Baghdad Oct 17. Dearest Father. Yesterday, Sunday, I spent an agreeable day. There's a young man who is now Advisor at Ba'qubah called Capt. Reed. He is a very nice boy; I've known him for a long time. But he has fallen into very solitary habits. He never comes to see any of us and from his reports I had a feeling that he was getting rather out of touch. So I telegraphed announcing that I was coming to lunch with him, hired a motor, and started off on a beautiful sharp, sunshiny morning. I got to Ba'qubah about 11.30 when the sun was beginning to be pleasantly hot. The place looked charming, buried in its orange groves, with its sleepy little canal, the tail of the Khurasan, wandering through the midst of it. I went straight to the Sarai where I found Capt Reed and his darling old Mutasarrif, Ahmad Halat Beg. The latter had once called on me but I was out and hadn't yet made his acquaintance. He is a gentle, courteous old Turkish official of the best type, conscientious, and honest. It was quite delightful to see the friendly intimacy between him and Capt Reed. If you asked one of them a question he turned to the other for confirmation of his answer. We all three sat in the Mutasarrif's office and talked about Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] affairs for about half an hour, after which I made my bow, saying I felt sure he must be busy and that I would wait in Capt Reed's office till he was ready to go to lunch. But not a bit of it - the Mutasarrif trotted after us and sat chatting while Capt Reed signed his letters and then insisted on showing me all over the Sarai, part of which was burnt in last year's disturbances. And they both bubbled over with a description of the repairs they intended to make. So I went with Capt Reed to lunch in his ramshackle little house, wholly devoid of any vestige of comfort. The table cloth certainly hadn't been washed for a month. We lunched off a ragout of sand grouse and a superlatively good melon from Qizil Robat, famed for its melons, and all the time Capt Reed never stopped talking about his Mutasarrif and his Division. I was deeply interested but even if I hadn't been I should have loved to hear him talk, for it was so obviously good for him to be pouring out his heart about all the things that were nearest to him - his tribes and his shaikhs and his Mutasarrif and how splendidly the latter was doing, how he came out touring the Division and would even spend the night in an Arab tent - a thing I don't suppose any Mutasarrif in Turkish times was known to do - and how he and the people were getting to understand one another in consequence, and much more besides. After lunch we motored out to Daltawah, about 10 miles N. of Ba'qubah, through charming country covered with scrub, rather like an English moor except that it was brown and yellow instead of green and purple. The tails of the Khurasan canal intersected it, each marked by wavering patches of palm trees. Daltawah itself, where I had never been before, was enchanting, a typical little 'Iraq village set deep in palm groves and gardens. We called on the Qaimmaqam who is a friend of mine. Coming unnanounced in the early hours of the afternoon we found him in a garment ressembling a night shirt but while I went upstairs to see his wife (a Baghdad girl whom I know well) the Qaimmaqam hastily changed into a coat and trousers so that when I joined the male party he was quite respectable. And all the way to Daltawah and all the way back, Capt Reed never stopped talking.
They really are wonderful, these young Englishmen, who are thrown out into the provinces and left entirely to their own resources. They so completely identify themselves with their surroundings that nothing else has any significance for them, but if they think you're interested they open out like a flower and reveal, quite unconsciously, to your amazed eyes wisdom, tact and patience which you would have thought to be incompatible with their years.

We parted, Capt Reed and I, with a promise on his side that he would bring his Mutasarrif to lunch with me next time they came to Baghdad, and on mine that I would come out soon and spend the night at Shahraban [Miqdadiyah, Al], where the newly appointed Qaimmaqam is a Baghdadi whom I like very much.

Today Sidi Faisal returned from Mosul [Mawsil, Al]. He arrived at 9 a.m. and we all went to the station to welcome him, Sir Percy, Sir Aylmer, all the Ministers and lots more. It was a very successful little ceremony. There was a little carpeted diwan tent pitched outside the station in which the King stood and shook hands with all his subjects. Then he called in Mr Cornwallis and me and one or two others and we drank coffee and talked for a few minutes. Faisal looked very well and appeared to be very much pleased with the success of his Mosul visit - thank Heaven he is safe back!

Major Young has arrived, by air from Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] - I saw him for a moment at the station this morning, and thought him as conceited and self-sufficient as ever. I've got a dinner of Cabinet Ministers for him tomorrow night.

Also, Mother, my blue gown and cloak have arrived from Mrs Bell and unlike Major Young, they are very nice indeed. I am so infinitely grateful for the trouble my kind family has taken about them. Lennox Gardens papers please copy.

Oct. 24. [24 October 1921] I've had a busy week with nothing particular to show for it. First I must tell you that Major Young has turned out much nicer than I expected. I lunched with the Garbetts on the 18th to meet him and had a long and satisfactory talk with him afterwards. Next night he dined with me. Mr Cornwallis also came and I had Naji Suwaidi, Sasun Eff., Saiyid Daud (a cousin of the Naqib's) and 'Abdul Latif Mandil (Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)], he is Minister of Commerce) to meet him. Major Young's Arabic is beautiful and we had a very pleasant evening. On the 20th we both dined with the King - a largish party, the Slaters, Col. Joyce (just back with a new wife but she wasn't there that night) Capt Clayton and several of the Ministers. Mrs Slater and I sat by Faisal and as she can't talk a word of anything the conversation turned mostly to my end of the table where Naji Suwaidi and I, and Ja'far sitting opposite to us, carried on with the King a very cheerful talk.

We had all been that afternoon to the races; not that that was cheerful - it was very hot and boring. But as it was Faisal's first appearance I beat up Fakhri Jamil and made him come too by asking him to take me. After which I had to see that he and any other notables who were there (there were very few) were duly invited into the King's box for a bit. The ADCs are no good at their job, but in time perhaps and with lots of pains one will get it knocked into their heads that a large number of rooted amnities spring solely from small social negligences.

Most intervals, and a good of time that wasn't intervals, have been filled up with talking about the future of the Kurds. There are two respectable old gentlemen here, representatives of a Kurdish nationalist society in C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)], who have come to see if there's anything to be done in getting an independent Kurdistan set on its feet. They have spent in all a great many hours with me and while entertaining the profoundest disbelief in the prospect of getting wild Kurdish aghas in wilder mountain country to accept any form of government, nationalist or other, I have a warm feeling of affection for these nice old parties. They dined with me on the 21st - I had Capt Clayton to meet them and they talked Kurdish nationalism till 11 p.m. At 8 a.m. next day one of them appeared in my office and presented me with the newly-invented Kurdish national flag. He also confided to me that he greatly feared that the other old party, having burnt his boats in C'ple by coming here, would be forced, if he got no support from us to place himself at the head of a band of Kurdish banditti and attack the Turks single hand - "He would, you see" he sighed, "Have no other alternative." I am persuaded that the proper alternative for Ri'fat Beg would be a nice little house in the suburbs, but it wouldn't have been sympathetic to say so and I therefore murmured such comfort as I could think of to his colleague.

I've suggested to Sir Percy that it would be a pleasant change for me to set up as uncrowned Queen of Kurdistan. I don't want to stand in his way if he has a fancy for the job - we might perhaps toss for it.

I had tea with Faisal that afternoon to discuss the founding of a Mesopotamian order (for we must have a decoration of our own) and we branched off into a long talk about Kurdistan in which I thought H.M. showed great wisdom. His point was that it wouldn't suit us or him to burn our fingers in a Kurdish adventure and that the first thing the Kurds should be asked to produce was an individual whom they could run for the job of King or president and form a nucleus for the movement - a Kurdish Faisal in fact. I don't for a moment Bellieve they have one. I'm persuaded that with Kurdistan as with Armenia our armistice declarations go a great deal further than our capacity to carry them out, that we must now be careful to make it absolutely clear that we haven't a penny to spend in furthering Kurdish independence, for if we encourage people like my two friends from C'ple we shall only have to abandon them in the hour of need, which wuld be the worst thing possible.

That's enough about the Kurds, but they'll taken [sic] up a lot of time, for I spent the greater part of one morning in writing a couple of memorandums about them for Sir Percy and Colin Garbett.

Yesterday, Sunday, I shook myself free and motored out with Fakhri Eff. to his gardens above Ba'qubah. We started about 8 on a close hot morning - it has been very hot and stuffy these last few days - and a more beautiful sight I don't think I ever saw. The dates are late in ripening this year and are still hanging in great golden crowns on the palms; Bellow them the pomegranate bushes are weighed down with the immense rosy globes of their fruit and the orange trees laden with the pale green and yellow of ripening oranges - it was a paradise of loveliness; I walked about in a bewilderment of admiration. There was also a big stretch of vineyard where the last of the grapes were hanging on the vines - gigantic bunches of white grapes each sheltered from the sun by a little roof of liquorice stalks. Our lunch was cooked in the open air - excellent rice and chicken and stewed meats, with strained pomegranate juice to drink - and served to us in an arbour made of a woven roof of boughs. Fakhri's tenants dropped in to see him and sat round chatting with us while we lunched - the old man of 80 who had known his grandfather and all the rest, just as it might have been on a big estate in England, only that they were much less shy than our tenants would have been, simpler and better mannered. After lunch we went on to see the Naqib's sons, Saiyid Safa al Sin and Saiyid Muhi al Din, in the house where you and I lunched. The garden was looking infinitely lovelier than it was when you and I were there, because of the wealth and beauty of its fruit.

