Baghdad Dec 18 Dearest Father. I'm dreadfully sorry that there was a gap of a month in my letters. I carefully left a letter to be posted by air mail while I was at Sulaimani [Sulaymaniyah, As] and they omitted to post it, as you will have noticed. Last air mail brought me your brief but comprehensive letter of Dec 2 and Mother's of Nov. 28 with a delightful account of Hugo's wedding. This letter of mine should reach you very early in Jan. and it carries a thousand good wishes to you all. Probably it will get off punctually for the rain seems at last to have stopped. Everyone prays for 3 weeks of fine weather. The people want to get out onto their land and all of us are tired of being immobilized by mud. So weatherbound have we been that I've scarcely done anything - I wonder what has happened to Percy Lorraine [i.e. Loraine] on the Persian road! One day last week I struggled up to the palace in a motor and had tea with Faisal and a two hour's talk. A few days before he had spent a morning with the Naqib and gone through the treaty with him. The Naqib, he told me, had been very stiff about repudiating all claim on the part of H.M.G. to mandate or protection. Major Young and I think Sir Percy (but I didn't tell Faisal this) had taken for granted that the King had used the Naqib as a stalking horse. I felt pretty sure they were wrong because when Faisal relates to me the course of events I believe what he says, and fortunately quite by accident I had an opportunity of proving his straightforwardness. For yesterday morning the Naqib called me up by telephone and asked me to come and see him. I found the dear old thing a good deal agitated about the treaty on the ground that any document to which he put his name as prime minister must be fairly and demonstrably Nationalist, lest he should incur the disfavour of Nationalist Islam both here and in India - he is particularly sensitive to Indian opinion. He explained all this to me at great length and asked if I thought Sir Percy would have time to come and see him. I went straight back to the office and related the whole of his conversation to Sir Percy laying considerable stress on the fact that the Naqib though most anxious to play our game, was essentially as Faisal had said "more extremist than I am". Sir Percy who was going to have a crucial talk with Faisal in the afternoon went over immediately to see the Naqib, but what the result was I don't know for I haven't seen him since. The great thing to bear in mind and to press on HMG is that Moslem dignitaries, however moderate may be their political views, must safeguard themselves from criticism on the part of their co-religionists, and since Islam is now very hostile to Great Britain, criticism is likely to occur. If my irruption into the treaty has done anything to make that clear I shall be devoutly thankful. (NB I don't think it has)
Mr Cornwallis is a great standby. His relations to Faisal are those of a brother; there's nothing they can't discuss quite freely together. And he seems to me so wise and unacademic in his appreciation of the Arab point of you [sic] - I hope it's not because he and I see eye to eye that I rate his discernment so highly! He has given himself heart and soul to the work we're doing here; he doesn't expect to make anything of a career for himself out of it and he is separated from his wife and childeren who can't come out here, but he thinks it's worth doing and he doesn't reckon the cost to himself. I went to tea with him the other day in order to ask his advice as to whether I should stay on. He said (you need not repeat this) that he considered that he and I were the only people in the service who had no ulterior object whatever (he might have added Sir Percy) and that he thought nothing but real necessity ought to call me away at present. I was much cheered by this and acted upon it, for when a few days later Major Young asked me whether I would accept appointment as Oriental Secretary, with the rest of Sir Percy's staff, till Oct 1923 (which is to be the date of Sir Percy's own appointment) I said I would. So that's how matters stand. I shall hold the appointment till Sir Percy leaves at any rate. Major Young suggested that his successor might like me to stay on for a bit so as not to make a complete change all at once. I said, other things being equal, I should probably be able to do that, but of course it would depend largely on who the successor might be, and at that we left it. It has turned out very much as I should have wished because it's they who have asked me to stay and not I who am clinging on. I made it very clear to Major Young that I wasn't clinging on if they did not want me. What a strange political career I've had, to be sure!

To return to Faisal. I can't tell you how delightful our relations are - an affectionate confidence which I don't think could well be shaken. He usually addresses me with "oh my sister" which makes me feel like someone in the Arabian Nights. He is of course an exceptional beguiler - everyone falls under the charm - and his extremely subtle and quick intelligence is backed by a real nobility of purpose of which I'm always conscious. We are lucky to have to deal with men of such fine integrity in their different walks as he and the Naqib and I'm proud indeed to have the friendship of both of them.

If only we had peace with Turkey everything would be easy - heaven enlighten our politicians at home! I've an uneasy feeling that Lloyd George for some occult reason, still hopes to make profit out of that fatuous nonsense, a Greek alliance.

I had a very nice dinner party of incongrous people, Ja'far Abu Timman, a Shi'ah who was one of the leaders in last year's rising, and a clever man with whom I should like to be on good terms; Rauf Chadirji, a lawyer educated in Constantinople [Istanbul], not specially, or even at all, a Nationalist but a moderate man who ought to play a part; 'Abdul Qadir Bash'ayan, who happened to be up from Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] (he's the man who gave the teaparty for Ja'far Pasha to which we went in Cairo) and Mr Cornwallis. We didn't talk politics, but Ja'far Abu Timman, who is a merchant, told us about the Persian trade which led us into a discussion on free trade and other things - just as if it had been a London dinner party.

