[21 December 1917] Baghdad Dec 21 Dearest Parents. There is as yet no mail, so I can't reply to any of the kind letters you've been writing to me. Baghdad, and indeed most of Mesopotamia, is immobilized by mud. My daily walk to and from the office is a real feat of gymnastics, but as I stumble and reel through the swamp which was once a road, I return thanks for the rain which has gone far to assure next year's harvest. We had about 24 hours of it. I woke after the first night to find my garden a lake from which emerged a few islands, but I had been provident enough to construct a brick causeway between my bedroom and sitting room - they are at opposite ends of the garden - and along it I was able to get to breakfast high and dry. The water has vanished today and a smoothly laid bed of mud remains. I'm rather disgusted to see in Army Routine Orders that on the days when we thought the weather so shockingly cold, the max. temp. was never Bellow 52°. One loses all sense of proportion about climate.
The new regime has ordered the Force to take a holiday on Sunday afternoon and in obedience to this decree I dragged Sir Percy out riding last Sunday. He had a new mount and enjoyed it. All the desert country to the E. of Baghdad was once watered by the big Nahrwan [Nahrawan Canal], a loop canal which ran parallel with the Tigris, about 10 miles out east. The desert is seamed with traces of its distributories, almost filled up by silt or wind-blown soil, and from time to time you ride over a mound and looking down, see that it is covered with potsherds. The immortal baked clay preserves the trace of human habitation when all else has returned to the dust it was; as soon as the canal dries up and the village is deserted, the roaming Arab pulls out the roof beams and breaks up the doors for firewood, the mud walls disintegrate, and nothing remains but the imperishable pot. You may break him up as much as you choose, but unless you take a hammer to him and reduce him systematically to powder, he will continue to bear witness to the household which he served. Usually this rough peasant pottery is undatable; you know it isn't of yesterday, however, when you find masses of it in places which have not been irrigated for the last 400 years; but as I was showing Sir Percy one of these village mounds, by good luck behold a piece of unglazed decoration, a great chunk of it, which you could see at a glance was mediaeval. The ghost of a rich country side came riding with us. On Monday I dined with the C. in C. Now when you go out to dinner, it's neither the company nor the food that concerns you most, but whether the house is warmed, and it was. But over and above the fireplaces, it was a cheerful party, Sir Percy and I and various generals and A.D.C.s. General Marshall is most pleasant; we had a delightful gossip about carpets after dinner, with his as illustrations, and then a game of bridge. I hadn't played bridge since I came here and put up a short supplication when I found the C. in C. was my partner. Fortunately it was granted; a very foolish general on my left doubled my make of hearts, I redoubled him and won hands down in the first game. After that all the idiotic things I did passed more or less unnoticed. On Tuesday afternoon I went out for a ride with General Stuart Wortley which was very agreeable. I've taken to riding of an afternoon because before breakfast is so deadly cold. So I go to the office at 8, come away at 2.30 after lunching there, and get back at 4 where I stay till 7. But the mud has stopped all riding for a day or two. We have a new C.G.S. who is not only a friend of mine but also an exceedingly shrewd and able man, General Gillman - in fact I heartily like the new regime and I think we shall do very well with it. The wheels of business have been wonderfully greased - if you could know how they once creaked! I've been busy for the last week working out an account of Euphrates geography - it's still unmapped - and tribes in tabulated form. Now I want to go down there and see if I've got it right. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude

Oh dear, I wonder what you are all doing!