Saiyid Muhi al Din is rather a difficulty. He is a Turkish senator, and a Turk, I think, he wants to remain. He retired to the Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] gardens before Faisal came and has never been back to Baghdad since. I personally like him very much - he's the best of the Naqib's sons; but he will have to make up his mind whether he is going to be an 'Iraqi subject or a Turkish, and if the latter he had best return to C'ple.

I've an encouraging feeling that we're getting on. Faisal's Mosul [Mawsil, Al] visit was a great success and has made a very considerable impression on Baghdad. The Mosulis made a great deal of him; he has returned delighted with them and with Mr Nalder and on both sides a feeling of personal confidence has been established. He is beginning to feel the worth of the people we trust and praise, not because we praise them but because he tests them himself and finds them sterling. Mr Nalder is one case in point and another is Shaikh 'Ali Sulaiman of the Dulaim. The latter has been in Baghdad and has had a heart to heart talk with H.M. in which he pointed out to him, with the blunt good sense which characterises him, that there are plenty of people who are out to Bellittle him because of his refusal to join in last year's rising, but that his interest is to help in the preservation of peace and security, and he'll do it for the Arab Govt just as he did it for the British Govt. Faisal was delightful to him and 'Ali, who is one of the great personalities of the 'Iraq, came away enchanted. Now that's exactly what one wants to see, the establishment of mutual confidence between the King and his subjects. His charm of manner helps him not a little and his quick appreciation a great deal more. Tomorrow he goes off for a week's tour in the Hillah [Hillah, Al] Division which I hope will be as fruitful as his visit to Mosul.

Meantime they are getting down to the treaty between the British and 'Iraq Govts. They had their first conference this morning, Major Young, Sir Percy and Faisal. Sir Percy told me that he didn't anticipate any difficulty, and when it is framed it will be an immense obstacle cleared from our path. Faisal has been living in terror of it; he is afraid that the British govt may ask him to agree to terms which he can't get his Nationalists to accept, as the French Govt did in Syria. Till that nightmare has vanished he has no sense of security. But I don't think he has reason for anxiety. Sir Percy realizes very well what divergent elements have to be reconciled, and after all, as we've seen before, when Sir Percy makes a pronouncement Mr Churchill has to toe the line. (This paragraph is not for public use!) We can't afford to give confidence grudgingly. Faisal has said over and over again that he is powerless without our help, and he has acted up to his declarations. There's no reason to doubt his sincerity (I don't doubt it) and we've also got to see his point of view when he says that if he is entrusted with the responsibility of being King of the 'Iraq he must be allowed to be a real King, not the creature of a foreign power, otherwise he is too heavily handicapped in a task which at the best isn't easy.

Oct 27. [27 October 1921] I went to see Faisal off on the morning of the 25th on Sir Percy's behalf. All the ministers, several of the Notables, Mr Cornwallis and I were the party. I breakfasted with Mr Cornwallis afterwards for we hadn't met for ever so long - there's somehow never time. The lack of time on my part is largely because I'm mind-tired and can't get through my work. I'm thinking of going up to Sulaimani [Sulaymaniyah, As] for a few days next week. Yesterday Sir Percy gave a garden party to meet Major Young. We asked the Arab ministers and some of the notables - it was the first time he had had a mixed party of this sort, and I think it was a success. We got the two elements fairly well together. Today we've had the usual struggle to finish up things for tomorrow's air mail - I can't see that I played a worthy part in it. An American turned up from Tehran [(Teheran)]. His unlikely name is John Dos Passos and he's correspondent of the New York Tribune. He came to tea with me and I found him interesting and pleasant. He has journeyed from Constantinople [Istanbul] through the Caucasus [Bol'shoy Kavkaz] and had plenty of tales to tell.

I've had two delightful sets of letters from you and Mother - Sep 20 and 28. I'm so grateful to Mother for the trouble she took about my article - the Fortnightly will do beautifully. But I'm afraid I shan't be able to write any more because I always sit in Baghdad when there's nothing suitable to write about. I'm feeling so effete, however, that if there was anything to write about I couldn't do it. And that's why this long letter is so dull. Your very affectionate daughter Gertrude