watching the rich colouring of the sand as the sun changed
the dunes from yellow to orange and from orange to red.
Then bringing herself back to reality, she urged her camel
forward and set out on the gleaming, virgin sand. She did
not attempt to traverse the whole desert, but cut across its
northwest corner, taking about five days to do it. She knew
that her guides were experienced and trustworthy, but she
felt as if she were wandering through a labyrinth, winding
round deep sand pits sometimes half a mile long with banks
too steep to climb. As the crow flies the caravan rarely
made more than a mile to the hour, but the effort was
more exhausting than a day's march along a road. However,
only one of the camels fell by the wayside, which Fattuh
despatched with his long knife, crying as he did so: "In the
name of God, God is most powerful!" and abandoned it to
be covered and preserved by the ever-drifting sand.
Four years later Lawrence of Arabia was to pass near
this part of the desert with his Arab levies and, later, wrote
in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom:1
". . . Accordingly, we inclined right, over flats of limestone
and sand, and saw a distant corner of the Great Nefud, the
famous belts of the sand dune which cut off Jebel Shammar
from the Syrian Desert. Palgrave, the Blunts and Gertrude Bell,
amongst the storied travellers, had crossed it, and I begged
Auda to bear off a little and let us enter it and their company:
but he growled that men went to the Nefud only of necessity,
and that the son of his father did not raid on a tottering camel.
Our business was to reach Arfaja alive . . ."
As dawn broke on February 17, Gertrude reached the
1 From "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," by T. E. Lawrence, copyright, 1926,
1935, by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.


132 GERTRUDE BELL
barren sandstone crags of the Djebel Misma, which bound
the Nefud to the east, and passed beyond them into Nejd.
Behind her lay the nightmare of drifting sand, but it looked
inviting in comparison to the terrifying landscape which
she now saw in the growing light. Rocks blackened by pre-
historic fire dropped steeply into a wilderness of jagged
peaks set in a bed of hard sand with, beyond, a vacant plain
stretching out interminably, unfilled and unpeopled and
scattered over with isolated tables and towers of sandstone.
It was the most frighteningly dead and empty country on
which she had ever looked.
The marching was, however, much easier, and plenty of
water from rainstorms was found in sandstone hollows. Still,
it was not the kind of place where anyone would wish to
linger, water or no water, so Gertrude hurried on the cara-
van until it came again to inhabited territories with small
settlements, which looked like English villages to the parched
eyes of the daughter of the Yorkshire moors. The worst
of the journey was over and the little party travelled more
leisurely until, on the twenty-fourth of February, the mys-
terious city of Hayil came into view.
Gertrude was not too certain how she would be re-
ceived, so she pitched her camp a few miles away from the
battlemented walls of the town and sent Mohammed and
Ali to announce her arrival.
The next morning she marched against Hayil. As she
approached the outer keep she saw Ali coming towards her
accompanied by three horsemen carrying lances. He greeted
her and hurriedly told her that the Emir Ibn Rashid was
away on a raiding expedition but that his uncle Ibrahim,
who had been left in charge of the town, was ready to wel-


134 GERTRUDE BELL
In a few moments Ibrahim came in wearing magnificent
robes of Indian silk and girt with a gold-mounted sword. A
huge retinue of slaves preceded and followed him in stately
procession. He bowed to Gertrude and they exchanged the
long Arab courtesies, talked banalities for a moment and
the interview was over. Just as he was leaving, Ibrahim
stared searchingly at Gertrude and said that, in view of the
fact that the Emir was away, it would be better if she did
not leave the house where she was now staying. The remark
was made politely and apparently innocent of guile, but as
the heavy curtains fell softly behind Ibrahim's escort Ger-
trude had an uneasy feeling that she was a prisoner in the
great palace. For the moment this did not worry her as she
was worn out after her long journey, and the camels would
require a few days on the local pastures before continuing
the journey to the north.
But when a few days had passed and Gertrude's energy
had returned, she became fidgety. Turkiyyeh visited her
daily and was charming and chatty but always evaded the
point when any question of going out or leaving was brought
up. So Gertrude observed her studied patience and wrote
letters and mended her clothes. Ali and Mohammed came
to see her at regular intervals and Fattuh was in constant
attendance, but they also could tell her nothing concerning
her detention. Then, one morning, she decided to return
Ibrahim's call. The request was immediately granted and
that night she was led by slaves through the silent, empty
streets of the great city to the fortress palace of the Emir.
It was an eerie experience, a feeling of being utterly alone
in the midst of a host of murderous people who had little
respect for human life in general and none whatever for


136 GERTRUDE BELL
was not likely, she would certainly be caught and brought
back.
Gertrude became angry and inquired who was at the bot-
tom of all this nonsense. Lowering his voice, Ali whispered
that it was the Emir's aunt, Fatima, who was actually in
possession of the two hundred pounds. Gertrude became
more and more annoyed and demanded a further interview
with Ibrahim.
Once more the same reception and the same cordialities,
once more Ibrahim evaded the issue while Gertrude pressed
for an answer. It was like Moses pleading for the Israelites
before Pharaoh in an atmosphere of Baghdad under Haroun
al Raschid. But Gertrude had none of Moses' plagues to
offer and little of his patience, and she refused to take "No"
for an answer. Finally, Ibrahim began to weaken before this
determined English-woman and, in order to pacify her, said
that of course she should go, of course she should have her
money, there had never been any question about the mat-
ter-"good night!"
Gertrude returned to her quarters in triumph and con-
fided to Turkiyyeh that she had got the better of old
Ibrahim. Turkiyyeh listened, smiled in a way which left
Gertrude uneasy again, and retired.
In the morning Gertrude demanded that her men and
her horses and camels be sent round to her quarters, but
after a long delay word was brought that they could not be
found. She was now getting frantic, almost foreseeing being
left to languish for ever in Hayil. She knew, moreover, that
she had set out on this trip against the advice of the author-
ities and could expect little help from that direction.
She was still fuming and wondering what she should do


WOMANHOOD I37
next when Saiyid, the chief eunuch and the most powerful
man in Hayil, called on her and, without preliminaries, said
bluntly that Gertrude could not leave until the Emir re-
turned and that it was no good making a fuss about it. He
then bowed himself superbly out of the apartment.
Gertrude sank back on her brocaded cushions, perplexed.
Eunuchs, Emirs, Nubian slaves . . . No, it was impossible,
this was the twentieth century . . . She rubbed her eyes ex-
pecting to find herself awake again in normal surroundings.
But instead there was a bowing retainer bidding her to a
feast offered by Mudi, the mother of the Emir.
Gertrude got up resignedly and followed the slave, with
a helpless feeling that she had somehow strayed back into a
tenth century Asia and had no knowledge of how to find
her way forward again into her own age.
She found Turkiyyeh, lovely as a young Scheherazade,
waiting for her. The other guests were all women dressed in
flowery silks and glittering with jewels, with a sprinkling of
children in the costumes of grown-ups. Blue sensuous in-
cense drifted about the high-ceilinged room, while the
hostess and her friends sat on rich carpets nibbling sweet-
meats and sipping thick coffee which impassive eunuchs
handed round. The conversation was about matters femi-
nine, but with that Asiatic restraint of another era.
Gertrude said little, overcome by the unbelievable atmos-
phere, expecting any moment to find her rough travelling
dress changed into a ruby-studded robe and hear her name
called to join some adoring young Sultan. Where were
Rounton and the rock garden and her father and the York-
shire miners? What had become of her friends in Paris and
London? Did they really exist or had all that life been a


138 GERTRUDE BELL
fantasy of her mind? . . . The party quietly broke up and
slaves with lances escorted the lone and extremely per-
turbed English-woman back to her apartments.
The next day Gertrude decided that tenth century or no
tenth century she was still Miss Bell and when Turkiyyeh
came to visit her she spoke to her as one girl to another. No
Oriental polite phrases, just a woman who wanted a friend's
help. Turkiyyeh at once responded and, discarding the r6le
of a Circassian princess, promised that she would see what
she could do.
Nothing happened immediately, but a few days later
Gertrude was invited to visit the Emir's gardens. She found
all the royal babies who had not been murdered by the
last usurping Emir, two young sheiks, various court digni-
taries and Saiyid, the chief eunuch. They sat on carpets in
a peacock blue pavilion, which might have come straight
out of a Persian miniature. They wandered through lovely
grounds, planted with fruit-laden trees, to the tinkle of
sparkling fountains, while the little children walked solemnly
hand in hand in their robes of brocades. Gertrude asked
the usual questions of Saiyid, but he only smiled and offered
more coffee. Then, suddenly, she lost her temper and spoke
to the chief eunuch without the usual Eastern paraphrases.
When she had finished her tirade she turned her back and
left the men sitting—a gesture only used by great sheiks—
and found her way back to her quarters alone.
Gertrude felt better, but as her rage cooled she realized
that she had broken the strictest rules of etiquette and
could expect no favours; there would probably be reprisals
from one so powerful and proud as Saiyid. She hoped that
Turkiyyeh would come and keep her company, but as it


WOMANHOOD 139
grew late and she was deciding to go to bed the chief eunuch
entered her apartments with two other men. Gertrude
braced herself, holding her pistol cocked in her pocket, but
instead of hearing a doom pronounced, Saiyid, after the
politest preliminary speech, announced that Gertrude was
free to leave when she pleased, in token of which he had
brought a bag containing the two hundred pounds which
had inadvertently been mislaid. He then made a deep obei-
sance and disappeared, leaving Gertrude speechless. Her
first reaction was that this was all a trick of the nature of
Pharaoh and the Israelites. However, early next morning
Turkiyyeh came to the apartment and said that she had
taken up the matter with Fatima, pointed out that this
way of treating a distinguished Occidental guest was dis-
graceful, and so persuaded her that when the chief eunuch
came fuming in after being insulted by Gertrude he was
curtly told to give her her money and let her go.
On March 20, nearly one month after sighting the battle-
mented walls of Hayil, Gertrude with her full caravan left
this city of the Arabian Nights and, after kissing Turkiyyeh
who sobbed like a child, set her course north towards
Baghdad.
The remainder of the journey was difficult and interest-
ing, but rather an anticlimax after the sand desert of Nefud
and the mediaeval happenings in Hayil.
From a point of view of raids the caravan had more
trouble during this portion of the trip than before. Luckily
Mohammed had found a friend of the powerful Ghazalat
tribe to accompany him. Soon after leaving Hayil the cara-
van was attacked by hordes of Madan Bedouins, the most


WOMANHOOD 141
accomplished—until she eventually pitched her camp where,
five months previously, she had mounted her camel to ride
out of Damascus for Hayil.
This, unsuspected by her, was the last journey she was to
make in the desert of Arabia with her caravan. It was the
end of May 1914 and she was to find herself too occupied
to undertake any expeditions until the events brought about
by the Great War were to call her to duties in which her
experiences in the East would be used to their fullest extent.
Not in the least conceited about her achievements, re-
garding them almost as journeys unworthy of being re-
corded, Gertrude nevertheless held a unique position among
the world's explorers. Doughty and Burton had done much
to clear up many mysteries concerning the deserts of Arabia,
but their work, other than from a literary point of view, was
never put to practical use. Lawrence brought about the re-
volt of the Arabs in the desert, but the constructiveness of
his task died with the end of the war. To Gertrude Bell it
was left to create something in the Near East which still
lives and will undoubtedly continue for many years to come.
She was now forty-six, and the lovely girl graduate of Ox-
ford had developed into a handsome woman with striking
personality and penetrating eyes. She had learned how to
meet emergencies, how to face hardships, how to handle
men, but she was entirely feminine. Her name was known
from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, her friends num-
bered Persians and Syrians and Arabs, but her own people
still regarded her as the daughter of Sir Hugh Bell. To Ger-
trude herself she was a nobody who had had an interesting
life because she had had the means to do what she wanted.
Even when her name was becoming "news" and the public


I42 GERTRUDE BELL
wanted to know about her, she avoided interviews with re-
porters and begged her father not to allow her picture to
appear in the press. And when the Royal Geographical So-
ciety awarded her its medal, she commented: "It was an
absurd thing to give me; they must have been hard up for
travellers this year."
It is unlikely that there has ever been a great historical
figure who had less to say for herself than Gertrude Bell.


part in
WAR





146 GERTRUDE BELL
cated task. Gertrude smiled—compared to her jaunts in the
Syrian Desert this would be child's play—and, rolling up
her sleeves, she set to work.
Physical exhaustion, privations and treacherous weather
meant nothing out of the normal to Gertrude. She had a
persevering capacity to stick to anything which she under-
took until it was finished. By keeping her staff working with
her literally day and night, she had the office in Boulogne
organized in an incredibly short time and a new office
opened in Rouen. No sooner was this done than Lord Rob-
ert Cecil recalled her to London to get the main office of
the similar unit out of chaos. This she did with the same
efficiency.
The war had now been going on for a year. The German
onslaughts had been checked and the four great armies had
dug themselves in from the English Channel to the Alps.
It was evident that Kitchener's slogan (at first ridiculed),
"for three years or duration of the war," was no fantasy.
Hostilities had, moreover, shifted to other parts of the world
and notably to the Near East. Doctor Hogarth held a tem-
porary commission in the Intelligence Service and worked
in Cairo, and the young excavator called Lawrence, whom
Gertrude had met at Carchemish in 1911, was advocating
a revolt of the Arabs in the desert. In November 1915, Doc-
tor Hogarth suddenly realized that the person who had
more knowledge about the geography of uncharted Arabia
and the Bedouins than anyone else in the world was missing
from the General Staff in the Near East. He at once brought
Gertrude's name before the authorities and was backed by
an old friend of the Bells, Captain Reginald Hall, R.N.,1
1 Later, Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, K.C.M.G.


WAR 149
of the Staff in Cairo said that he had never seen anyone
mobilize so rapidly; but what was packing up and boarding
a troopship to a person who had loaded up her home and
belongings onto camels day after day in wind and rain and
sandstorm!
Gertrude started off full of enthusiasm, but, by the time
she had sailed down the Red Sea, crossed the Bay of Bengal
and travelled over the Scinde Desert, she had begun to won-
der what her mission actually was and whether the authori-
ties really wanted to talk to her. However, her qualms were
dispelled when she reached Delhi and found waiting for
her the viceregal car, which took her straight to Lord Har-
dinge who was only too eager to hear her views on the situ-
ation. In fact she was quite overwhelmed by the attention
she received and wrote to her father:
"It is interesting, deeply interesting, but oh, it is an anxious
job. I wish, I wish I knew more, and was more . . . the Viceroy
is anxious that I should go to Basrah and stay there with the
Intelligence Service and lend a hand, but that all depends on
what their views are and whether I can be of any use. That
hangs on me, I feel, as we have often said, all you can do for
people is to give them the opportunity of making a place for
themselves ... I think that I have pulled things straight be-
tween Delhi and Cairo. But nothing will ever keep them
straight except a constant personal intercourse—it ought not to
be difficult to manage and I am convinced that it is essential."
Gertrude spent almost three weeks in Delhi studying the
government files on the situation in Arabia. She discussed
all possible eventualities with the Intelligence Departments
and at the end of February felt that she was sufficiently
primed to join the expeditionary force in Mesopotamia.
On March 3, 1916, she was on Arab soil again, steaming


150 GERTRUDE BELL
up the Euphrates towards Basrah. She felt elated at being
once more in a country which she knew and among a peo-
ple whom she understood. It was like coming home.
The Chief Political Officer (later High Commissioner)
was Sir Percy Cox, Britain's most distinguished expert on
the Near East, whom Gertrude had originally met in Eng-
land when he was Resident in the Persian Gulf. She was at
that time planning to make her journey to Hayil from one
of the Arab ports of the Persian Gulf which were under
Cox's jurisdiction. The project was discussed at great length
but, owing to the unsettled state of the coastal tribes, was
abandoned until four years later when it was carried out as
already recorded.
Sir Percy was delighted to see Gertrude, whose fortunes
in various parts of Arabia he had closely followed, and a
deep and understanding friendship began which was to last
until Gertrude's death.
Cox was a great administrator, a man of learning with an
extensive knowledge of Mesopotamia and Persia, but his
present task was the most difficult he had ever undertaken
and it is to be wondered whether he would have achieved
the same results without the devoted help of his new col-
laborator.
Gertrude's first days in her new post were filled with de-
pressing feelings. She did not quite know what was expected
of her, she could see no tangible results at the end of a day's
work; the woman who had been accustomed to run her own
life did not like being a subordinate. She sensed a suspicious
attitude in the older men, especially the generals, who could
not see what business a woman had in Basrah in time of


WAR 151
war: as a nurse, well and good; but as a political officer, and
one with such determined views, it seemed all wrong. The
younger men knew little about her work in the East and
were inclined to be condescending. Gertrude concealed her
innermost feelings and, observing the same tactics as she
had with the people of the desert, bided her time and said
nothing.
On March 9th she was asked to lunch at Government
House to meet all the generals: General Sir Percy Lake,
General Cowper, General Shaw, General Money, were all
present with their staff officers and A.D.C.'s. They were
anxious for a "close up" of this preposterous female who
wanted to tell them how to fight the Turks—why, she was
worse than that crank Lawrence with his dreams about
Arab irregulars creating a revolt in the desert!
Gertrude dressed herself with care; she discarded her
working clothes and became cool and perfumed and femi-
nine. She walked into Government House playing the r6le
of Miss Bell of Rounton Grange paying a visit to the High
Commissioner. She smiled at the pompous generals, she
listened to their conversation and encouraged them to talk.
She made them feel the woman in her, she flattered their
military vanity and, when she had them all sitting at her
feet, she started to talk. The lunch party lasted long into the
afternoon. When it broke up, the generals looked at one
another, made a simultaneous and ineffectual effort to see
Gertrude home and separated rather stiffly.
The next morning when Gertrude arrived at the stuffy
little office which had been assigned to her behind a store,
she found all her things being moved. Surprised and, with a


152 GERTRUDE BELL
nauseating feeling that perhaps she had not been liked by
the generals and was being sent home, she inquired the
reason.
"Orders!"
"Whose orders?"
"Headquarters."
Gertrude went out to investigate and found that all her
papers and books and maps were being taken to one of the
best rooms of the General Staff, with a cool verandah and
all the comforts which a woman might need. From that
day Gertrude's authority was never questioned, her views
were accepted and her word was law over the length and
breadth of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.
One month later Lawrence appeared at Basrah and in-
stinctively made for Gertrude. To a month it was exactly
five years since he had been prodding among the excava-
tions at Carchemish when Gertrude passed by. It may have
been the proximity of the generals, it may have been the
instinct for the Arabs and the mutual love of the desert or
just a man and a woman who wanted to talk, but these two
suddenly discovered each other. For the whole of one day
and part of the night they discussed their most intimate
thoughts which included a vast scheme for the government
of the universe! In the morning Gertrude saw the little man
off on the boat, which was to take him up the river to the
battle which was raging and to the beginning of his short-
lived glory. Lawrence was still plain Mr. Lawrence to the
world, to the generals a crank who had original and imprac-
tical ideas, but to Gertrude something different which she
understood. She was not to see him again until after the
war, as Lawrence of Arabia, one of the most talked-of men


154 GERTRUDE BELL
above that of the average sheik and might easily become a
menace to Mesopotamia. This intuition was later justified
when Ibn Saud took possession of Hayil and began to at-
tack the nomads of the tribes which had sworn allegiance
to the government of Faisal. Immediate reprisals were car-
ried out from the air; but the peace which was eventually
made was rather due to Gertrude persuading Ibn Saud that
it would be wiser policy to remain on friendly terms with
the British-protected realms of Iraq.
The reason for this critical situation in Mesopotamia was
a muddling policy of the British Government. The Viceroy
of India could not be held responsible as Kitchener
had drained the country of regular troops and equipment,
so that when things became serious in the Near East ade-
quate assistance could not be sent out in time. Furthermore,
all the best generals had gone to Gallipoli or France.
Circumstances rushed England into war in the Orient,
but once there she showed a complete disregard for a com-
prehensive political scheme. Mesopotamia was treated as if
it were an isolated unit instead of part of Arabia. There was
a certain amount of excuse for this as, until 1914, little was
known about the country outside a circle of archaeologists,
students of ancient history and theologians interested in the
Old Testament. The practical value of the oil fields which
had supplied Noah with pitch for the lining of his Ark had
not been considered, and an independent kingdom of Iraq
had only been dreamed of by a few idealistic Arabs.
Mesopotamia might be described as the country with the
oldest recorded history in the world. In an area of barely
one hundred and fifty thousand square miles some of the
most prominent races, with high degrees of civilization,


WAR 155
came into being and disappeared. The Sumerians, the Hit-
tites, the Aramaeans, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks,
the Parthians, dominated Mesopotamia at various times
until the seventh century after Christ, when the Arabs
swept in and established Islam. For a thousand years they
ruled the country, when their influence was superseded by
that of the Turks. This influence continued until the Great
War and the entry of the Turks on the side of Germany,
which led to the British campaign and the eventual crea-
tion of the Kingdom of Iraq.
But although the Turks were masters of Mesopotamia in
1914, the politics of the country were indissolubly connected
with the great and far-reaching Arab question, which pre-
sents different problems as they are regarded from different
angles, but remains always the same indivisible block. The
co-ordinating of Arab politics should have been done by
experts in England. But there was no one to do it, no one
who had ever given it much thought, and it was left to the
British in Egypt to thrash out, in the face of great opposi-
tion, some sort of wild scheme which eventually and chiefly
by luck formed the basis of Britain's relations with the Arabs.
England has a reputation of muddling through, and un-
doubtedly achieves things under this banner, after wading
in floods of blood and tears of humiliation. The disasters of
the Mesopotamian campaign, the loss of life, the grievous
aftermaths, might have been avoided had Gertrude Bell
been made use of in London at the outbreak of hostilities
and given a free hand.
By the end of May the generals, who had nearly had
apoplexy when Gertrude came out to join the staff, were
taking her with them on their trips towards the front. In


156 GERTRUDE BELL
June she was officially made a member of the Indian Ex-
peditionary Force, with pay—which amused her, though she
refused to wear a uniform. She endeavoured to remain cool
and feminine in the terrific heat of the Mesopotamian sum-
mer which was just beginning, and seemed to bear up bet-
ter under the torrid temperature than her male colleagues.
Later in the season she succumbed to the local fever, but
refused to take care of herself, feeling that all the attention
of the doctors and nurses should be concentrated on the
wounded and sick soldiers. However, the insidious climate
of the Euphrates Valley was not going to let a mere woman,
even if she was Gertrude Bell, scoff at its fevers; and before
long she was in the hospital with a bad case of jaundice.
The jaundice depressed Gertrude. She had never given
in to illness in her life and the fact of being tied to her bed
irritated her and delayed her recovery. She began to worry
over the situation and became obsessed with an idea that
Great Britain was going to lose the war and be forced to
abandon what it held in Asia. She began to mistrust the
Arabs, to distrust herself. Then, all of a sudden she was well
again and all her fighting spirit and sense of humour re-
turned. She wanted to be alive and about, and soon the
gloomy forebodings had disappeared and she was writing
to her step-mother:
"Will you please send me a winter hat. Also I would im-
mensely like a soft black satin gown which I could either wear
by day or night. I would like Marthe to make it as she will
make me something pretty . . ."
Eventually the parcel arrived from Marthe, but the gown
had been abstracted and all that was left inside the box was


WAR 157
a little black satin coat and a gold flower. Gertrude was al-
most as infuriated when she discovered the loss as if every
Arab tribe had deserted the British cause.
To her father she wrote asking for books to be sent out
every month, a varied assortment—a few novels, poetry and
translations of Greek plays.
For the moment she had little official work to do, and she
spent much of her time in seeing all the sheiks who passed
through Basrah and keeping herself in touch with the Arab
chiefs "upcountry." The Sheik of Khamiseyeh and Sheik
Hamud of the Dhafir welcomed her as an old friend and
she introduced them to the general in command and acted
as interpreter.
She spent the third Christmas of the war doing a little
excavating near the tomb reputed to be that of Ezra and
was thankful to be escaping the seasonal rejoicings at Brit-
ish Headquarters.
On her return to Basrah she was assigned to write an out-
line of recent Arabian history, which she accomplished
quickly, glad to have something to do. Her whole being was
restless, for here she was, a person accustomed to her own
life and to hardships as severe as those of the troops at the
front, tied to the routine life of an office stool. She knew
that it would be useless to complain and, with a grudge in
her heart against red tape, went on conscientiously doing
her work and deploring that she was a woman.
Then suddenly her whole outlook changed. On March
10,1917, Baghdad fell to the Anglo-Indian troops and a few
days later she received orders to join Sir Percy Cox. Ger-
trude was at last to have the opportunity for which she
longed and to carve her name into the history of Asia.


CHAPTER XII
Once again the minarets of Baghdad set a flashing wel-
come over the Tigris, once more the breeze whispering
through the palm trees was hushed as the ancient city of
Haroun al Raschid awaited the coming of the boat which
brought the woman who was now to fulfil her destiny and
restore the faded splendour of the Abode of Peace.
Gertrude arrived in Baghdad to find it a mass of roses, in
the midst of which harassed officials tried to clear up the
mess left behind by the retreating Turks. The inhabitants
seemed to be relieved to have the British with them and
there were many who gave Gertrude a personal welcome.
Sir Percy Cox came down to meet his collaborator and
took her to her home-to-be, which was an empty house in
the bazaar. All the British officials were lodged in a hap-
hazard sort of way. This was chiefly owing to the fact that
the Baghdadis, no longer having to deal with Oriental ad-
ministrators who seized anything they wanted, were taking
advantage of the Occidentals, who paid for everything and
were particular not to offend susceptibilities . . . Gertrude,
knowing the ways of the people of the East, at once under-
stood what was happening. She said nothing to Sir Percy,
but on the day following her arrival she set about looking
after herself, as if she was once more travelling alone.
Visits to a few cafes, several cups of coffee, a little listen-
158


WAR l6l
It was this personal contact, this understanding of Orien-
tal problems, which made Gertrude invaluable to her col-
leagues and relieved the government at home of many re-
sponsibilities in connection with the reorganization of the
conquered territories. Sir Percy Cox was the ablest of ad-
ministrators who understood the Arab question as well as
Gertrude, but he had always been an official and, however
informal he might be with the native, his rank could not be
forgotten. The position of Great Britain in the Near East
was exceedingly delicate and the least false move or the
offending of someone with influence could undo the moral
effect of the victories of the army.
Fahad Bey, paramount Sheik of the Amarah, a tribe of
tremendous importance, arrived in Baghdad. No one quite
knew how he should be treated, until Gertrude remembered
that she had stayed with him three years before in the desert,
so when he appeared she greeted him as an old friend. The
rest was simple. She returned his hospitality, talked to him
about the things which interested him, without reference
to politics, and eventually took him to Government House.
Sir Percy complimented Fahad Bey on the loyalty of his
tribesmen to the British cause, but the sheik disclaimed
responsibility and bowed towards Gertrude. His Bedouins
knew Gertrude and when he had read them a letter which
she had written from Basrah, someone had said: "If this is
from a woman, what must her men be like!"
Having paid this graceful compliment, he presented Ger-
trude with two beautiful Arab greyhounds. Later on he was
taken to see a demonstration of flying by the R.A.F. which
intrigued him to such an extent that he asked if he might
get into an airplane, but added that on no account must it


162 GERTRUDE BELL
be allowed to leave the ground as he was shortly to wed two
new wives.
Fahad Bey was at that time nearly eighty!
A few days later two old sheiks, poor and ragged, made
their appearance in Baghdad. Their territory was on the
borderland of Mesopotamia and they had alternately been
harried by the British and the Turks and never knew who
were their masters. As soon as the Turks retreated for good,
the British, without making any investigations, put all the
tribesmen in a prison concentration camp. The two old
men were in despair and did not know to whom they could
appeal until they heard that Gertrude was in Baghdad.
They journeyed there at once and she found them piteously
waiting in her rose garden. As soon as she had heard their
story she went straight to Sir Percy Cox and the injustices
were remedied. The old sheiks wept with gratitude and
offered her a thoroughbred mare which she had to refuse,
so they sent her a gazelle instead, which ruined the roses
and ate up many of the official documents and maps.
This knowledge of the working of the Arab mind enabled
her also to deal with cases which an oEcial might have
overlooked as unworthy of attention. But she knew how
rapidly news travelled over the desert by word of mouth
and an unintentional slight to someone who did not seem
to matter could be exaggerated and spread all over the
country.
An old chief from the Syrian side of the desert came one
day knocking at the gates of Government House, demand-
ing to see the High Commissioner. No one had ever heard
of this man and he did not look important, in fact he ap-
peared to be a lunatic. News of what was happening reached


164 GERTRUDE BELL
of Arabia and Asia Minor regarded Gertrude as a sort of
elder sister, who understood their problems, scolded or com-
forted and, while meeting them on an equal footing, never
let them forget that she was the eldest. This familiar con-
tact with all classes enabled her to feel the pulse of Iraq and
diagnose symptoms much quicker than her more highly
placed colleagues and at the same time gave her devoted
friends among the Baghdadis. The most intimate of these
was an old man called Haji Naji who, to the officials, was
just a gardener who raised fruits and vegetables on the banks
of the Tigris, but to Gertrude represented the mind of
Baghdad. Their friendship began with a present of a prun-
ing knife, which Sir Hugh Bell had sent out from England,
and, from then on, his garden became a refuge for Gertrude
whenever she was tired of State building. Sometimes she
would relax and watch the old man at his work, on other
occasions she would gossip about what was being said and
thought in Baghdad. Frequently she would take British
officials to the garden by the Tigris to show them that the
humbler Baghdadis were not all ignorant coolies and also
to let Haji Naji realize that the British administrators were
more than automatons in uniform.
In order to help make matters pertaining to their future
even clearer to the populations newly under British rule,
Gertrude was instrumental in starting a newspaper in Arabic
for which she wrote the leading articles. Everyone in Bagh-
dad wanted to help and she could have had the equivalent
in numbers of the staff of a London daily paper without
anyone expecting a salary! The editor was H. St. J. Philby,
an Indian Civil Servant on Sir Percy's staff and one of the
greatest authorities on Arabia, who knew the country as


WAR 165
well as Gertrude and was consequently an ideal collaborator.1
All this work had to be carried out in a climate which is
merciless to Occidentals and with fever which lays the vic-
tim down in an hour and leaves him weak for days. The
heat made recuperation slow and there was too much to do
to allow any reasonable period for convalescence. Gertrude
found herself at the end of the summer worn out and her
hair beginning to turn grey. Lucidly she had had the fore-
thought to have herself inoculated against cholera and
plague which, every now and then, treacherously struck at
the cities of Mesopotamia. She had seen cholera and all its
attendant horrors at close quarters in Persia and when, one
night just before a dinner at Government House, the Com-
mander-in-Chief, Sir Stanley Maude, was taken violently
ill she knew what to expect. Forty-eight hours later the con-
queror of Baghdad, perhaps one of the greatest generals
which the war produced, had died in the same room where
von der Goltz, the German Commander-in-Chief, had
passed away two years earlier.
It was in these times of ill-health that Gertrude knew the
loneliness of being without woman companionship. While
well and working, the men sufficed, but there were occasions
when they got on her nerves. The only two friends she had
of her own sex were the matron of the military hospital and
the Mother Superior of the Dominican Convent, a French
woman from Touraine.
She made a few attempts to get the women of Baghdad
together, but although the foreigners co-operated and the
1 Since those days Mr. Philby has retired from public life and, having
become a Moslem, spends most of his time in the desert living with the
Arabs.


WAR 167
was an expert on all Arab questions. Leachman had been a
subaltern in the Sussex Regiment in India before the war,
where his gift for Oriental languages and an amazing ability
to disguise himself as a Frontier tribesman caused him to
be seconded for service with the Intelligence Corps. He had
no fear and would penetrate the border among Afghans
and Afridis where no white man had ever been. Leachman
appealed to Gertrude in the same way as Lawrence, and
together they perfected the plans for the future administra-
tion of Mesopotamia.
Gertrude's talks with Leachman made her realize that if
Mesopotamia was to become an independent state under
British protection the youth of the country must learn that
Islam was not the most important thing in the world. So
she encouraged the formation of schools in which the Koran
was not the only textbook and tried to make the Arabs send
their children to be educated. The experiment was not en-
tirely successful. The attendance was fair but the ability to
absorb what was being taught or to see things from a non-
Islamic point of view was disappointing. Gertrude used to
visit the school to see how the pupils were getting on and
occasionally test their general knowledge. The first question
she asked was who was King of England. After an awkward
silence one of the small pupils suggested Chosroes, one of
the founders of the early Persian dynasties, while another
with a better grasp of modern politics said that it was Lloyd
George!
She was more successful in getting the people to look
after their health. The news that hospitals and dispensaries
were being opened in Baghdad, where the Arabs could re-
ceive medicine and free treatment, spread rapidly through-


l68 GERTRUDE BELL
out the length and breadth of the desert and in a very short
time the doctors could not cope with the mobs which came
for medical advice.
In the midst of all this anxious work of reorganization
Gertrude made time to keep up her archaeology and exam-
ined ruins and copied inscriptions whenever she had the
opportunity. She took Lord and Lady Willingdon, the
future Viceroy and Vicereine of India, to Babylon and told
how the city had been built about 2000 b.c. by Nimrod and
one thousand years later, under Nebuchadnezzar, had spread
out on either side of the Euphrates until it covered a larger
area than Greater London. It was here that the lovely Se-
miramis had the famous hanging gardens constructed, which
were classified as one of the seven wonders of the world.
She showed them how the excavators and geologists had
been able to establish the various eras in Babylon's history
beginning with the period of the Deluge, the traces of which
were still clearly visible. Her talk was so entertaining that a
member of the viceregal staff, who had set out on the ex-
pedition saying he hated ruins, admitted, after the lecture,
that there must be something in archaeology after all.
Gertrude could not be spared to take a holiday in Eng-
land, but a change of air was imperative, so she decided to
leave Baghdad for part of the summer.
She had longed to go back to Persia and revisit Gulahek.
Twenty-six years had passed since she had left in high hopes
of returning as the wife of Henry Cadogan, twenty-six years
of doing the things which they had planned to do together.
She felt that perhaps the revisiting of old scenes would give
her more strength for the struggle ahead.
The journey did her endless good. She travelled to Kir-


WAR 169
mashah and on to Gulahek and Tehran. She walked the old
walks, rode again to the lovely gardens and fished the streams
where she had fished with Henry. The memories were poign-
antly beautiful and brought renewed vigour to the tired
middle-aged woman.
But if it was not possible for her to go to England she
did not forget her family and always found time to write
long letters about what she was doing. Heat or cold or ill-
ness never impaired her style or lost her that aptitude for
vivid description.
"We have had a week of fierce heat, temperature 122 odd
and therewith a burning wind which has to be felt to be be-
lieved. It usually blows all night as well as all day and makes
sleep very difficult. I have invented a scheme which I practise
on the worst nights. I drop a sheet in water and without wring-
ing it out lay it in a pile along my bed between me and the
wind. I put one end over my feet and draw the other under
and over my head and leave the rest a few inches from my
body. The sharp evaporation makes it icy cold and interposes a
little wall of cold air between me and the fierce wind. When it
dries I wake up and repeat the process.
"I don't know whether it is a scientific truth but it's un-
doubtedly in accordance with facts—full moon nights are by
far the hottest and stillest. Two nights ago I was completely
defeated. I tried to work sitting outside in my garden after
dinner, but after half an hour the few clothes I was wearing
were wringing wet and I was so much exhausted by a day sim-
ilarly spent that I went to bed helplessly and fell asleep at once
on my roof. I hadn't been asleep long when I woke up to find
the Great Bear staring me in the face. It was very strange to see
the Great Bear shining so brilliantly in the full moon of Ram-
adhan and while I wondered half asleep what had happened
I realized that the whole of the world was dark, and turning
round saw the last limb of the moon disappearing in a total
eclipse. So I lay watching it, a wonderful sight, the disc just
visible, a dull and angry copper colour. In the bazaar a few hun-


170 GERTRUDE BELL
dred yards away everyone was drumming with sticks on any-
thing that lay handy, to scare away the devil which hid the
moon, and indeed they ultimately succeeded, for after a long,
long time the upper limb of the moon reappeared and the devil
drew slowly downwards, angry still with deep red tongues, and
wreaths projecting from his copper coloured body and before I
had time to sleep again the Ramadhan moon had once more
extinguished the shining Bear . . ."
In the autumn of 1918 she received a great disappoint-
ment. It was announced that Sir Percy Cox, who had gone
to England to confer with the Government, was not return-
ing to Baghdad. He had been appointed to Tehran. The in-
formation staggered Gertrude, causing her momentarily to
feel discouraged and lose interest in her work. Sir Percy had
become a kind of God to her. They had been colleagues for
a long time and had gone through many trials together.
They were in complete sympathy, each had the other's con-
fidence, and their relationship was much more than that of
chief and subordinate.
She had hardly had time to get over the shock of losing
Sir Percy when the armistice was signed. The event which
brought the greatest war in history to a close passed almost
unnoticed in Baghdad as fighting, from an active point of
view, had long ceased in Mesopotamia. What did set the
whole place in a ferment was the Franco-British declara-
tion. Many promises had been made during the time that
the co-operation of the sheiks was wanted in the waging of
war against the Turks, but the majority of the well-informed
Mesopotamians had regarded these as so much bait. So
when it was proclaimed that the future of the Arab states
was in the inhabitants' hands and they could choose the


WAR 171
form of government they preferred, no one knew what to
say.
At first the people divided themselves into two factions,
those who believed that the country would best be ruled by
Sir Percy Cox with Gertrude Bell as his assistant, and those
who regarded an Arab Emir as the only possible head of the
Government. There were also a few groups with republican
tendencies and some who regretted the Turks, but the two
main factions were those which, for the moment, counted.
To Gertrude fell the task of unravelling the somewhat
nebulous and impractical desires of the tribal chiefs and the
citizens of the towns, and, as she at once predicted, these
questions took a very long time to settle. In the meanwhile,
she was called to Paris to attend the Peace Conference and
left Baghdad at the beginning of 1919. She had been in the
Orient for over four consecutive years without a break.
Before boarding the ship which was to carry her to Eu-
rope she tried to find traces of Fattuh, who had been caught
up in the war on the side of the enemy. There was little
definite information to be had, but it seemed clear that the
faithful cook and companion had been killed. Gertrude was
very upset at hearing this news, but she had no time to
make any further inquiries as the allied peace delegates
were gathering in Paris, ready to carve up the world accord-
ing to their appetites, and Gertrude wanted to be there and
ensure that her little section was not hacked about by in-
experienced knife wielders.








CHAPTER XIII
The Congress of Vienna is said to have danced. It cannot
be predicted how historians will refer to the Paris Peace
Conference, but it did not take life very seriously. "The
Paris Peace Conference made whoopee" might be the most
appropriate term for the chief occupation of its delegates.
Gertrude had spent four years in desert surroundings and
a wartime atmosphere, with few of those comforts to which
a woman is accustomed. Lawrence had achieved the impos-
sible with his Arab irregulars and had become a legendary
figure. Doctor Hogarth's dreams had materialized without
the public being aware of his existence. The Emir Faisal
was on his way to a throne, of which Lawrence had laid the
foundations and which Gertrude was to make into a perma-
nent edifice.
These four people met in the over-decorated rooms of the
British Delegation's headquarters at the Hotel Majestic in
Paris and gazed wonderingly at the Peace Makers! Lawrence,
looking more emaciated than ever in his Arab headdress,
scornful of all this pleasure-seeking after the grim days of
war on the desert; Faisal, tall and aristocratic in his robes,
thoroughly entertained by the spectacle of Occidentals en-
joying themselves, and longing to join them; Hogarth,
bearded and rugged, wanting only to be out of uniform and
»75


176 GERTRUDE BELL
back in the peaceful atmosphere of Oxford; Gertrude in her
smart, new dresses, interested in everything about her. Law-
rence and his scorn, Faisal and his enthusiasm, Hogarth and
his stolid learning, the old delegates trying to be young, the
young delegates trying to seem important, the chic of the
women, the tedious conferences, the parties and the shops
of Paris coming to life after four years of mourning—every-
thing which Gertrude saw and did, as usual, enthralled
her.
It was a curious quartet, all with the same interests at
heart, but thinking of them from different points of view.
Hogarth archaeologically and historically; Faisal nationalis-
tically and ambitiously; Lawrence idealistically and imprac-
ticably; Gertrude practically and constructively.
The fact that Lawrence disappeared from the Arabian
picture and Gertrude lived to see the dreams of an inde-
pendent kingdom realized was because they approached the
problem from different angles. Both of them had Arabia in
their blood, but whereas Lawrence had never known any
other ideals in his life, Gertrude was a woman of the world
who had judgement and poise. Lawrence became a crank
about the Arabs; he became bitter when those in power dis-
regarded his projects, and retired into a futile state of wast-
ing his life in a lost cause and died ignominiously on a
motor bicycle.
Gertrude realized that no one in Europe really cared what
happened to the Arabs who had helped the Allies win the
war, but moping about it would not help. The word of
Britain had been given to the Arabs and, even if the Euro-
pean problems which confronted the delegates at the time
appeared to be of paramount importance, this word would


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 177
be kept, if for no other reason than that the desert people
were still a vital cog in the British Empire's complicated
machinery.
Gertrude and Lawrence were actually both idealists, but
Lawrence's attitude was that of a man who can only see his
love as something of the immediate passionate present,
while Gertrude more logically and femininely regarded
Arabia as a mate who could be with her always.
She acted accordingly.
Having ascertained the attitude of the British and ex-
plained to them in detail exactly what the problems were,
and would be, in Mesopotamia, she called on the French
Government.
The French interests in Syria were contiguous to the
British and, although the former had quite different ideas
as to how they would administer their mandate, the two
countries would have to stand together, at least outwardly.
This contact with the French was an astute move as it gave
Gertrude an excellent insight into certain delicate problems
which she would have to face when she got back to Meso-
potamia.
Before returning to the Orient, Gertrude allowed herself
to relax and had her last real rest. She motored all through
the battle fields of Northern France and Belgium with her
father and then went into quiet seclusion in Yorkshire for
the rest of the summer. At the beginning of the autumn she
started back to her Arabs.
She did not travel direct, but stopped at Cairo, and at
Jerusalem where she wanted to have a talk with Sir Ronald
Storrs, whom she had known when he was Oriental Secre-
tary of the Residency in Cairo. She found everyone too


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 179
dered all the more difficult owing to the fact that she did
not see eye to eye with the new High Commissioner, Sir
Arnold Wilson.
Before the Paris Peace Conference, Sir Percy Cox had
taken up his post in Tehran and Gertrude felt that she had
been deprived of the collaboration of the one man who
could carry out the reorganization of Iraq. She had formed
an opinion, as soon as she met Wilson, that he was the
wrong man for the difficult work to be done; and conse-
quently she resented his presence at Government House.
When she returned to the East these feelings about Sir
Arnold increased until they verged on those of insubordina-
tion. She allowed no one in Baghdad to suspect that there
were any differences of opinion between herself and her
chief, but this did not prevent her writing about the situa-
tion to her superiors in England. The fact that this ex-
tremely unorthodox procedure did not cause her to be
recalled shows how highly she must have been esteemed.
That Gertrude was right in her views was shown by the
displacement of Wilson at the end of 1920 and the return
of Cox to the office of High Commissioner.
It has been suggested that Gertrude was an intriguer who
made use of her connections in high places in England.
This is not true, for though she did report confidentially
and direct to the seat of authority, when she considered the
circumstances warranted it, it was not to further her own
ends but because she knew she was right. In the same way,
the recipients of Gertrude's letters took heed of what she
said because it had been proved that, in matters connected
with the Arabs, she was rarely wrong.
1


l8o GERTRUDE BELL
The biggest problem which confronted the British ad-
ministrators who were trying to form some sort of govern-
ment was the attitude of the various religious elements in
the country, notably that of the fanatical Shiah sect.
The Mohammedan religion which began, like all other
Faiths of the world, united in its beliefs, soon found itself
divided into dissenting factions. While these dissensions
did not divide Islam to the same extent as the various sects
of Christianity, the three main groups became and remained
essentially individual.
The largest of the three groups is the Sunnis, who hold
that the Caliphate of Islam (the head of the religion) is an
elective office and must be held by a member of the Koreish
tribe to which the Prophet belonged.
The Sunnis have various other doctrines peculiar to their
sect, but their main basis of differing with the next most
important group of Moslems, the Shiahs, is in this ques-
tion of the Caliphate.
The Shiahs maintain that the head of the Faith is a
God-given office and belongs to the descendants of Ali,
Mohammed's adopted son who married his favourite daugh-
ter Fatima. The antagonistic attitude of the Shiahs towards
the other Islamic sects is further enhanced by the fact that
a great many of the adherents are converted Persians who
brought with them many of their political as well as re-
ligious doctrines. (Most of the Shiahs in Baghdad were
Persian subjects which added complications to the compli-
cated situation, but also enabled their non-inclusion in the
government on the grounds that they were not Mesopota-
mian citizens.)
The third main Mohammedan sect is known as the


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ l8l
Khawarij, but its followers, living chiefly in Eastern Arabia
and North Africa, had nothing to do with the situation in
Baghdad.
The greater part of Gertrude's life in the Orient had
been spent among the Mohammedans of the desert who
were practically all Sunnis, and she leaned instinctively to-
wards them. These friendly feelings were further increased
by the recollections of the Shiah mentality which she had
encountered in Hayil. The situation was made even more
complex by the fact that, whereas among Mohammedans
of the world as a whole the Sunnis formed by far the great-
est proportion, in Iraq it was the Shiahs who predominated.
Gertrude herself was handicapped as the fact of her
being unveiled precluded any practical contact with the
dignitaries of the Shiahs. Neither could she have any inti-
mate relations with the women who regarded her as a kind
of man, and always veiled themselves in her presence and
refused to talk. It was an impossible predicament; she was
too female for the men and too male for the women!
She knew, however, that until these fiercely pan-Islamic
and anti-British people were won over there would always
be trouble. She accordingly decided to undermine this fort-
ress of bigotry.
There was in Baghdad a Shiah whom Gertrude suspected
of inclinations towards free thought. She had met him sev-
eral times and done him one or two small services. Gradually
she flattered and cajoled the man until she was able to per-
suade him to ask Saiyid Hassan, the head of the most im-
portant Shiah family in the district, to see her.
Hassan was much taken aback by the request; but, his
curiosity having been aroused, he agreed to receive Ger-


182 GERTRUDE BELL
trude in his home. Her feelings as she crossed the threshold
of this fanatic's house were similar to those she had expe-
rienced when the Kaiser received her in his box at the
theatre in Berlin, but she did not falter and went straight
on to the reception room. She found Saiyid Hassan as for-
midable a figure as William II, with a white beard reaching
down to the middle of his chest and the biggest turban she
had ever seen. After the formal salutations Hassan bade
Gertrude sit down on the carpet beside him, and they be-
gan to talk generalities: first of all, intimately about his
health and guardedly about his family, then about Arab and
Persian literature and the collections of Oriental books in
London and Paris and Rome. The man was not only ex-
tremely well educated but a brilliant conversationalist.
After nearly an hour of talking Gertrude thought that
this was long enough for a first visit so she prepared to
leave, but the old man protested that he had set aside the
whole afternoon for her. So Gertrude resumed her place on
the carpet, and, emboldened by the friendly attitude, began
to tell her host of the project to make Iraq into a kingdom
with Faisal as its first king. Hassan listened attentively, but
objected when he heard that the French would remain in
Beyrouth. Gertrude changed the conversation diplomatically
and they discussed the evils of Bolshevism!
When she eventually said goodbye, Hassan rose and said
majestically:
"It is well-known that you are the most learned woman
of your time, and if any proof were needed it would be
found in the fact that you wish to frequent the society of
the learned. That is why you are here today. You may come
and see me as often as you like."


l86 GERTRUDE BELL
with as much unconcern as if she had been going to a play
in Yorkshire. She listened to the attacks on England which
were vociferously applauded. When the play was over she
went to the actors and congratulated them on the excel-
lence of the performance. For a moment there was a sur-
prised silence, then those Nationalists who were among her
friends crowded around her, welcoming her and thanking
her for coming. Gertrude had won again, but there had
been a few minutes when she had been in great danger, as
she learned next evening from an eminent Sunni with Na-
tionalistic tendencies who visited her. As he was leaving he
whispered:
"When in Allah's name are you going to release us from
the terror of the tribes?"
"Soon," replied Gertrude.
A few days later large reinforcements were moving up the
river.
The critical situation had been eased, but it was not over.
Colonel Leachman was ambushed and murdered at the
beginning of August and an ominous silence fell over Bagh-
dad as the people waited to see what would be done in re-
prisal. Gertrude was not too certain as to the wisdom of
taking the initiative in a case which might be simple ban-
ditry, so she remained inactive but alert. Then, in the mid-
dle of August she heard that the extremists were going to
stage a monster meeting in Baghdad to be followed by a
procession which would undoubtedly lead to disturbances.
It was a vital moment when the right action was essential.
Force might precipitate a revolt, indifference might give
the agitators an idea that they could do as they pleased.
Gertrude was called into conference. Without hesitation,


i88
GERTRUDE BELL
on regardless of physical discomforts. The Shiahs were keep-
ing their promise to support her or, at any rate, remain
neutral, but their authority was weakening. The principles
of the Jihad—the holy war—were being implanted by fanatics
into the minds of the tribesmen, and the unthinking popu-
lace was blindly following unscrupulous leaders to revolt.
The few revolutionaries who listened to Gertrude's pleas
for moderation to give the High Commissioner time to re-
turn to Iraq and tell them of the results of his mission to
London, argued that Europe's latest methods of demon-
strating the advantage of modern civilization were hardly
convincing, especially to a nation much older than any of
the West.
Even Gertrude, who usually had a retort for arguments
of this nature, felt baffled.
"We've practically come to the collapse of society here," she
wrote, "and there's little on which you can depend for its recon-
struction. The credit of European civilization is gone. Over and
over again people have said that it has been a shock and a sur-
prise to see Europe relapse into barbarism. I had no reply—what
else can you call war? How can we, who have managed our af-
fairs so badly, claim to teach others to manage theirs better? It
may be that the world has need to sink back into the dark ages
of chaos out of which we will evolve something, perhaps no
better than what it had!"
The criticism of the more reasonable Arabs was that
Great Britain had promised self-governing institutions and
not only had taken no steps towards creating them but was
busily setting up something quite different. One of the local
papers came out openly with a leading article, stating that
England had promised an Arab Government with British


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 189
advisers and had set up a British Government with so-called
Arab advisers.
Gertrude could find nothing plausible with which to
refute this, so she said nothing and, keeping her head, con-
tinued to bluff until Sir Percy Cox returned from England.


CHAPTER XIV
Sir Percy Cox arrived in Iraq from London on October 12,
1920, and was splendidly received at the railway station by
the majority of the Baghdad notables and a number of
desert sheiks.
As soon as the ceremonies of welcome were over, Sir
Percy had a private conference with Gertrude and, thanking
her for all she had done during his absence, spoke opti-
mistically of his visit to England. He had come back with
full authority to set up an Arab government with British
advisers to the native ministers. The first big question now
was, whom to appoint as Premier. Gertrude suggested that
the notables be consulted without delay, pointing out the
imperative urgency of getting something constructive done.
Sir Percy promised to waste no time and Gertrude went
home to sleep soundly for the first time for months, know-
ing that a man was now at the helm in whose judgement
she and all the normal-thinking Arabs had complete con-
fidence.
The next day, however, there were complications again.
The reception at the railway station had been bungled. The
most important chiefs, who had had access to the platform,
had shaken hands with Sir Percy, but all the less important
had been herded together in a dusty enclosure outside the
190


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ lgi
station and had only caught a glimpse of the High Com-
missioner as he entered his car.
"We came in love and obedience," exclaimed an old
sheik, "and when we tried to get near his Excellency we
were pushed away."
When Gertrude heard of this she went cold all through,
in spite of the heat. This kind of small slight was most
difficult to remedy and would spread over the desert more
rapidly than an incident with a high-ranking Arab official
who knew something of the ways of the West. She went
at once to report what had happened to Mr. Philby; he took
up the matter with Sir Percy, who at once asked Gertrude
to do anything she thought fit to put things right.
In going into the grievances of the sheiks, Gertrude dis-
covered that there was an enormous number of other people
who should have had personal contact with the High Com-
missioner, and any discrimination would only aggravate the
ill-feeling. So she arranged interviews to take place in relays
of thirties, and while Sir Percy was receiving one group, Ger-
trude was entertaining the next to coffee and conversation
in the adjoining room. The whole idea worked out success-
fully and the ill-feeling was dispelled. The goodwill of the
Baghdadis was further enhanced by the news that British
troops had won a victory over the dissident tribes which
were now ready to make submission.
The question as to who should be first prime minister
now came up again. The Naquib—or, to quote his full title,
His Reverence Saiyid Abdurrahman Effendi, the Naquib
(chief noble) of Baghdad—one of the most important re-
ligious notables in Iraq and head of the Sunni community,
seemed to be the most obvious person.


192 GERTRUDE BELL
He traced his descent from Hussain, the grandson of the
Prophet, who had for a while been Khalif of Iraq.
The Naquib was an old friend of Gertrude and had con-
ferred on her the rather tiresome honour of looking after his
nargileh—which was continually breaking and flooding his
rooms and wasting so much of her time that she had to
create a department in the municipality to take over these
holy, though messy, duties.
Gertrude agreed with the choice for prime minister, al-
though she remarked confidentially that Sir Percy would be
held responsible no matter who was placed at the head of
the government. It seemed doubtful, however, whether the
Naquib would involve himself in these experiments in state
building. The great thing was to have something settled
quickly while the people were in the right mood.
Unfortunately Gertrude was taken ill with bronchitis at
this critical juncture and Sir Percy's many administrative
duties caused negotiations with embryo prime ministers to
come to a standstill. The notables were in despair until the
Mayor of Baghdad decided that he must see Gertrude, sick
or well. She received him in her dressing gown and heard
the bazaar gossip. In spite of feeling desperately ill she
knew the significance of this chatter and realized that if
she gave in now the work of years might crumble and fall.
So she told the Mayor to send all those who wished to talk
to her to her house.
Thus lying on her sofa she gave audiences. Fahad Bey,
who was one of her first visitors, had a simple and futile
plan to settle all the difficulties. He was followed by Ali
Sulaiman (the head Sheik of the Dulaim, one of the great
figures in Iraq and a staunch friend of England) with a


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 193
better solution than Fahad's, but one far from practical. A
host of sheiks from the Tigris and Euphrates valleys
swarmed into the sickroom and, after all talking at once,
went away with the impression that they would have a
government of Iraq according to their lights. In the evening
Sir Percy Cox and his staff came to hear what Gertrude had
discovered, and not until late at night was she allowed to
rest.
Gertrude's last visitor before matters were finally settled
was a man of great importance. It was Jaafar Pasha whose
background of adventure was even more amazing than
Lawrence's.
A Baghdadi born, he had joined the Turko-German
armies at the outbreak of war and had proved himself so
brilliant a leader that when Enver Pasha wanted someone
to organize the Senussi levies he had been chosen. Shipped
to Africa in a submarine he led the desert tribesmen in
successful actions against the British until he was captured
by the Dorsetshire Yeomanry and imprisoned in Cairo. He
at once made an attempt to escape but fell, getting out of
the window, and broke his ankle which led to his recapture.
While convalescing in the hospital he read in the papers of
Lawrence's and Faisal's revolt in the desert and of the
Turks' reprisals against Arab Nationalists. A sudden doubt
came over him that he might be fighting on the wrong side,
and as soon as he was able to get about he volunteered to
join the British. Sent to Lawrence's headquarters, his per-
sonality and prestige made themselves at once felt and im-
bued the Revolt with new life. Throughout the merciless
campaign in Arabia, Jaafar led Faisal's northern army with
such brilliance that he was awarded the C.M.G. which was


194 GERTRUDE BELL
presented to him by General Allenby in person, while his
guard of honour was furnished by the Dorsetshire Yeo-
manry!
Jaafar's support of the new regime in Baghdad was, there-
fore, of the utmost importance, and Gertrude used all her
eloquence to make him see that it was his duty as a patriot
to assist in establishing Arab institutions of whatever form
his experience told him would be best. If he and others
like him acted boldly, relying on British support, the people
would follow. Jaafar took his leave, promising his full col-
laboration.
Jaafar had hardly gone when Sir Percy came joyfully to
Gertrude to announce that the Naquib had agreed to form
a government. For half an hour Sir Percy and Gertrude
sat congratulating each other on the surmounting of their
first great obstacle. This relief from anxiety gave Gertrude
a good night's rest and set her on the road to recovery.
But although the big obstacle had been surmounted, the
tribulations of government making were far from over. The
week following the acceptance of the premiership by the
Naquib was filled with anxiety, owing to the attitude of
various men who thought it was their right to be cabinet
ministers. It was rather like dealing with a crowd of children
who will not act in a play unless they all have the leading
r6les. Jaafar Pasha kept his word and became Minister of
Defence, but the members of the different political and
religious factions showed obstinacy in giving their disinter-
ested support.
Gertrude was the only person who had the least influence
with the creators of controversy. Sir Percy Cox's other po-
litical officers would put forward the most convincing argu-


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 195
ments and the men concerned would smile enigmatically
and not alter their opinions. Then Gertrude would be called
in and, casting aside all Oriental etiquette, speak as she had
to the Chief Eunuch in Hayil when he would not let her
leave the city. The polite smile would disappear and be re-
placed by an attentive silence as this woman poured out the
convictions of her heart. It was the genuineness of this con-
viction which always won the day. Gertrude loved the Arab
people and she wanted to see the country united under their
rule, which could only be done by everyone co-operating.
To those who have not lived among Orientals, the tre-
mendous feat which she performed in bringing all the fac-
tions together is hard to appreciate. It was not just a matter
of new politics, but an upheaval of the customs, which had
not changed for centuries, and the unbridling of a people
who had always been ruled with a heavy rein. There were
the Shiah obscurantists steeped in fanatical prejudices, the
genuine enthusiasts like Jaafar Pasha, the young hot-heads
who believed in revolution, the polished statesmen who
could not see eye to eye with the reformers and the fanatics,
the scholars who based all their ideas on tradition, and
those who had lived under the tyrannical rule of the Turks
and could not clearly visualize an independent government.
Eventually a Cabinet was formed under the Naquib and
had its first meeting on November 7, 1920. Everyone was
rather ill at ease, without the slightest conception of proce-
dure, and all that was discussed was the relations to be
between the ministers and their British advisers.
Sir Percy cleared up this question to the satisfaction of
the Cabinet and the ministers settled down to try to carry
out a little constructive work. There was immediate trouble


196 GERTRUDE BELL
from the Shiahs who, owing to their obstinacy, had no
member of their sect with a portfolio. A shuffle round had
to be made to remedy this. Trouble from the pro-Turkish
party, who were ex-Turkish employees and were opposed
to any form of Arab government. Trouble from ministers
who went behind the Cabinet's back to Sir Percy and Ger-
trude. The tact and calm of these two were superior to any-
thing Oriental.
Then when the situation seemed to be settling itself, an
unexpected bomb fell in the form of tribal risings. Sir
Percy's patience deserted him and he ordered immediate
military action. These desert people, worked up by fanatics,
would not understand anything but force, and as long as
they were in the possession of arms they would fight. Some
of the staff protested that it would be difficult to explain
British troops burning Arab villages at one end of the coun-
try and at the other end assuring the people that Great
Britain had handed over the rule of Iraq to native minis-
ters. But Sir Percy was adamant in his determination to
have peace and replied to his objectors that there would
be amnesty, but after submission. His Arm stand was re-
warded, and after a few round-ups of dissidents the desert,
for the moment, relapsed into its proverbial peace.
This particular situation brought up another question,
that of a native army which could gradually take over the
responsibilities of the British. The difficulty was in getting
men to join. The terms of the mandate forbade conscrip-
tion and it was evident that no one would become a soldier
unless he earned as much or more than a civilian of the
same status. The matter was placed in the hands of Jaafar
Pasha who confidently took over the difficult task and, in


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 197
less than a year, was able to form an efficient brigade of
Iraqui troops.
The next step in the remodelling of the constitution of
this ancient country was to establish some sort of electoral
law. The problem was handed to Gertrude to work out.
The paramount difficulty which at once came up was the
representation of the desert and the towns. If the Bedouins
were allowed the quota of representatives to which their
numbers entitled them, they would swamp the townspeople
and the desert would rule. The desert held the majority of
the population of Iraq, but a country under the leadership
of rival sheiks, with little idea about laws other than those of
necessity created in the camp, would soon became chaotic.
Gertrude was at first puzzled as to how to get out of the
quandary, but, after many conferences with those con-
cerned, an admirable scheme was evolved whereby the rep-
resentation would be by divisions of the country and not
by specified tribes.
This plan was duly put into effect to the general satisfac-
tion of everyone.
Whom to appoint as the ruler of Iraq was the next conun-
drum to be solved. On Christmas Day 1920 a deputation
of the towns' notables and desert chiefs called on Gertrude
and asked whom she suggested for their king. Without hesi-
tation, she replied:
"A son of the Sharif, and for choice the Emir Faisal."
The Sharif, to whom Gertrude referred, was Husain Ibn
Ali, the Emir of Mecca and the chief instrument in bring-
ing about Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert. At this time he
was King of the Hejaz, but liked to style himself King of
the Arab countries. Faisal was his third son and a direct


198 GERTRUDE BELL
descendant of Husain the eldest child of Fatima, the favour-
ite daughter of Mohammed, who married the Prophet's
adopted son Ali.
Like Mohammed, Faisal had been brought up among
the tribesmen of the desert, and although his education was
completed in Constantinople he remained at heart a nomad.
Before the war he had identified himself with the Arab
national movement, but at the outbreak of hostilities had
found himself obliged to work for the Turks. He managed
to escape to the Hejaz in 1915 where Lawrence encoun-
tered him, and it was with and through him that the Revolt
in the Desert was carried out.
Writing of Faisal, Lawrence1 says:
"He was a man of moods, flickering between glory and de-
spair ... his dark, appealing eyes, set a little sloping in his face,
were bloodshot, and his hollow cheeks deeply lined and puck-
ered with reflection. His nature grudged thinking, for it crip-
pled his speed in action: the labour of it shrivelled his features
into swift lines of pain. In appearance he was tall, graceful and
vigorous, with the most beautiful gait, and a royal dignity of
head and shoulders. Of course he knew it and a great part of
his public expression was by sign and gesture.
"His movements were impetuous. He showed himself hot
tempered and sensitive, even unreasonable, and he ran off soon
on tangents. Appetite and physical weakness were mated in
him with the spur of courage. His personal charm, his im-
prudence, the pathetic hint of frailty as the sole reserve of his
proud character made him the idol of his followers. One never
asked if he were unscrupulous; but later he showed that he
could return trust for trust, suspicion for suspicion. He was
fuller of wit than of humour.
"His training in Abdul Hamid's entourage had made him
past master in diplomacy. His military service with the Turks
1 From "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," by T. E. Lawrence, copyright, 1926,
1935, by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.


200
GERTRUDE BELL
as to whether it would be advisable for the authorities to
forcibly back up the Emir's candidature. Quite unofficially
then, she began to make use of Haji Naji on behalf of
Faisal and when the king-to-be landed in Iraq she sent the
old gardener with a laisser passer to the British Resident in
Basrah. There is probably no record of this visit and the
emissary himself was unaware of the importance of his
mission, but to Haji Naji is greatly due the reception Faisal
met from his future subjects.
It was the Bell touch which never failed when dealing
with the Arabs.
The stage, however, was not yet set for the proclaiming
of a king. The rivalry between the Sunnis and the Shiahs
was becoming more and more bitter. The former were ad-
vocating a Turkish prince for the throne on the ground
that he would be a better bulwark against the Shiahs than
a son of the Sharif. Having the preponderance in the Cabi-
net, the Sunnis were doing all in their power to give the
most important administrative posts, even in Shiah districts,
to members of their sect. They could not be made to appre-
ciate that a popular government must have representatives
of all the inhabitants, to govern the country.
The Shiahs were so bitter about the turn of events that
they made it known that they would prefer a British ad-
ministration to anything remotely Sunni. Sir Percy and Ger-
trude had to move warily, knowing that when it came to
the point a Moslem would never dare to raise his voice
against another Moslem and in favour of an infidel, even if
it were the kind of Moslem he despised. Gertrude never
lost faith in Faisal as the ideal ruler and to that end she
worked regardless of the controversies over his appointment.


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 201
In the intervals of kingdom building there were relaxa-
tions. Dinner parties at Government House and teas in
Gertrude's rose-scented garden when political differences of
opinion were forgotten. The greatest social event was a race
meeting.
The most important thing in an Arab's life is his horse.
Apart from the fact that it is his means of transportation,
the Arab loves horses. When one visits an Arab of impor-
tance in his home one is not introduced to the family, but
to the horses. After whatever meal one has taken, the host
calls for the horses and they come flocking round unhar-
nessed and make friends with the guest. A race meeting,
therefore, appealed to all the various warring contingents
who were trying to run Iraq and for a few days nothing else
was thought of.
Sir Percy Cox saw to it that it should all be done on a
grand scale, and on "Cup Day" he appeared on the course
wearing a frock coat and a grey tall hat which caused a
more profound sensation than any speeches about the
might of Britain. Gertrude had a new Paris hat and gown
and looked as if she were dressed for the Royal Enclosure
at Ascot, while the rest of the staff had appropriate cos-
tumes.
It must have been a charming spectacle, this small group
of English people who were living in constant fear of their
lives, dressing in formal clothes and going to the races as
if they had no other interests. It must have been an amaz-
ing picture to see Baghdadis in their rich robes and austere
Shiahs and fanatical Sunnis mixing with the Bedouins of
the desert as they made their bets. It must have been the


202 GERTRUDE BELL
most exciting thing in the world to watch the pure-bred
Arab horses flashing round the course mounted by jockeys
who had never heard of pulling, and riding to win only.
When the meeting was over Sir Percy made a speech, the
Naquib made a speech, Gertrude was called for but said
little, and Lady Cox gave away the cups. It was all as peace-
ful as a summer afternoon in an English village with that
same spirit of sportsmanship which exists in the country in
England.
However, horse racing could not go on indefinitely, and
with the end of the meeting the troubles started again. The
new controversy arose over the question as to whether am-
nesty should be granted to political prisoners and those who
had brought about rebellion. Sir Percy was in favour of
letting bygones be bygones and starting afresh. This was
difficult for the Arabs to understand. Their only concep-
tion of ethics in situations of this nature was those based
on desert lore. If they raided, they expected to be raided
back, and if they had the misfortune to be defeated they
could not hope for mercy. Gertrude eventually took the
matter in hand and gave a dinner party to all those involved
in the controversy. The results were highly successful and
the guests parted promising to behave in the future in a
brotherly way!
Shortly after this there was a further suspension in state
building brought about by the Cairo Conference. Mr. Win-
ston Churchill had just been made Secretary of State for
the Colonies and he wanted to obtain first-hand informa-
tion on what was being done in the Near East.


204 GERTRUDE BELL
leagues would show the same tenacity as the slaves of
Pharaoh.
In 1915 Gertrude had been just one of the many called
in to advise on her specialized knowledge of Arabia. Now
she was one of the most important members of the confer-
ence, and the Secretary of State would not only listen to
her attentively but act on her suggestions.
To the surprise of everyone, among the members of Mr.
Churchill's staff was T. E. Lawrence. After the Paris Peace
Conference and the repudiation by the governments of the
Allies of his promises to the Arabs, Lawrence had retired
from public life in disgust. Now he came, sinking his proud
personality, to help in the common cause, possibly in the
hope of redeeming some of the pledges he had made to his
Arab friends. In many ways he succeeded, but when the
conference was over and he was offered practically any post
at the disposal of the Colonial Office he withdrew again
and this time sank his individuality completely by assuming
another name and joining the R.A.F. as a private.
Gertrude was pleased to be again with the man who
shared her love of the desert and its people, and they once
more walked by the Nile where six years previously they
had been just Mr. Lawrence and Miss Bell who had solu-
tions to the problems of the Near East which hardly any-
one appreciated.
Gertrude's main objective at the Cairo Conference was
to have Faisal's candidacy for the throne of Iraq definitely
backed by the British Government. Her attitude in this
case was definitely feminine. She knew Faisal and she liked
him. These factors stood out in his favour before anything
else. He was a man with a strong and engaging personality,


208 GERTRUDE BELL
to what constituted a guard of honour. The final question
baffled the clearest thinkers. How about a national flag?
The country had none ...
Gertrude attended the first meeting of the reception com-
mittee and, realizing that it would be more of a hindrance
than a help, left it to argue and went about arranging the
details herself. She called on the railway officials and had a
special train made up to fetch Faisal from Basrah. The
only suitable place she could think of in which to lodge
the Emir was the old government offices, at that time in
a state of disrepair. Gertrude approached the Public Works
Department, which was about as efficient an organization
as the reception committee, and demanded action. This was
merely a formality and, having received the vague replies
she anticipated, she set out for the bazaar. She had the
notables produce costly carpets for the floors of the Emir's
residence and rich hangings for the walls; she had the
merchants find furniture and crockery and silver, she dele-
gated Fattuh to collect suitable and competent servants.
She then went home and designed a temporary flag for
Iraq and had it made up. She superintended the drilling
of the guard of honour, dismissed the reception committee,
which was still arguing frenziedly, and then went to bed.
On June 23rd Faisal arrived in Basrah and was accorded
a splendid welcome. Sir Percy and Gertrude- felt relieved
and, in a lesser state of tension, waited for the Emir's move
to Baghdad. There was some little delay on the programme
as scheduled, for, like all Orientals to whom dates are merely
convenient means of remembering historical events, he
thought nothing of spending a day here and a day there on


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 200.
his way north, so that it was not until June 29th that the
official arrival was announced.
At six in the morning the town was seething with sight-
seers, the walls of the houses were decorated with lovely
carpets and Gertrude's Sharifian flag flew at every possible
point. At six-thirty the notables began to arrive at the sta-
tion in reversed seniority and were followed by the Cabinet.
At seven, Sir Percy Cox and Gertrude, with the staff, mo-
tored up in their ceremonial dress. The guard of honour
successfully presented arms; there was a general shaking of
hands and then a breathless wait. The greatest moment in
the history of Iraq was approaching—but nothing happened.
The sun became hotter and hotter, the Europeans damper
and damper, the talk more and more strained, and then
came a message that there had been a landslide on the rail-
way and a rumour that the Emir was coming by motor car!
The feeling of anticlimax became tinged with Oriental
fatalism. Sir Percy greeted those whom he had omitted to
handshake before, the staff made conversation and Ger-
trude tried to keep a straight face.
The sun rose higher and higher and the heat became in-
tolerable. Then another message. The landslide had been
cleared away and Faisal would arrive in his train at noon.
Sir Percy briskly took command. The middle of a June day
in Baghdad is an unfit time for any member ofc the human
race to be out of doors. A message was accordingly sent to
Faisal asking him to wait in his train until the evening and
make his arrival at six p.m. The High Commissioner, the
Cabinet and the notables then drove back to their resi-
dences through crowds buzzing with contradictory rumours.


210 GERTRUDE BELL
At five-thirty that evening the same procedure as in the
morning was observed. Flags, guards of honour, handshak-
ing, uniforms, and Gertrude on tenterhooks lest any other
contretemps should arise. The hour of six approached and
then, to everyone's relief, the train was heard wheezing over
the desert.
As the engine creaked to a standstill at the platform,
Faisal was seen, tall and magnificent in his robes, standing
at the carriage door. The guard of honour presented arms,
Faisal saluted, the dignitaries applauded and Sir Percy ad-
vanced and shook the Emir's hand. Gertrude kept herself
in the background, but Faisal was looking for her and, go-
ing to her, took both her hands in silent greeting which
said more than all the speeches and all the cheers.
Similarly, on the day following the reception, when Ger-
trude had gone to Faisal's quarters to leave an official card
the Emir heard that she was there and at once sent an
A.D.C. to call her in. As she entered his apartments he
once more grasped both her hands and, with emotion in his
voice, said:
"I couldn't have believed that you could have given me
so much help as you have given me."
For a while they sat side by side talking, Faisal telling
Gertrude that, as long as she remained, no harm could
come to Iraq. As she said goodbye, he added:
"Wherever I go, the people ask: Is Miss Bell satisfied?"
The official receptions and interchange of visits cul-
minated with a banquet held in the Maude Gardens. The
place was lit with coloured lanterns, concealed musicians
played softly in the warm darkness as rare dishes were served
to the guests reclining on rich carpets. After the meal the


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 211
most distinguished poets of Baghdad recited odes in honour
of the Emir. It was a picture straight out of the Arabian
Nights, an atmosphere of peace of long ago with all politi-
cal differences of opinion forgotten . . .
But there were differences of opinion, masses of them.
The tribes of the lower Euphrates were not sure that they
wanted a king and there were plenty of discontents to fan
ill-feeling in the cities. Gertrude and Sir Percy knew that
these troublemakers were in the minority and that once
Faisal was proclaimed king they would fade away. His bear-
ing and personality had already captured the imagination of
all those in Baghdad, regardless of sect or creed. The prob-
lem was how to get the election over quickly. It would take
at least two months to obtain a referendum from the whole
country, and anything, including a change of policy in Eng-
land, might occur during that period.
It was the Naquib who took the matter into his own
hands and on July nth proposed a resolution to the Coun-
cil of Ministers, which was unanimously approved, that the
Emir Faisal should be declared king without the formali-
ties of a general election. It was a simple Oriental way of
dealing with a complicated situation and Sir Percy was de-
lighted at this turn of events. At the same time he had to re-
member that he was responsible to a Cabinet of Occidental-
minded ministers in England and an official proclamation
could not be made until the referendum had been taken.
However, Faisal was now, to all intents and purposes, king
and the setting in motion of the machinery to have him
elected by the people had become a formality.
The Naquib gave another Arabian Nights banquet to
celebrate this decision in his own palace opposite the


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 213
I
sembly, and when he insisted that the Jews and the Arabs
were of the same race, an audible sigh of relief went round
the building. Faisal talked to many of those present at the
party and when he left he had gained the support of every
Jew in Baghdad.
In the intervals of feasting there was practical work to
be done. New laws to be drafted, proclamations to be pre-
pared and, curiously enough, the instruction of Faisal in
the geography of Iraq!
As a matter of fact this was not quite as peculiar as might
be supposed. Mesopotamia had been under the traditional
sovereignty of the Sharifian family for centuries, but Faisal
had spent most of his life in Arabia and knew less of Iraq
than a Bengali might know of the Punjab. The country and
its new boundaries had come into being as a separate State
during the war and, as Gertrude had been greatly responsi-
ble for its creation, it was she who was deputed to teach
the new king about his frontiers.
The most dramatic function of all the proclamation cere-
monies was the swearing allegiance to Faisal by the desert
people. The spot chosen for the rite was Ramadi on the
Euphrates, the headquarters of Ali Sulaiman, the Sheik of
the Dulaim. From before daybreak, crowds of tribal horse-
men, in their flowing robes and fully armed, waited for
miles on either side of the road. The villages and oases
were decorated with brightly-coloured carpets and as Faisal
moved slowly along towards the black ceremonial tent
pitched in the desert, the mounted warriors galloped about
firing their rifles and shouting wildly in incredible clouds
of dust.


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 215
Faisal continued in ringing tones, "any tribesman who lifts
a hand against a tribesman is responsible to me—I will be
your judge ... I have my rights over you as your Lord."
A grey-bearded old sheik interrupted:
"And our rights?"
"And you have your rights as subjects which it is my
business to guard!" he replied.
"Yes, yes, the truth by Allah, yes, by Allah!" shouted the
chiefs, making the desert re-echo as the nomads outside
took up the cry. It was magnificent, a tribal gathering of
the old, old days long before Islam and the Prophet.
When the cheering had died down Ali Sulaiman and
Fahad Bey rose and said slowly:
"We swear allegiance to you because you are acceptable
to the British Government."
Faisal looked up with a momentary expression of sur-
prise and then, smiling at Gertrude, replied:
"No one can doubt what my relations are to the British
... but we must settle our affairs ourselves."
He looked again at Gertrude who clasped her two hands
together as a symbol of the union between the Arabs and
the British. There was a moment of complete silence and
then a tremendous shout of approval which was once more
taken up by the tribesmen outside the tent.
Gertrude closed her eyes, feeling that tears would be the
only relief to the emotions which welled up in her at find-
ing all that she had dreamed of and worked for, against
such odds, had been realized .. .
For the next hour the sheiks approached Faisal in turn
and, laying their hands in his, swore allegiance.
In the afternoon followed the rite of swearing allegiance


2l6 GERTRUDE BELL
by the villages and oases. From the whole width and breadth
of Iraq all the Mayors and Qazis and notables had gathered
by the Euphrates. The ceremony took place in the palm-
shaded greenness of an oasis. A lofty dais had been erected
against a blank wall draped with carpets. Faisal took his
place on the dais with Gertrude, while the notables sat in
rows beneath. As each one's turn came he walked slowly
up and laid his hands in those of the Emir with the same
ritual as observed by the Bedouins. The atmosphere was
perhaps not as dramatic as at the ceremony of the morn-
ing, but it was very beautiful. There was much more
colour . . . the green of the feathery palm trees, the red
kerchiefs of the elders, the bright carpets, the white tur-
bans and, above it all, the immense dignity of Faisal.
As Gertrude rode back with him and his suite through
the gardens of the oasis to find their lodging, everyone paid
as much respect to the English-woman as to the Emir. Fahad
Bey watched the salutations with a satisfied smile and said:
"One of the reasons why you stand out is because you
are a woman. There is only one Miss Bell. It is like when
Sidi Faisal was in London and wore his Arab dress, there
was no one like him; so for a hundred years they will talk
of Miss Bell riding by."


218 GERTRUDE BELL
thority slipping from him through this new-fangled idea):
God is my witness, if that's it I'm not a Magratil . ..
As a matter of fact, no one really cared what outward
form the government took. All that the tribesmen and
townspeople wanted was peace and prosperity after the tur-
moils of war. Faisal appealed to them by his name and per-
sonality; they knew that the British were behind him, and
Gertrude advocated his candidature for the throne: so they
elected him.
On Tuesday August 23, 1921, Faisal al Husain was
crowned King of Iraq.
In the centre of the great courtyard of the government
buildings a dais had been erected. Priceless carpets hung
from all the windows and strewed the paving. On either
side of the dais a guard of honour of the Dorsetshire Regi-
ment in full dress was drawn up, and crowding into the
rest of the courtyard were deputations of chiefs and notables
from all over the country in their picturesque robes. It was
just after sunrise and the air still had a little of the flower-
scented coolness of the night.
As the sun sent its first burning rays into the courtyard
Sir Percy in uniform, his breast glittering with decorations,
followed by the members of his staff, paced down the path
of rich carpets. Faisal, dignified but evidently undergoing a
great mental strain, walked beside the High Commissioner.
He anxiously scanned the rows of privileged guests and, see-
ing Gertrude, gave her an almost imperceptible nod which
she returned with a smile of encouragement.
As soon as the royal party was established on the dais, the
Naquib's son stood up and read the proclamation which


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 210.
announced that ninety-six per cent of the population of
Iraq had elected Faisal their King. Everyone in the assem-
bly rose to his feet to salute the new monarch with a cry
of: "Long live the King!" The band of the Dorsetshires
struck up "God Save the King" as Gertrude, having neglected
her music studies in her youth, had found it impossible to
compose an Iraqui national anthem, and her famous flag
was broken at the flagstaff, while guns boomed twenty-one
times over the sluggish waters of the Tigris.
Sir Percy then read out the decree announcing that His
Britannic Majesty recognized the Emir Faisal as the right-
ful King of Iraq. He was followed by the aged Naquib who
respectfully tendered his resignation and that of the Cabi-
net. Faisal held the hands of the Prime Minister to whom
he owed so much and begged him to remain in office. The
Naquib bowed and was about to retire when Sir Percy
stopped him. Laying the blade of his sword on the old man's
shoulder, he made it known that, in recognition of his in-
valuable services to his country and the wise counsel which he
had given to Britain's representatives in Iraq, His Majesty
King George V had been pleased to confer on him the high
distinction of Knight Grand Commander of the British Em-
pire. There was a great cheer; and the historic ceremony,
superb in its simplicity, was over.
Gertrude and Sir Percy walked to their waiting car through
the lines of delighted Baghdadis, smiling their responses to
the congratulations being expressed on all sides and genu-
inely relieved that the main goal of their enterprise had
been reached. As they parted Gertrude remarked, almost to
herself:


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 221
tribal standard, which would be more important than the
local banners.
That Gertrude was right in her views on this subject be-
came more apparent as the problems of the outlying dis-
tricts of Iraq become more acute.
While there was a stable government in Baghdad and
the immediate vicinity, the frontiers of the new State and
the neighbouring countries were still in turmoil. The Kurds
still had leanings towards the Turks and it was easy for
Turkish propagandists to stir up strife. To the southwest,
Ibn Saud had taken possession of Hayil and become aggres-
sive, permitting raids into the tribal areas ruled by Faisal.
Eventually Sir Percy Cox decided that action was the only
thing which dissidents understood. This action was greatly
facilitated by the putting into force of a measure, decided
on principle at the Cairo Conference, that all the troops in
Iraq should be under the supervision of the Royal Air
Force. Air Marshal Sir John Salmond took over command
in October of 1922 and began immediately to vigorously
oppose any sign of rebellion. On the smallest provocation
air raids were instituted with the result that in a few months
the Turkish propagandists disappeared and the warring
tribesmen returned to their pastures. The extremist Na-
tionalists in Baghdad, however, seized the opportunity to
suggest that the insurrections and the subsequent raids had
been instituted to make Iraq realize the extent of its de-
pendence on Great Britain.
The atmosphere was highly charged and it looked as if
the work carried out by Gertrude and Sir Percy Cox would,
after all, come to nothing. The King and his ministers went


222 GERTRUDE BELL
about their business as if everything was running smoothly,
but the feeling was one of restless uncertainty.
The crisis came on the first anniversary of the King's
accession. It was a stifling August morning when Gertrude,
wearing for the first time all her war medals and decora-
tions on a lace dress, accompanied Sir Percy to the palace.
They found the courtyard packed with a crowd of white-
robed people who remained sulkily silent and without a
sign of recognition when the High Commissioner arrived.
Before, however, he could make any comment to Gertrude,
he found himself surrounded by policemen who had practi-
cally to clear a passage through the sullen multitude. As he
made his way up the palace staircase a voice shouted some-
thing insulting and was followed by applause and boos. Sir
Percy took no notice and went into the audience chamber
where he found the King looking nervous and ill at ease.
Still maintaining an attitude of being unaware of anything
untoward, Sir Percy offered his formal congratulations and
left with his staff.
As soon as they reached Government House, Sir Percy
took Gertrude aside and told her to find out what had
occurred outside the palace. In an hour Gertrude came
back with the information that the crowd in question was
composed of Nationalists who had staged an anti-British,
anti-mandate demonstration. She added that this was but a
preliminary of worse to come.
Sir Percy was very angry but he said nothing, and took no
further action that day. He waited until the anniversary
celebrations were over, and early the next morning called
at the palace. He found the household in an atmosphere of
chaos. During the night the King had had a severe attack


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 223
of appendicitis and two English and three Arab doctors
were about to operate. It was the most critical moment in
the history of Iraq and any weakness when the ruler might
be on his deathbed could bring disaster.
Sir Percy acted with his usual promptness and forceful-
ness. He at once issued a proclamation explaining the situa-
tion and calling on all persons who had the welfare of the
country at heart to rally round the High Commissioner and
resist any form of violence on the part of the extremists. At
the same time the revolutionary ringleaders were arrested,
no meetings were allowed and certain seditious newspapers
were suppressed. Simultaneously, two holy men from Per-
sia who had had much to do with the anti-British, anti-
mandate demonstrations were advised to take a holiday if
they valued the good state of their health. In the interior
of Iraq all Arab officials suspected of sympathizing with the
revolutionaries were dismissed or transferred to other posts.
The effect of these measures was instantaneous, and, by
the beginning of September, the whole of Iraq was quiet.
As soon as the King was convalescent, he received Sir
Percy and publicly thanked him for the action which had
been taken while he was ill.
The atmosphere was further cleared by an announce-
ment by Winston Churchill that the mandate would end
the day Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations.
The autumn and winter came and went in tranquillity.
Gertrude was able to give more time to her archaeology and
continue her collecting for the Baghdad Museum. C. L.
Woolley, no longer in uniform, appeared in Iraq as head
of a mission sent out by the British Museum and Pennsyl-
vania University, and became Gertrude's friendly collabora-


224 GERTRUDE BELL
tor in spite of the fact that he was collecting for a rival
museum. The Baghdadis had had their excitement, the
tribesmen had scented war and, realizing that Sir Percy
never threatened without the intention of carrying out his
threats, decided that it was better policy to keep quiet.
Actually the great majority of the people of Iraq genuinely
wanted to work. For years their agriculture and commerce
had practically ceased to function because of inter-tribal
strife, and there was a great deal of poverty and want. No
one realized this more than Faisal and his two faithful Brit-
ish friends, and together they set to work to remedy the
ravages of years of strife.
Sir Percy's duties were naturally concentrated on the offi-
cial administration of the country and it fell to Gertrude
to handle the more personal aspect of the national prob-
lems. In this she found an ally and friend in the King; and
an understanding intimacy, probably unprecedented be-
tween an Occidental woman and an Oriental man, de-
veloped between the two collaborators. Their trains of
thought followed such similar lines that it was almost im-
possible to believe that Faisal had not had the British up-
bringing and the Oxford education of Gertrude.
If the King had a knotty problem to solve, he would call
Gertrude over to the palace for a cup of tea and discuss
what he had in his mind as informally as if he had been
with his family. In the early morning he would ride with
Gertrude among the gardens of the oasis and sometimes
make a surprise call on Haji Naji or some other landowner.
There would be more informal talking over tea, and splen-
did propaganda made for the King among the humbler
citizens of Baghdad. In the evening Gertrude would often


226 GERTRUDE BELL
party broke up with the most violent antagonists hobnob-
bing as if they had never had a difference of opinion in
their lives.
Gertrude had that uncanny instinct with Orientals which
made it possible for her to do things which other Occi-
dentals, who had spent years in the East, could not attempt.
She never approached that state which is referred to as "go-
ing native," and while not offending traditions or customs,
she treated them in a practical way.
Again and again she would find herself faced with situa-
tions which required unhesitating action. Sometimes they
were matters of political importance, sometimes simple in-
cidents of daily life. But she met each and every contingency
with an alert mind which out-thought those of the other
parties concerned.
She was breakfasting one morning in one of the gardens
of the oasis with Haji Naji, when an unpleasant looking
Dervish strode into the summer-house where the meal was
laid and announced that he had come as a guest. Gertrude's
host told the man to go away. The only reply was a lot of
blustering and a statement to the effect that he had as
much right to share breakfast as the infidel woman. The
host called to his servants and ordered them to remove the
Dervish; but before hands could be laid on him he had sat
down outside the summer-house and, taking a Koran from
out of his robes, begun to read aloud. The breakfast-giver
was in a quandary. The Dervish was being a nuisance, but,
as long as he sat reading the Koran, his action must be re-
garded as a blessing and he could not be moved.
Gertrude had resented being referred to as a female in-
fidel, and for a while she said nothing, but when the man's


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 22J
reading became so loud that she could not hear herself
speak she got up and told the reader to be gone! The man
replied:
"I am reading the Koran."
"I can hear you are," retorted Gertrude sarcastically,
"and if you don't stop immediately and go away, I shall
send for the police!"
"I rely on God," answered the man irrelevantly.
"God is a long way off and the police are very near," said
Gertrude acidly.
The man pretended he had not heard this blasphemy
and went on reading his Koran, so Gertrude picked up his
staff and poked him in the ribs. The Dervish stared in
amazement at this extraordinary female who blasphemed
and then assaulted one of God's elect, but there was no
mistaking her future intentions as to his person; so he got
up and meekly went on his way, and Gertrude never heard
another word about the incident.
Gertrude was now 6fty-three, so she decided that it was
time to take up flying.
Flying in the desert presents great dangers. There are,
to begin with, unpleasant air pockets; and secondly, almost
certainty of dying of thirst and starvation if one is forced to
land anywhere which is not within sight of a caravan track.
But these risks did not worry Gertrude; riding to Hayil had
not bothered her, so why should flying?
Her first long flight was to see her father. They had not
met for some time, and as he could not come all the way
to Baghdad Gertrude suggested a rendezvous in Jerusalem.
All plans were made and at nine one morning, accompanied


228 GERTRUDE BELL
by a British military plane, she started on her flight. Sir
Hugh Bell drove out to the aerodrome and soon two specks
appeared in the eastern sky. Before one o'clock Gertrude
had made a perfect landing and was in her father's arms.
That night she put on a new frock, which Sir Hugh had
brought out from England, and went to dinner with Faisal's
brother, the Emir of Transjordan.
A fortnight later she flew back to Baghdad, declaring that
airplanes were the only sensible method of transportation
in the desert!
The political situation in Iraq, though more settled, was
not all that Sir Percy had hoped for. He was all the more
disappointed as his term of office was coming to an end and
he wanted to retire with a feeling that something permanent
had been accomplished. One of the main problems which
still faced the High Commissioner was the Turkish propa-
ganda which based itself chiefly on a rumour that Iraq was
to be returned to Turkey. This rumour was given strength
by the conciliatory attitude of the Allied Powers at the
Lausanne Conference.
Sir Percy felt that the government of Iraq must take a
more vigorous line of action to meet these emergencies, and
the Naquib was no longer the right man to hold the all-
important position of Prime Minister. He was getting very
old and could hardly walk unassisted. Gertrude had several
confidential talks with him and was able to convey to Sir
Percy that the aged man would be glad to resign. The resig-
nation was, accordingly, arranged without friction or ill-
feeling, and a younger and more vigorous man, Abdul
Muhsin Bey, became Premier and at once reconstructed the
Cabinet.


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 229
This problem solved, another complication presented it-
self with a change of government in England in which there
was a large faction which still favoured the evacuation of all
Near Eastern mandates by the British.
Luckily for Iraq, Sir Percy was able to go to England at
the beginning of 1923 and take part in the discussions about
the future of the country. His eloquence on behalf of King
Faisal and his insistence that it was imperative not to alter
existing conditions were successful, and he returned to Bagh-
dad in March with a new treaty. The new treaty pleased the
Iraquis, as it reduced the maintenance of the original mili-
tary and commercial agreements between the two countries
from a period of twenty years to four, with a stipulation
that it could be renewed or abrogated or changed if it was
thought advisable by both signatories.
The ratification of this treaty by the High Commissioner
and the Prime Minister was Sir Percy Cox's last official act
in Iraq, and early in May he left the country for good.
Sir Percy's departure created an irreparable blank in Ger-
trude's life. She had been working with him for over six
years, not so much as one of his official staff but as a con-
fidential collaborator. When she joined him in 1916 he had
already spent thirty years in the Orient as a political officer,
and there was little he did not know about Persia and Meso-
potamia. Gertrude had not been so long in the East, but
she was an expert on the subject and knew it from a differ-
ent point of view than that of the High Commissioner.
Whereas Sir Percy was a government servant who, by force
of circumstances, had been obliged to deal with people and
situations officially, Gertrude saw the countries and their
inhabitants from another angle. There could not have been


230 GERTRUDE BELL
a better combination of two people in harness working for a
common end, and it is doubtful whether the results achieved
would have been possible without this team.
Throughout the harassing years of war when defeat threat-
ened the British forces in Mesopotamia, and during the
anxious period of peace-making, Gertrude and Sir Percy had
but one objective: the creation of an Arab kingdom. When
this was finally achieved and Sir Percy reluctantly went into
retirement, Gertrude felt as if some physical part of herself
had been torn away.
As Sir Percy and Gertrude drove from Government House
to the Station, on the morning of the High Commissioner's
departure, they made no attempt at conversation. The
houses were decorated and throngs of silent people lined
the familiar streets. On the platform were all the officials in
Baghdad and a number of desert chiefs, and, though the
Arab is not given to tears, there were many who had a tight
feeling about their throats as they shook hands with the
man who had stood by them during their years of travail.
Sir Percy entered the train, the signal of its departure was
given and slowly it went creaking over the desert while Ger-
trude stood with blurred eyes, oblivious of all those about
her.


CHAPTER XVII
Sir Henry Dobbs, who succeeded Sir Percy Cox as High
Commissioner, had been Counsellor at Government House
for over a year. He knew the country and its problems and
had been a colleague of Sir Percy during the war. Most of
his previous official service had been in India. Sir Henry
and Gertrude knew each other well and held each other in
high esteem. It was, nevertheless, a change of regime, and,
although Gertrude felt that she could never completely
divorce herself from the country which she had made her
home, she did not want to cling to a post merely because
she had held it for some time. Her actual task in the making
of Iraq into a kingdom was finished, but her advice and
assistance in handling the Arabs could still be of great value,
and physically she did not suggest her years.
Marguerite Harrison, writing in the New York Times,
said of Gertrude:
"When I was first in Baghdad in 1923 I had the privilege of
seeing Gertrude Bell on many occasions. The first time that I
met her was by appointment at her office. After waiting for a
few moments I was ushered into a small room with a high ceil-
ing and long French windows facing the river. It was the un-
tidiest room I have ever seen, chairs, tables and sofas being
littered with documents, maps, pamphlets and papers. At a
desk piled high with documents that had overflowed onto the
carpet sat a slender woman in a smart frock of knitted silk. As
*3»


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 233
without which there would be dislocation both of public busi-
ness and of private amenities."
To Gertrude's satisfaction and relief, Sir Henry showed
that he had every intention of carrying on Sir Percy Cox's
policy of firmness with the discontents and propagandists.
His first act was to move a mixed force of British and
Iraqui troops to Mosul. That Mosul should be embodied in
the mandatory area was of paramount importance. In addi-
tion to being a strategic point vital to Iraq in a military
way (the Zagros mountain system in which it lay forming
an impregnable protective zone to the whole of the Tigris
and Euphrates valleys), it was commercially invaluable. It
was a tremendous grain growing centre and a wool market,
but above all it held one of the richest oil fields of the world.
Great Britain could not afford to let this oil fall into other
hands, and the British delegation in Geneva was entirely in
accord with Sir Henry Dobbs over the question of Mosul,
which gave him a free hand in handling the problems in
this part of the country.
Often when Gertrude was drawing up reports about the
Mosul oil fields her mind wandered back to those carefree
days, long ago, when on her way to Tehran to stay with her
uncle she had been taken to see the "Naphtha Springs" near
Batoum which were exploited at such a loss! Now, with the
passage of barely thirty years, this oil, which had been made
use of by the people of Nineveh two thousand years before
Christ, was important enough for Britain to risk the re-
kindling of war in the Near East.
The mixed force dispatched by Sir Henry camped on the
site of Nineveh on the opposite side of the Tigris to Mosul
and was joined by units of the Royal Air Force. Turkish


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 235
the year the enormous task of registering the electors had
been completed.
This was preceded by a reshuffling of the Cabinet, the
resignation of Abdul Muhsin Bey, and the appointment of
Jaafar Pasha as Prime Minister.
Gertrude, seeing that all Sir Percy's projects were being
carried through by his successor, allowed herself some re-
laxation. She continued giving her advice when it was re-
quired and kept in touch with what was going on behind
the scenes, but she could now find more time for less nerve-
straining pursuits.
Always devoted to horses and anything related to them,
she felt that they might be the means of bringing the British
and the Arabs closer together. The famous race meeting in
those days of tension had shown how political differences
could be forgotten when horses held the first place. So she
suggested the formation of Arab polo teams, and found in
the officers of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, now stationed in
Baghdad, eager abettors in her scheme; and in the autumn
of 1923 she inaugurated the first Arab-British polo match.
The success of these matches was not entirely unqualified,
for, whereas the Arabs were superb horsemen, they had a
certain difficulty in assimilating the rules and could see no
reason why a game should not go on indefinitely until one
of the sides gave in from exhaustion. However, polo did
have the desired effect of bringing the Englishmen and the
people of Iraq into the kind of relationship which would
have been impossible otherwise.
She took up Mah Jong and found the Arab ministers
much apter pupils at this game than at bridge, and in a
short time her house was a gay centre of enthusiastic Mah


236 GERTRUDE BELL
Jong parties. One evening a British officer of the staff, with
musical tastes, thought it might be a good idea to treat the
Arabs to a sample of Occidental music. A piano was pro-
duced around which was gathered a solemn audience of
desert chiefs. The Englishman, equally solemn, sat before
the piano and played the "Sonata Pathetique." The last
chords died away to the dignified silence of a polite people
who have the same feelings about European music as Euro-
peans have about Arab. But when Gertrude requested an
opinion the verdict was unanimous: "Wallahi! Khosh
daggah!" (By God! A good thumpingl)
Lady Dobbs arrived towards the end of the year from
England and was given an enthusiastic reception, and social
life at Government House soon became a feature in Bagh-
dad. Gertrude was glad to have another woman with whom
she could forget treaties and politics and Moslem problems.
She had great ability for concealing the fact that she had the
ablest brain in the mandate organization, and could fit
herself when necessary into the description of her in the
New York Times: "Paris frock and Mayfair manners." A
strange woman whom the females treated as a female and
the males as a male or a female, according to the mood of
the moment.
One of the first official parties which Sir Henry Dobbs
gave was to the King and his Cabinet and the British heads
of departments in the mandatory organization. Gertrude
received an invitation, but before accepting she gave the
matter a little thought and then asked Sir Henry if he really
wanted her to come.
"Of course," replied Sir Henry, "if you won't feel
smothered."


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 237
Gertrude laughed and said that, as a member of the High
Commissioner's staff, she felt sexless and would, therefore,
attend the banquet. This she did, wearing a new evening
dress, her diamond tiara and all her orders and decorations.
"Sexless," but entirely feminine.
Then when the occasion arose, the gowns and the tiaras
forgotten, she would go down the Tigris with the men duck
shooting, dressed in breeches and a tweed coat. She seemed
to have no age, and a mind which enjoyed everything it
tackled. One night she would be dining with the King ad-
vising him and discussing the intricate problems which
faced him, and the next evening attending the performance
of a travelling circus with the enthusiasm of a child. She
rocked with laughter at the antics of the clowns and even
more so at the solemn faces of the Kurdish deputies who
sat together in a box and never smiled throughout the whole
entertainment. Then out to Kish or Babylon, excavating,
collecting and classifying the finds for the museum, and
contradicting eminent archaeologists from Europe and
America.
The mother of the Agha Khan, with whom Gertrude had
had an amusing conversation years before in London before
her name had become famous in the Orient, paid her a
visit. Gertrude found the old lady to be an amazing per-
sonality, who spent her time travelling about the vast do-
mains of Asia looking after her revered son's financial and
religious interests while he raced in England.
In February of 1924 the first parliamentary elections took
place. Few people believed that the Arabs, with centuries
of tradition completely foreign to universal suffrage and
government by the people, would ever be made to under-


238 GERTRUDE BELL
stand what this new form of administration meant. The
voting was, however, carried out as if these desert people
had never thought of appointing their rulers by any other
method, and most of the right representatives were elected.
There were ceremonies for the installation of the deputies,
followed by banquets and garden parties, and the atmos-
phere of cordiality among all those concerned made Ger-
trude feel that perhaps, after all, she had not worked entirely
in vain.
Her letters of this period give a feeling of lessening strain,
and, in the midst of comments on what the new Govern-
ment is doing, there are passages which indicate that most
of the tension is over.
"Send me out some mules (not for riding, for wearing on my
feet)," she wrote to Lady Bell. "You get them at the Galleries
Lafayette in Regent Street. Black and gold brocade are what I
would like ... I have been swimming vigorously and my bath-
ing costume is wearing out and already has to be darned. Will
you please get me another. The kind I like is in two pieces. I
prefer silk tricotine and I like best a square or V-shaped open-
ing at the neck. As to colour it should show a general tendency
to dark blue or green, if you understand me . . ."
Lady Bell was completely baffled by this last order. Since
Gertrude's last visit to England bathing suits were no longer
made in two pieces or in tricotine, very few in dark blue
or green. Lady Bell did her best but the garment despatched
did not meet with her step-daughter's complete approval.
As if she had not already enough to do, Gertrude now
started on some fresh and unofficial work. She was continu-
ally receiving inquiries from various parts of the world about
the conditions in Iraq. Sometimes these queries were from
an economic point of view, sometimes archaeological, often


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 239
touristic. During Gertrude's earlier voyages in Persia and
Asia Minor she had found that the geographical works of
Strabo, compiled a little before the beginning of the Chris-
tian era, were just as accurate as twentieth century guide-
books. In many cases Strabo went into greater details than
Murray and demonstrated that customs and ways of living
had little changed in the Near East during the past two
thousand years. In her humorous way, Gertrude decided to
compile a second edition of Strabo on Iraq, and started to
write a comprehensive and accurate volume in entirely "un-
guidebooky" style which would supply travellers with all the
historical and practical details which they might require.
When she was not turning out pages of the guidebook or
acting as a kind of super intelligence officer and diplomatic
interviewer for the High Commissioner, she was busy in the
museum. The museum was finally taking shape and, after
inspecting it, the archaeologist Sir Frank Kenyon reported
that he held the Iraq Department of Antiquities as a model
for all departments of this kind.
But even with all these occupations Government House
was always finding more things for Gertrude to do.
A Labour Government was in power in England and was
inclined to be opposed to the spending of British money
in Iraq. A delegation of M.P.'s was sent out to examine the
situation on the spot with Lord Thomson, the Secretary of
State for the Air, at the head of the commission. Lord
Thomson was an abrupt man, difficult to deal with, and his
colleagues were all prepared to find fault. The visit of the
commission was awaited with apprehension by the people
at Government House until Gertrude said that she would
feel perfectly at ease with members of the Labour Party,


24O GERTRUDE BELL
who only needed proper handling. Sir Henry Dobbs imme-
diately decided to take Gertrude at her word and she found
herself put in charge of Lord Thomson and his companions.
Gertrude treated them with her natural frankness and
showed them round as if they had been ordinary visitors.
She took them to see the Baghdad notables and her Arab
friends and sent them back to London convinced of the
wisdom of maintaining the mandate of Iraq!
This visit was followed by that of her half-sister Elsa, and
her husband Admiral Richmond (later knighted), who was
at that time in command of the British East Indian squad-
ron which had come up the Persian Gulf and was anchored
at Basrah. With them was their nephew George Trevelyan.
Gertrude and Elsa, although separated in age by several
years, had always been devoted to each other and it gave
Gertrude the greatest pleasure to entertain the little party
from home and introduce her Arab friends. The visit was
successful beyond all expectations and a revelation to the
Admiral and his staff.
The officers of the Royal Navy are the finest type of
British manhood and have been responsible for planting
the Union Jack in the remotest parts of the world. They
have done this, however, in a detached manner, never min-
gling with the native populations or getting to know them.
The background of conquest has always been the Ward-
room, with its unbreakable traditions of the Service, and
the moment a savage tribe has been subdued a cricket
match has been organized to show the "damned natives"
the type of people with whom they are dealing. Those Brit-
ons who have assimilated themselves to local conditions


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 243
cial situation and the military organization of the country.
The financial problems of Iraq were, to a large extent, taken
over by British experts, while the military authorities
adopted a scheme which would provide for a speedier train-
ing of the army so that it would shortly be able to take over
the defence of the country unassisted by foreign troops.
The elections were completed by the end of June with a
most satisfactory representation; the political parties which
had been constituted in former years having died a natural
death through the actions of Gertrude and the High Com-
missioners.
On July 16th, King Faisal opened Parliament in state,
and, with as little fuss as if Iraq had always been ruled by
a representative assembly, the government set to work to
construct where destruction had always rather been the rule
than the exception.
In December a new treaty between Great Britain and
Iraq was submitted to Parliament and was passed almost
unanimously.
Now that all Gertrude had hoped for and worked for
was realized, she suddenly felt very weary. During the nine
years she had been in the country she had never relaxed;
rising every day at five-thirty and taking exercise till six;
breakfasting at six-forty on an egg and some fruit, and being
in her office by seven. The innumerable things she had to
do in the office are best summed-up in her own words:
"The first thing I do in the office is to look through the three
vernacular papers and translate anything that ought to be
brought to the notice of the authorities. By the time I have
done that papers are beginning to come in, intelligence reports
from all the Near East and India, local reports, petitions, etc.


24b GERTRUDE BELL
She accordingly went up to Yorkshire, and the peaceful
life in her garden and the pure air of the moors soon made
her look and feel much better. She paid a visit to friends in
Scotland and seemed to be drifting back into the life for
which she had been brought up. But, by the time the leaves
were beginning to fall, the relentless call of the East was
gnawing at her again.
Her parents did their utmost to persuade her to remain
at home, but Gertrude gently and firmly explained that this
would be impossible. Sir Hugh and Lady Bell listened
patiently, trying to understand what Gertrude meant when
she said that the East had wound itself round her heart
until she did not know which was herself and which was it
It seemed so strange to hear this essentially English woman
affirm that she was more a citizen of Baghdad than many
of the Baghdadi born. The ecstasy in her eyes as she spoke
of the loveliness of the Tigris and the palm trees along its
banks, of the magnificence of the desert and the charm of
the Arabs, seemed foreign to a woman born and bred in
Yorkshire.
"You see," she would say with emotion, "I lost the oppor-
tunity to make a home of my own a long time ago, and
these people have taken the place of a family. They need
me, they come to me for comfort and encouragement and
in their comfort I find my own. I feel limited in this country
which you could never leave, and my whole being longs for
that vast, merciless desert which must be my home until the
end . . ."
The parents saw that there was no argument which would
alter Gertrude's decision, they made the most of her re-
maining days in England, and at the end of October 1925


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 247
said goodbye to her as she set out on her last journey to the
land of the Arabs. She, however, compromised to the extent
of taking with her as a companion her first cousin Sylvia
Henley, the daughter of Lord Sheffield.
Back in Baghdad, Gertrude was welcomed as though she
had risen from the dead. She had hardly begun to unpack
when streams of Iraquis were pouring into her garden . . .
"Light of our eyes," they cried, "light of our eyes ..." as
they kissed her hands. And Gertrude felt grateful that she
had had the strength to come back to the people who
needed her.
Almost immediately King Faisal returned from the trip
which he had made to Europe, and arrived by plane. The
Cabinet and dignitaries of Baghdad, with the High Com-
missioner and his staff, were at the aerodrome to meet him.
The King's plane appeared on the desert horizon, escorted
by nine smaller planes, and landed outside the oasis where
the reception took place. It was all very formal and matter
of fact, and no one seemed to regard it as miraculous or
peculiar that the descendant of the Prophet should alight
on his kingdom from the air. Yet there were many present
at that aerodrome who, ten years earlier, would have fled at
the sight of an airplane, supposing it to be a genie! Gertrude
dropped her curtsey, and the King, as usual, made a point
of singling her out from the people who were meeting
him.
The New Year of 1926 was very unhappy for Gertrude
as her half-brother Hugo, to whom she was devoted, died in
England of typhoid. She had but lately lost her uncle Lord
Sheffield, to whom she was devoted, and Sylvia Henley had
found the climate of Baghdad too much for her and had


248 GERTRUDE BELL
been obliged to return to Europe. These losses seemed to
crush Gertrude and had an undoubted effect on her health,
which, from now on, deteriorated. She had bouts of fever
and sleepless nights interspersed with terrifying nightmares,
during which all that she had been through in Iraq and
Arabia came back in grotesque form. She gave herself no
chance to recuperate, and continued her political duties as
well as those connected with the museum.
A spacious building had now been set aside to store
Gertrude's finds and she was kept busy planning the rooms
and sorting out all that had been collected. When all was
ready the King opened the museum and the following day
the public was admitted. A curious public, which went to
the museum because Gertrude had made it, but quite vague
in their minds as to why the bits of pottery and old seals
should be given a fine home and looked upon with such
respect. From time immemorial these remains of the past
had been within the reach of every Arab beggar and had
been regarded as so many old stones.
Mrs. Harold Nicolson came to stay with Gertrude and
was one of the last of her old friends to see her alive. Writ-
ing in her book A Passenger to Tehran, she said:
". . . Then a door in the blank wall, a jerky stop, a creaking
of hinges, a broadly smiling servant, a rush of dogs, a vision of
the garden path edged with carnations in pots, a little low
house at the end of the path, an English voice—Gertrude
Bell . ..
"... Then she was back in her chair pouring out information,
the state of Iraq, the excavations at Ur, the need for a bigger
museum, what new books had come out? What was happening
in England? The doctors had told her she ought not to go
through another summer in Baghdad, but what could she do in
England eating out her heart for Iraq? Next year perhaps . . .


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 249
but I couldn't say she looked ill, could I? I could and did! She
laughed and brushed that aside . . .
". . . She was a wonderful hostess, and I felt that her per-
sonality held together and made a centre for all those exiled
Englishmen whose other common bond was their service of
Iraq. They all seemed to be instilled by the same spirit of con-
structive enthusiasm; but I could not help feeling that their
mission there would have been more in a nature of drudgery
than of zeal, but for the radiant ardour of Gertrude Bell. What-
ever subject she touched, she lit up; such vitality was irresistible.
We laid plans, alas! for when I should return to Baghdad in
the autumn; we would go to Babylon, we would go to Ctesi-
phon, she would have got her new museum by then. When she
went back to England, if, indeed she was compelled to go, she
would write another book ... So we sat talking, as friends talk
who have not seen one another for a long time, until the
shadows lengthened and she said it was time to go and see the
King .. ."
As if Fate had decided that something more must be
done to wear out the stubborn vitality of this obstinate
English-woman, Gertrude suddenly had another onerous
duty thrown upon her shoulders. Terrific rains caused the
Tigris to overflow its banks, bringing disaster to all the
neighbouring country. The Government immediately called
on Gertrude, and she found herself serving on the com-
mittee of relief for the flood sufferers and, as usual, having
to do practically everything in this connection. But she
treated it as being all in the day's work and merely com-
mented:
"I also find it boring, for all the desert where I used to ride
and walk is a lake . . . the Ark and all the rest become quite
comprehensible when one sees Mesopotamia in flood time."
And so her work continued throughout the torrid sum-
mer in Baghdad. Gertrude's letters did not indicate to her


THE BIRTH OF IRAQ 251
Gertrude's death caused widespread sorrow throughout
the United Kingdom and Britain's Empire beyond the seas.
To the general public she had become a legendary person-
ality, to the Government one of those servants of the State
who could not be replaced, to her family the daughter who,
while giving her life to her country, never for one day forgot
home.
From all over England and her Dominions came letters
and telegrams of sympathy. No particular class was repre-
sented by the mourners. Ministers of State, men of letters,
archaeologists, soldiers and sailors, villagers of the North
Country, grieved that they had lost Gertrude Bell.
The Colonial Secretary spoke of Gertrude's death and her
work for Britain before a crowded and silent House of
Commons.
George the Fifth of England wrote to Gertrude's parents:
"The Queen and I are grieved to hear of the death of your
distinguished daughter whom we held in high regard.
"The nation will mourn with us the loss of one who by her
intellectual powers, force of character and personal courage
rendered important and what I trust will prove lasting benefit
to the country and to those regions where she worked with
such devotion and self sacrifice. We truly sympathise with you
in your sorrow.
"Georce R. I."
In the Arab countries there was grief and consternation.
Gertrude was idolized in the minds of the desert people as
someone above all others, a creature who could not die, a
person without whom they felt that life would no longer be
the same.
Letters from all parts of Arabia, Syria, Palestine and Iraq,


252 GERTRUDE BELL
on all kinds of paper, in all manner of calligraphy, flooded
the offices of the High Commissioner. The highest and the
lowest tried to express their grief and convey their gratitude
for all that Gertrude had done for them. Some of the letters
were veritable poems, some just incoherent words of sorrow.
There were so many that their publication would have filled
a book.
One of the most touching of these missives came from
old Haji Naji in whose garden Gertrude had so often rested
from her work. There were just two lines:
"It was my faith always to send to Miss Bell the first of my
fruits and vegetables and I know not now where I shall send
them."
Gertrude's funeral ceremony was a magnificent apotheo-
sis to her life. A torrid day had ended with one of those
golden evenings of the desert. A warm breeze rustled
through the tall palm trees of the oasis and ruffled the
sluggish waters of the Tigris. Placed in a plain wooden
coffin Gertrude's body moved slowly through the silent
streets of Baghdad which were thronged with robed figures
who made no attempt to conceal their feelings. Along the
route, over which Gertrude had so often walked and ridden,
the troops of the Iraq army "rested on arms reversed" as the
long procession passed. The High Commissioner and Prime
Minister followed the hearse as chief mourners, and behind
them all the members of the Iraq Cabinet and the British
civil, military and air force staffs. The full-dress uniforms of
the Englishmen glistened white in the sunset and contrasted
with the bronzed faces which had lost their proverbial
British imperturbability.


254 GERTRUDE BELL
live, and is full of misery ... he fleeth as it were a shadow,
and never continueth in one stay ... In the midst of life
we are in death . . . earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection ..."
The firing party raised their rifles, there was a sharp word~
of command and the three volleys crackled out in the still
air. The sad, heartrending notes of the Last Post swelled
up and died away. After a pause the buglers once more
placed the bugles to their lips and hopefully the Reveille
went echoing through the oasis. As the people turned sadly
away, the sun dipped in naming orange behind the wastes
of the desert and sent a shaft of emerald green light into
the sky. The breeze freshened and went whispering through
the feathery palm trees as they gracefully bowed to one
whom they had watched over for so many years. The palm
trees of the neighbouring oasis took up the message and
passed it on until the rustling died softly in another oasis
hundreds of miles away beside the grave of a young man to
whose memory a very noble lady had remained faithful for
over thirty years.
So Gertrude sleeps on, on the rising ground outside Bagh-
dad. At her feet the Tigris rolls sluggishly along, and away
the desert stretches out in its barren immensity. A simple
white stone with the name in English and in Arabic marks
the grave.
In Baghdad the principal wing of the museum bears
Gertrude's name, this last token to her memory being at
the immediate request of King Faisal.
A brass plaque in the wall states:


256 GERTRUDE BELL
walked from the station so that he could relish alone this
scene which he had so often conjured up in his mind during
his service in the East. The spring night rushed on, extin-
guishing the colours until the countryside became a great,
rolling, hueless expanse. It suddenly reminded the watcher of
the desert and carried his mind back to days long ago when
he used to sit with his father outside the moorland cottage
and hear of the strange lands where the flag of England had
led him. In those days the acres over which Mr. Bell's game-
keeper watched had seemed to the boy the vastest territory
he could visualize. He smiled now as the memories of the
immensity of the desert floated before his mind.
It was quite dark when the soldier resumed his trudge.
The wind rose and whispered through the heather and
stirred up little clouds of dust on the road. Down there he
could see twinkling lights which beckoned a welcome.
Coming home made his periods of exile worth while, but
this time he had a sacred mission to perform before he
crossed the threshold of his mother's cottage . . .
After a while the moorland gave way to a few straggling
houses and then to a church. An evening service was coming
to an end and the stained-glass windows stood out blue
and red against the night. The soldier waited until the bulk
of the congregation had disappeared, and entering the
church he avoided the main aisle and made his way up the
side, looking for something. He ignored the verger, who was
putting out the lights, and attentively examined each win-
dow in turn. Finally he stopped before a lovely piece of glass.
His eyes drank in the soft colours and then rested on an
inscription in Persian. He could not decipher the characters
but they gave him a happy sense of familiarity and he stared


i6o
INDEX
Ibn Raschid, 153
Ibn Rashitl. Emir, 132
Ibn Saud, 153-154, 221
Ibrahim, 132-136
Jaafar Pasha, 193-194, 203, 235
Jersey, Lady, 111
Jowett, Dr., 15
Kemble, Fanny, 12
Kitchener, General, 146, 154
Lake, General Sir Percy, 151
Lascelles, Billy, 24, 35, 36
Lascelles, Florence, 35, 62
Lascelles, Sir Frank, 23, 35
Lascelles, Gerald, 27
Lascelles, Lady Mary, 23, 35, 38, 61-
62, 63
Lawrence, T. E., 18, 36, 81, 119-
120, 129, 131, 147, 152-153, 175,
193, 204
Leachman, Colonel, 166-167, 186
Land, Jenny, 11
Mahdi al Khalisi, Sheik, 234
Mahmud, Sheik of Sulaimanya, 234
Margherita, Queen of Italy, 61
Marshall, Horace, 16, 43
Maude, Sir Stanley, 165
Mitchell, Weir, 12
Mohammed, 132-134
Mohammed Abu Tayyi, 128
Money, General, 151
Morris, William. 10
Murray, Prof. Gilbert, 21
Naquib, the, 191-192, 207, 211,
219, 228
Nicolson, Mrs. Harold, 248
O'Connor, Captain Frederick, 106
O'Connor, T. P., 20
Olliffe, Florence, 7
Olliffe, Sir Joseph, 7
Pankhurst, Mrs. 111
Parnell, Mr., 13
Persia, Shah of, 40-41
Philby, H. St. J., 164, 191
Pitt, William, 80
Ramsay, Lady, 109-110
Sir William, 105, 109-110
Salomon, 97, 107
Rhodes, Sir Cecil, 15
Richmond, Lady Elsa, 240
Richmond, Admiral Sir Herbert, 240,
241
Roumania, King of, 28
Saiyid Talib Pasha, 205
Salmond, Sir John, 221
Sargent, John Singer, 97, 107
Sasun, Effendi, 203
Sharif, the, 197
Shaw, General, 151
Shield, John, 6
Shield, Mary, 6
Siddons, Mrs., 12
Spring-Rice, Lady, 35
Stanhope, Lady Hester, 68, 80, 81,
83, 241
Stanley, Edward, 98
Storrs, Sir Ronald, 177
Sullivan, Arthur, 12
Sylva, Carmen, 26
Sztaray, 27, 29
Thomson, Lord, 239-240
Togo, Admiral, 96
Townshend, General, 153
Trevelyan, George, 240
Turkiyyeh, 133-139
Vacaresco, H6lene, 26-27
Victoria, Queen of England, 34, 40
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 12, 111
Webb, Philip, 10
Wilde, Oscar, 15
William II, Kaiser, 61-63
Willingdon, Lady, 168
Willingdon, Lord, 168
Wilson, Sir Arnold, 179
Wilson, President Woodrow, 203,
206
Woolley, C. L., 147, 223, 242