Baghdad. April 14. Darling Mother. As you will have gathered from the papers, our chief preoccupation during the past week has been water. The two days of south wind, of which I spoke with disgust in my last letter, were being more disgusting than I knew. They were melting the snows in the northern mountains and on Thursday Mr Bury (Irrigation) told me that we were in for a terrific flood. The river was already so high that no cars or cabs were allowed to cross the bridges and one walked to the office hoping devoutly that one would also be able to walk back. In fact the bridges have stood. On Thursday evening the river was almost lapping over its left bank and everyone was busy sandbagging his garden terrace lest the water should come in. After dinner, I sent my gardener round to Ken's house to help and went there myself for a little to look at the flood. It was rumbling and s....... past; as we stood on the terrace it sounded as though it were pushing into the foundations under our feet. On Friday the Tigris Dyke broke on the left bank - my bank - above the King's palace which it flooded. He was away at Khanaqin and his family had to be moved hastily into a house in the town. The water rushed over the eastern desert, lapping along the town dyke and from then until today we have never been sure that it would not break through and flood the low lying parts of the town, which include my quarter! I think that risk is over now, unless the Tigris again does something very perverse, but the {prospect} possibility of having 6 ft of water in one's house hasn't been pleasant. How dreadfully annoyed I should have been, to be sure.
It has been difficult to think of anything else. Most days I have motored with Ken or walked or ridden by myself along the dykes to see the people at work on them. They have brought in thousands of peasants and revetted the banks with reed mats and sand bags but the worst is when the water begins to seep in through rotten places in the lower parts of the dyke. They have electric light all along and people watching and working night and day. The big railway station on the east bank is under water and enormous quantities of merchandise waiting to go up to Persia spoilt.

Today was one of the two great Moslem festivals. The King did not hold a levy, having no house to hold it in, and we let ourselves off most of the customary visits. Ken and I went to see H.M. who is living for the moment in the house of a rich Jew quite near to us. He was very philosophical, poor dear, and talked of going back to his palace - such of it as is left standing - as soon as the water goes down. We then went to the Naqib, his son, brother and son in law, and the rest of the notables had to be content with a card deposited by one of the office servants. The breach is now being closed slowly and we think of going out this afternoon to see it.

Of course we could not go to Khanaqin. To begin with the King has sent his women folk up there and then you can't go away with the fear that you may come back and find your house crumbling into a lake. Ken is also fearfully busy arranging for workmen to come in and so forth. Everyone seems to have been extremely competent and the Irrigation people have been at work day and night since Friday. I met Mr Bury on the dyke yesterday and he brought me home and told me all the gloomy tale. The Arabs are so incurably careless; they won't shut their channels when the flood is coming down and then it finds a way in and breaks through. Actually it is believed that the main breach was caused by the palace servants leaving one of the King's channels open. If he hadn't been away it possibly would not have happened. Bad luck!

This is a country of extremes. It's either dying of thirst or it's dying of being drowned. Mr Bury says that Baghdad can never be made really safe, it lies in such low ground; but I expect that after this experience, following on that of 1923, they will do a great deal to make it safer. The whole desert to the east is under water for miles and miles; now the Euphrates is beginning and it's to be hoped that it won't lay under water the whole desert to the west! Anyhow it can't destroy my house, which is something.

I'm so sorry for the King - his nice house all spoilt. And poor Iltyd who is in Mosul [Mawsil, Al] - there are about 14 ft of water over the place where he lived and I hear everything he had has been washed away. The water came in so fast that nothing could be saved. This is only a flood letter I'm afraid. Your very loving daughter Gertrude