Feb 16 Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] Dearest Father. I had no letters last week though the papers came - the proceedings of the mails are very mysterious. I suppose we ought to think ourselves fortunate to get any post at all in these days. Have they really found a way of defeating submarines? Reuter is constantly giving assurances to that effect but I don't know that it's not just to keep us quiet. It was the finger of Providence that led me to get into my now abode for we have had 5 days of rain and Basrah is a unique spectacle. It's almost impossible to go out. I put on a riding skirt and a pair of india rubber top boots - which I had fortunately procured from India - and stagger through the swamp for half an hour after tea and it's all one can do. Yesterday the sun shone and the I.G.C. and I managed to get down to the desert in a motor and walked along the top of some mounds on the edge of the palm gardens, which so much encouraged me that I jumped up at sunrise today, hoping to be able to ride. But no sooner was I dressed than down came the rain again, through the mud roof of my room too, and there was nothing for it but to change sadly into ordinary clothes - and write to you. We haven't had anything like our proper allowance of rain this winter, so we shall probably get it all now in unmanageable quantities. They don't seem to have had it on the Tigris front and so far operations continue - but very slowly; I doubt whether much more will happen there and we shall probably spend this summer besieging the Turks in Kut [Kut, Al (Kut al Imara)]. I hope they'll like it and I feel sure we shan't - it's no fun having troops out in the open in the summer. But it will be better this year than last year because we are altogether better supplied and appointed. The last fine day I had a delightful jaunt with Sir A. Lawley. I wanted to show him something really Arab - he had seen so much of hospitals and wharfs and engineer field parks which are not typical of the country. So we motored out to Zubair [Zubayr, Az], 8 miles to the west, a clean little desert town just like a central Arabian oasis. In the bazaar we found a broker holding a sale and I bought a brass-nailed wooden chest for my room, very pretty and capacious. And next we found the Shaikh of Zubair sitting in his afternoon assembly at one side of the open square to whom I introduced Sir A. and interpreted compliments. He insisted on carrying us off to tea at his house - he has just built a new house of which he is most proud. Sir A. was delighted, and as we sat there, I explaining to Sir A. what Zubair was made of, and how it was the beginning of Arabia and not the end of Mesopotamia, and how we had started a school at the urgent request of the shaikh - while I was doing all this, in walked the shaikh's little son who has been a pupil at the new school for 3 months, and if you'll believe it he chattered English of the funniest kind and was himself the best of illustrations of all I had been telling about the Zubair people. And Sir A., bless him, was deeply interested and most appreciative. We came home across the battlefield of Sha'aibah [Shu'aiba (Ash Shuaybah)] and stopped for a moment to climb onto the roof of the fortified farm house which was our H.Q. so that we might see the line of our trenches and of the Turkish attack - altogether a most satisfactory afternoon's sightseeing. (NB Half my writing table is covered with a waterproof cloak which catches the water dripping through my ceiling, catches it rather imperfectly. Also the drops splash onto my paper occasionally.) Here's breakfast and I must then go to work
- I've had a pleasant day with very few interruptions, owing to the fact that the mud deters even those who desire favours - with the result that I've got through a lot of work and blocked out an article on administration which I've long had in my mind. I hope it will see the light somewhere. All the tribal and other material on which I've been busy for a year has now reached the point of publication for official circulation and I'm beginning to reap a harvest of proofs from India. When once it's printed and put on record I shall feel that the first goal is attained. It's not history, but it will be very valuable some day for the making of history and it will furnish an exact account of the country as we found it. In and out of all other work it has been, and is still, a constant thread which gives me increasing satisfaction as I get a better grasp of it. On the whole it's the work I've liked best here.

Presently I shall have to ask you to send me a nice wig. I haven't got enough hair left to pin a hat to. I don't know what happens to one's hair in this climate. It just evaporates. A momentous event took place this week - the clothes Sylvia bought for me arrived, hat and gown and everything. I feel it to be nothing short of miraculous and rejoice accordingly. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.

I'm so luxuriously comfortable in my new rooms.

I've sent Mr Naaman, whose letters Mother forwarded, a word of introduction to a member of the firm of Lynch. I don't think I can do better for him.