Baghdad Aug 10 Dearest Father. I've had rather a slack week getting gradually better and I now consider that I'm returned fit for duty. In this connection I must tell you a charming tale about a Turkish military hospital in Mosul [Mawsil, Al] which was visited by an English traveller (not me) before the war. The official ledger was kept under 4 heads, the first admittances, the second Discarged cured, the third Died, the fourth Ran away. The latest page was composed as follows: Admittances 6. Discharged cured 0. Died 2. Ran away 4.
To return to me: the worst of the extreme physical weariness which is apt to attack one in the climate is the mental weariness, not to say desperation, which accompanies it. You feel as if you never again would lift a finger without exhaustion and for all the iron and arsenic you are drinking 3 times a day, you're persuaded you'll not get well - not that you want to get well, far from it. Your chief desire is unostentatiously to die. However I hope I'm through it now for the moment.

Far more reviving than the iron and the arsenic was the appearance of the I.G.C. this week. It has been so nice having him. We go out motoring of an evening, though that has not been as nice as it should be because of the windless autumn heat which seems to grow worse and heavier after sunset. The day's dust hangs like a fog over the whole universe and the only thing for it is to head out into the desert and get away from human traffic. One night we went down to see the new station, or rather railhead, where the Kut [Kut, Al (Kut al Imara)] and Ba'qubah lines come in. It was scarcely possible to see because of the dust made by the mule carts which come to fetch away the stuff brought in by rail, but with the eyes of the imagination I was looking upon the end of a very remarkable achievement - the Kut line, put through last month in spite of overpowering heat, was a really fine performance. All honour to General Lubbock, father of railways. He was modestly pleased with it himself. I dined with the I.G.C. one night on his ship and he, Richard and I dined with Sir Percy yesterday - very pleasant if I hadn't been so tired. We had had a bad day of close heat and it was a truly awful night. But for all that and in spite of my fussing, it is getting better. The thermometer rarely goes much over 110 and is sometimes Bellow that. The truth is that we are living in a rather exasperated state, concerning which I refer you to Edwin, to whom I have just been writing a long letter on Mesopotamian economics.

I've invested in a cock and 4 hens, for to lay me eggs, but so far without any very marked success. They don't lay many more eggs than my gazelle, or to be exact they've laid exactly one more. I never liked hens and I'm contemplating the conversion of these into roast chicken. On the other hand the dates in my garden are ripe, and very good. The fresh date is a thing apart.

I'm about to open a bureau at my office for matrimonial alliances legitimes and illegitimes. As regards the first, a Kurd of high degree, Ismail Beg Milli, who has been for some months a refugee with us, has asked me to help him with the leading Circassian of Baghdad, Daud Beg (of the famous horses) whose sister Ismail Beg thinks would be a suitable bride. He has not seen her, but I have and I was able to assure him that she would do very well. As for the other sort, listen: there appeared one day outside my room a little lady trimly dressed in white, with a white straw hat, black edged, very demure and elegant. She had a long story about her being a Mohammadan related to the Naqib, converted to Christianity and pestered by the Naqib and his family to return to her original faith. Would we protect and support her? The situation, if she had described it accurately, was evidently a very delicate one and I told her to put it down in writing. This she did and returned two days later with a long document. She proposed to wait while I dealt with it, but I said that wasn't the way of offices and she must come back in a few days for her answer. Mr Philby and I then proceeded to look into the case and what do you think? We hadn't looked a yard before we found that she was one of the most notorious women in Baghdad, no more related to the Naqib than I am and her story pure fiction. A notable episode in her career was that she had been the mistress of the German Consul here, Hesse, a man I've known for years and regarded with loathing (He is in fact a disgrace to any service and did horrible things to our prisoners here.) She bore him a child and all the German colony came and congratulated him on the happy event - what his wife did the while history doesn't say. I need not enlarge on the subsequent history of this baggage, though I got it in detail, but she does not lack self-possession. She came back duly for the answer to her petition, expressed pained surprise when I told her there wasn't one and was only silenced by my calling up a kawass, an office porter, and telling him to show her out. He knew her and showed her out with some celerity. I don't think she will come back. She is a dangerous woman, I should say probably a German spy. I put her case into the hands of Sir Percy, who was deeply interested, and asked him to warn the police. But wasn't she a minx!

There now, I must stop writing my life and times, lurid though they be. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude