Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] May 10 Darling Mother. I can't tell you what a wonderful time we have had. I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything more. The joy of being with Father in these extraordinarily interesting and beautiful surroundings and of having his amazingly acute and perceptive mind to help one in coming to conclusions! Was there anyone who combined as he does such wealth of experience with so fresh and vital an outlook on all and everything that he encounters? And isn't he the most delicious companion with his humanness and his charming humour and his appreciation of beauty and history and birds and flowers and all that ever was from the biggest thing to the least. I shall so dreadfully miss him when we part and I do very much regret that I'm not coming home to you, Maurice and my sisters. It's an extraordinary sense of rest, peace and understanding that one gets when one is with one's own family and it's just that which I miss so much - the intimacy and confidence in our love for one another. But though I feel so much drawn to home and you and I know I couldn't have left 'Iraq happily at this moment. I should always have felt that I had left my job at a moment when I might and very likely would be needed and if anything untoward had happened, though I know I couldn't really make much difference I should have imagined that just the little I could have done might have helped to turn the scale. I know you will sympathize and think I'm right though I'm very reluctantly going back to face the summer and the essential solitariness of existence. I mean to get off into Kurdish mountains in Aug. if it's anyhow possible, and I think it will be.
Father will have told you all the details of our journey. The country is looking enchanting, full of flowers, not the least hot, and I feast my eyes on rocks and mountains, trees and clear running streams. We were actually up to the snow on the top of Lebanon [Liban, Jebel] and the rhododendrons were flowering with hedges of wild roses on the lower slopes. Oh dear, how beautiful the world is and how delightful to see it with someone who loves it and understands it like Father. We've had a most amusing time here; it has been so enjoyable staying with the Bowmans who make the most absurd fuss about us. Between ourselves, we both think Zionism tosh. Last night the Bowmans had a large native party to which most of the leading inhabitants came - Moslem and Christian - and they spent their time telling Father and me all they thought about the Jews. We felt that if they went on much longer we should be an international episode like Mr Crane and for my part I took refuge in trying to make believe that Zionism was really so bad after all.

I very much liked two long conversations I had with M. de Caix. He was most friendly, asked me a great deal about how we did things in Iraq and when I had replied with the utmost frankness that we were content to let the Arabs do things for themselves and find out their mistakes for themselves, he said reflectively that he thought the French authorities were aiming at far too high a standard of efficiency, which is just what I think. I know that attitude so well and suffered so much under it in the A.T. [Wilson] regime. But the underlying thought in my mind, which I didn't put into words, was that we can afford to let the Arabs go their own way because it will ultimately lead them back to us, whereas if the French once let them wander they'll go the Lord knows where, the difference being that we have, on the whole, got their confidence in our wish and our power to help them whereas the French haven't. They are amazingly out of touch; there isn't the close personal link of acquaintance and knowledge between a man like de Caix and the Syrians that exists between any of our senior (or junior) officials and the native population of 'Iraq. It begins with us from the top, with Sir Percy and his amazing personal position, and not all the integrity and earnest desire to fulfil the responsibility he has undertaken can help M. de Caix and his like to bridge the void. In the first place they none of them talk Arabic - just think what it means when you've got to establish intimate relations through an interpreter.

Whither it is all tending I don't know but some way or other I feel pretty sure that it will some day lead to unity of a kind between all the Arab provinces, the nature of which they will have to work out for themselves.

Father and Humphrey Bowman are coming with me to 'Amman tomorrow, to my great joy, so that we shall have another day together. Father will have Humphrey as a companion in coming back to Jerusalem and won't be lonely.

The only thing I regret is that we haven't been able to fit in plans with Elsa. It would have been so heavenly to see her, but I didn't feel justified in staying away so long and before we got her telegram we had already settled all our dates and communicated with Sir Percy.

Marte sent me the most excellent clothes, bless her - lovely embroidered muslin gowns to wear during the summer. And thank you so much for the supply of ink tablets.

Goodbye dearest Belloved Mother. I do dislike so much to be turning away in the wrong direction instead of taking the way that leads to you. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude