Jan 1. 'Amarah ['Amarah, Al] Dearest Father. I will begin the New Year before breakfast by writing to you and sending to you and all my dear family all the best of good wishes. I wonder how many of the family are with you and what it is like at home. I must tell you I felt dreadfully depressed on Xmas day thinking of other Xmas days when we were together and used to be so absurdly happy, a long time ago. I hope Maurice has been with you this year. However, I'm a monster of ingratitude to complain, for I have had a very interesting 10 days and enjoyed them. Mr Philby (Acting Revenue Commissioner) and I left Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] on his launch on the 22nd, got up to Qurnah [Qurnah, Al] in the evening and spent the night with the A.P.O. We were off pretty early next day and went up river to Qal'at Salih. It was a delicious warm day and the river was delightful. I don't know why it should be as attractive as it is. The elements of the scene are extremely simple but the combination still makes a wonderfully attractive result. Yet there's really nothing - flat, far-stretching plain coming down to the river's edge, thorn covered, water-covered in the flood in the lower reaches, a little wheat and millet stubble in the bare fields, an occasional village of reed-built houses, and the beautiful river craft, majestic on noble sails or skimming on clumsy paddles. The river bends and winds, curves back on itself almost, and you have the curious apparition of a fleet of white sails rising out of the heart of the thorny waste, now one side of you, now the other. And by these you mark where your course must lie, where the river divides wilderness from wilderness. We passed Ezra's Tomb and its clump of palms and got out to look at it. There's a very ancient tradition which is probably true, that the Prophet is buried here, but the actual shrine is new. And about 4 in the afternoon we came to Qal'at Salih, a little town set in palm gardens, winding along the bank. The A.P.O. Mr Bullard, had gone down to Basrah for Xmas, so we occupied his tiny house, sent for rations and prepared to lead a rough tin-fed life. But behold my boy developed a genius for cooking and we lived for 5 days on the fat of the land. Two of these days we spent in riding out over the great farms on either side of the river and on each of these occasions we feasted with the local shaikh. These rides brought me into a Mesopotamia which was quite new to me. Behind the high land by the river, the thorny scrub and the millet fields, lies the rich rice country watered by the canals from the Tigris. And here the land is densely peopled, village after reed built village standing on the canal banks, and everywhere the evidences of the great harvest, in mounds of straw and garnered fields and grain-laden boats punting up the canals. The farms we rode over were not very large as farms go here, the outer edge of the largest, that is to say the point where the land sloping down from the Tigris runs into the huge marsh, was some 12 miles from the river, but the Shaikh pays £11,000 a year in rent to the Govt. from whom he leases the ground. The calculation is nominally on the basis of half the profits, but in reality it is about 1/3rd and the produce of the farm is about £33,000 a year - a respectable output. Mr Bullard came back before we left and we spent an agreeable evening together - he is a particularly pleasant and interesting creature. Next morning we came up here, 4 hours by launch and were welcomed by the A.P.O., Mr Howell, Philip's cousin. I knew him in Boulogne. The weather broke before we left Qal'at Salih; we have had a good deal of rain and it has been very cold. But yesterday was fine, a bright sun and bitter wind which dried the country. We took our lunch with us and set out in the slender pitch-covered boats of the country, mashhufs they are called, up one of the great canals. We didn't get as far as the rice country, but after 2 hours of skimming down on the wind, we got out and walked some way down a side canal and then walked home, about 3 hours, while the two men talked of the administration of Mesopotamia, present and to come and I listened and learnt. It's a little town, 'Amarah, with comfortable houses and a great British camp, including immense hospitals, very well run. I spend my time in seeing local people and getting lots of information about tribes and families which had baffled me in Basrah, a satisfactory occupation. I'm going back in a day or two and hope to find letters from you. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude