Monday Ap 7. Haifa. Dearest Mother. I now take my meals with a black - he's my fellow lodger in this hotel. He's a very pleasant black and since he talks Arabic to me his colour leaves me quite indifferent; still it's comic. He wears a dark brown kid glove on one hand and except for the buttons I can't tell which is the ungloved hand. We solemnly discuss the Koran and he assures me that the sum of all human knowledge is to be found in it. To which I politely agree. Yesterday there were also an English cleric, vicar of some East end parish (I think his name's Ross) and one of the Bp of Jerusalem's chaplains, the latter a Syrian and nice, the former I thought rather disagreeable. They've both gone to Nazareth. The chaplain knew about me from Mr Dickson. Yesterday I had a delicious day. It was Sunday; I rode off at 9 the whole length of Mount Carmel to the Druze villages at the SE corner. I went to the furthest, Daliah [Daliyat el Karmil], which I reached at .... and was made welcome by the Sheikh. I had taken my lunch in my saddle bags and eaten it while I was riding up and down the endless valleys and hills of Carmel. The SE end is very beautiful, charming gorges with the Druze olive gardens in them and wide valleys filled with corn. Daliah is the place where Laurence Oliphant lived. I went to see his house and drank coffee with the old Syrian who takes care of it for L.O.'s second wife, Mrs Templeton, a mad woman now in England. The old Syrian was sitting with his wife and smoking a narghileh; I stayed talking with them in the nice cool house (it was a hot day) for some time and was shown over the house by a much painted daughter. Whom she paints for I can't think for no one but Druze peasants lives within miles of here. The old man took me to see the monument L.O. put up for his first wife. It has been enclosed in a Druze house - stands in the courtyard heaped round with rubbish - very sad to see. I then returned to my Sheikh and was invited into his house where I eat bread and curds in the approved fashion and told them of my exploits in the Hauran. They gave me news of my Hauran friends. I left at 3 and started back by another way, which I speedily lost, but fortunately I met a Druze who put me into the right path and I found my way straight as the crow flies back into Haifa which I reached at 6.30, well content. I put up a fox in the hills and lots of partridges, there were hundreds of bustards flying about. I have also seen some Arab tents wh I must go and visit. This afternoon I paid a long call on the mother and sisters of my Persian - their house is my house, you understand, and I am to go and talk Persian whenever I like. Then I had a missionary lady and the wife of Prophet Wasserzug to tea - rather nice women, I like them both. This is my day: I get up at 7; at 8 Abu Nimrud comes and teaches me Arabic till 10. I go on working till 12 when I lunch. Then I write for my Persian till 1.30 or so when I ride or walk out. Come in at 5 and work till 7 when I dine. At 7.30 my Persian comes and stays till 10 and at 10.30 I go to bed. You see I have not much leisure time! And the whole day long I talk Arabic.
Now it's bed time. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude

I don't think I thanked you for the telegram about Uncle Tom for wh I was most grateful. I am so steeped in the East!