Sat. 15. Malcajik. Dearest Mother. I was delighted to get your satisfactory telegram about Maurice, which Mr Cumberbatch sent me up here. I am going to Smyrna [Izmir] tomorrow and leave by the Austrian on Wed. - very sadly. I was welcomed here on last Wed. with the greatest warmth. Mr van Heemstra came to meet me and drove me up from the station in a smart little cart. We had the van Heemstras to dinner and played Bridge all the evening. On Thursday Mrs v. Lennep and I went off very early and spent the day at Ephesus. It was cold, but beautifully fine and most enjoyable. We travelled with a comic party, an American Catholic Bishop, a dear old thing, 2 American priests and a young Englishman - what he was doing in that galère I can't think. They are going to Syria so I shall probably meet them again. I shd love to meet the old Bishop. The Austrians have excavated a good deal more since I was at Ephesus 2 years ago. The road down to the port with a market on either side has been uncovered, and some beautiful friezes and things near the Roman baths. It is a most interesting and lovely place, not the least lovely part of it being a ruined Seljuk mosque built of Greek fragments, but so magnificently planned. I wonder why the Seljuks were such artists and builders and the Osmanlis could never lay one stone on another. Everywhere where the Seljuks have passed they leave mosques and medressehs and khans of most splendid work; but the Osmanlis leave only the ruins of what they found. We dined with the van Heemstras that evening - we got in very late, I must tell you, for the post train did not stop at our station, so we were obliged to travel by goods train, by which we went mighty slow. Mr van Heemstra had cooked most of the dinner, it did that young man great credit, for it was very good. On Friday morning when I woke the whole village was white with snow! it is a thing which has not happened for years. It melted in a few hours, but a bitter north wind followed it and the cold was piercing - exactly like an east wind March day at Redcar. I have given Evelyn a tiny camera over which she is in the 7th heaven, dear little soul, so we experimented with it all the morning. After lunch we had a gathering of Tachtagis from the village. They are a very curious race, the original inhabitants of the country. They still hold on in the mountains and sometimes settle in such a village as this. Their occupation is woodcutting, they have a religion apart though outwardly they profess Islam, and they are quite different to look at. A pleasant friendly set of people. Then Mr V. Lennep, Mr V. Heemstra and I rode out up to the hills - bitter cold it was, but I enjoyed it all the same. We went up into a lovely gorge full of pines where Mr V.L. has his corn mill, turned by the mountain stream. Such a place! a few years ago it was uninhabitable for the brigands came down from the hills and ravaged and the miller did not dare to live up there, but now it is safe. High up, the valley is crowned with a great mass of precipitous rocks full of holes and caves. The panthers and jackals live on the ground floor, and above them pigeons and eagles up to the attics, and Bellow in the pine woods the wild pig find shelter. Today it was still bitter cold - but it's better this evening and I think the bad weather is nearly past. I amused myself in the morning developing the photographs I had taken on my journey. They are excellent - I really am quite the photographer. The great triumphs are those I did at Blaundos, in the rain! Time exposures, of course, tell Elsa, with the camera placed on the first come stone, but so successful. In the afternoon I went riding with Mr V.L. to an outlying part of the farm under more hills covered with gorse and white heather, an enchanting bit of country. On our way back we stopped at some black tents, Yuruks (which are nomads) tenants of his, if you can call the inhabitant of a tent a tenant. We went in and they gave us excellent coffee and the flat bread of the nomad, (a sort of biscuit, I have eaten it in Arab tents) and most good butter. It was an entertaining tea party.

Sunday 16. [16 March 1902] I left this morning, a beautiful bright day but still cold. I sleep at Smyrna [Izmir] tonight, spending the afternoon with M. Gaudin and going to tea with the Hattons which will be very amusing. I leave this open in case I find any word from you in Smyrna. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude.
I was most grateful Elsa for her letter.