Yesterday I went to a charming tea party with the family of the late Muhammad Pasha Daghistani - they are the women I've told you about, whose interests I've had to look after because the only brother was squandering the property. Fortunately a married sister with her husband, a Baghdadi, have just returned from Diyarbakr [Diyarbakir (Amida)], so he'll now be able to take care of the women folk. They are Ja'far Pasha's foster sisters, and he and his wife and sister (Nuri Pasha's wife) were also at the tea party. They are the prettiest creatures, the Daghistani girls. One of them had put on a gorgeous old Albanian bridal dress to show me and we made two of the younger children dress up in old Circassian silks and velvets in which they looked perfectly delightful. I love going to that house and I really do feel as if I were one of the family.

Today, Sunday, I rode out in the morning and paid a long visit on Haji Naji. It was a real pleasure to be out again. I had been kept so long in the house by the mud. All the world is turning green after the rains and in Karradah the barley spreads a brilliant emerald carpet under the palms. Haji Naji and I wandered through his orchards and along the river bank. The Tigris is always beautiful but in a winter sun it's unsurpassed. Haji Naji is thinking of standing for the Nationalist Congress and I warmly encouraged him.

I had Major Marshall (down from Kirkuk) to lunch and the Davidsons to meet him - Mr Davidson is Sir E. Bonham Carter's successor and she has just come out and came to lunch to make acquaintance. I liked her very much and I also like him. She is tremendously interested in everything, very simple and delightful, I thought.

Dec 20. [20 December 1921] The air mail closes tomorrow, two days earlier than usual because of Xmas. Capt Clayton and I are planning to go out on the 23rd to stay with Saiyid Safa al Din at the Naqib's country house where you and I went to lunch. I think an Arab country house party for Xmas is rather chic, don't you! We are going to send up ponies and if only the weather holds we shall have good fun. I feel sure that Saiyid Safa al Din will be the best of hosts.
We're having another little Turko-Kurdish eruption on the Arbil [(Hawler)] borders. It may be that the Kamalists, prior to entering into peace negotiations want to have as many cards in their hands as possible, or it may be a sign of implacable hostility on their part. In any case it's worrying. But for Kamalist instigation we should have no trouble in tackling the frontier Kurds but with a stiffening of Turkish regulars and mountain guns and nothing but Levies and police to meet them, they're a difficult problem. Between ourselves, aeroplanes are no good in mountain country. You can't so much as see a Kurdish mountain village from the air; it's flat mud roofs look like a part of the hillside. And even if you do locate it you can't do much harm. The people take refuge under any convenient rock and your bombs are comparatively innocuous. Oh for peace - peace at any price, I could almost say. I wonder if any generation was so weary of strife as we are.

Ja'far Pasha dropped in to the office this morning for a talk. I wish there were more people of his integrity and moderation. He hasn't, of course, Faisal's quicksilver intelligence but at any rate they are both pure metal. And Ja'far's fidelity and devotion to the King are really beautiful. I know the man in every aspect and he is equally delightful in his affectionate chivalry towards his women folk, his adoration of his children and his fervent loyalty to Faisal, whom he regards (as, indeed, I do also) as the one man who can lead the Arab cause to success.

We've had another problem looming on our southern border. You know that Ibn Sa'ud has captured Hail, thereby changing the whole balance of Arabian politics. His frontier now marks[?] with that of the 'Iraq and it's as yet an undefined frontier. Sir Percy has invited him to come into conference with himself and Faisal at the earliest possible moment and I've been busy laying out on the map what I think should be our desert boundaries. There's nothing I should like so much as to attend that conference of Kings but I don't suppose for a moment that Sir Percy will take me. Ibn Sa'ud has been very conciliatory towards the Hail people. He has appointed as Governor of the place a certain Ibrahim al Subhan who was the man who received and entertained me while I was there. A pleasant enlightened individual without, I should say, much force of character.

But the conquest of Hail will have far-reaching consequences. It will bring Ibn Sa'ud into the theatre of Trans-Jordanian politics and probably into the Franco-Syrian vista also - it's difficult as yet to see with what results. I should, however, feel much greater anxiety if I weren't so certain of Sir Percy's power to guide him. It's really amazing that anyone should excercise [sic] influence such as his. The other day some silly rumour was started in Baghdad that he was going away, and one and all, down to the most violent anti-British extremists, were filled with dismay. I don't think that any European in history has made a deeper impression on the Oriental mind.

Darling goodbye. After what I've been saying about peace you'll not be surprised to hear how I welcome the Irish settlement. That and the Afghan agreement make me hope that after all we've touched bottom and are now turning our faces towards a policy of wise conciliation. - My letters are very boring; they are all full of Asiatic politics, but that's what occupies my thoughts, and they overflow to you.

I must end by relating a pleasing anecdote. One of my duties is to deal with the petitions that flow in to Sir Percy. Among the latest was a complaint from an Armenian woman against an inspector in the police force who had, she said, unjustly siezed her property, "forgetful that we have God above and Bellow your Excellency, both engaged in seeing that justice is done in the Iraq." The thought that God and Sir Percy were being so busy affected me greatly, and although the matter was one on which the law courts alone could decide, I wrote a private letter to the Inspector General of Police asking him to inquire into the doings of his subordinate, who, I have little doubt, is a rogue. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.

I've masses of narcissus in my garden and the violets are just coming out - nice, isn't it.

Let Domnul see my letters. Except for him and Maurice and Elsa and Herbert they had better not be handed on.