Baghdad Aug 30. Dearest Father. I have letters from you and Mother, respectively July 21 and 20. You will understand that after recent communications from Edwin I feel rather jumpy as to how you deal with my letters. I keep no diary but I write everything to you. You mustn't scatter it broadcast. For example it gave me a shiver to think of your reading my frank criticisms to military bigwigs. Nothing doesn't get round this round world and you may be sure it will reach Sir Aylmer, only by the time it reaches him it will have grown from a letter to you to a private communication to the War Office. Therefore please be careful. I've been rather a poor thing this week with a bad cold but thank heaven it's better and beyond a general end-of-the-hot-weatherish-ness I'm all right again. With a mind as damp and sticky as if someone had forgotten to put it on ice, I've been struggling through the last chapter of my report which deals with the nationalist movement. I've never had any task so difficult, let alone that one can't write history while it's all in the making and hasn't arrived at any conclusion, but to my stupefaction AT [Wilson] thinks [it] a masterpiece. I need not tell you it isn't - it couldn't be - but at any rate it's done. No longer shall I toil at it through hot afternoons when words rise in revolt and sentences stand persistently on their heads; nor yet shall I jump up at sunrise to get a couple of hours before the dizzy heat begins. Besides these advantages, I'm now very much in favour, which eases matters! Oh dear I wish I could go off to India for a bit, but I can't: this is the kind of thing that happens. Saiyid Talib sends me round a note to say when can he see me in private, and appears while I'm breakfasting. The conversation opens - or I should say opened, for it's a true story - by his telling me that he regards me as a sister and not as a member of the Govt and will I give him advice. To all of which I listened over my egg and black figs. And then he asked me whether he ought to consent to be financed by us - will it lower him in our estimation, or what? To which I replied that though his father is well off, I understood that he couldn't lay his hands on any ready money and that it was much better to take money from us for services rendered than be indebted to Tom, Dick or Harry, who would have a claim on him later. He is doing quite useful work and I pointed out that I accepted a salary and there was no reason why he shouldn't. I'm sure that was the right advice to give him and he took it - together with the money - and I must say I liked and respected him for having come to consult me about it. We're often wondering what his real game is - though he has so far played perfectly straight - and I'm sure he must wonder the same thing about us, though we've been equally straight. As long as he comes to me and talks openly it's much easier to keep the balance level, but I'm not at all sure he would do it to anyone else. And so I stay, just on the chance of its being useful. Incidentally it's comic to reflect that if we didn't finance him he would get what he wanted by a system of blackmail, an act at which he's an adept, but it wouldn't be any advantage to us, nor in the long run to him. We must make him and his like follow respectable courses. He is bound to play a big part in the future, though I should think it will probably be in Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)], not here. Anyhow he'll ultimately be drawing a sufficient salary from whatever office he fills, and till that time comes we've got to try and keep him out of mischief. This part of my letter is not public! it's the private diary. My 'Aqail friends have come in very handy. They are always turning up with exact information as to the whereabouts of people in whose doings we're much interested. They very strongly urge that we should form an 'Aqaili camel corps and I'm quite certain they're right. I dined with Sir Aylmer two days ago and worked the assembled company of generals into a state of enthusiasm about it, but whether they'll do anything I can't say. Usually they don't. They really are a set of old dead bodies! You see, you can't fight tribes with regular forces; you want something much more mobile, independent of commissariat, water and the medical services to guard your frontier. It's only camel people who can do that job. I had an enjoyable hour and a half with the Naqib this morning. I must tell you we've been making a few well-considered arrests in Baghdad, quite rightly I think. One of these happened to be the son of an old friend of the Naqib's and the latter intervened on his behalf. He was released and at once returned to his former courses in consequence of which we've requested both him and his father to proceed at once to Constantinople [Istanbul]. Mr Bullard (acting Military Governor) was afraid the Naqib might be ruffled and asked me to go and smooth matters over. But quite the contrary. When I opened the subject the Naqib said jovially that he had made one mistake and wasn't going to make another. These sentiments simplified my mission not a little. I fancy the Naqib's views as to the wisdom of the intercession have been considerably modified by the fact that the reBellious tribes on the Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] have not hesitated to rob his gardens of grapes, dates and barley. It's hard on him because no one has less sympathy with nationalist movements than he, but it makes me laugh to note the attitude of other Baghdad notables - they all have estates on the Diyalah - who were ready enough to take a hand in the agitation at the beginning and now have no words bad enough for it. One of these worthies told me the other day that he held us responsible for the losses he had incurred. To which I replied that I thought he had better apply to Yusuf Suwaidi, and the assembled company broke into a guffaw. Yusuf Suwaidi and Muhammad Sadr are both on the Diyalah, encouraging the tribes with assurances that they've made arrangements for the British to be turned out of Baghdad at once. Enthusiasm has however been somewhat damped by an attempt on their part to set up a provisional government - consisting of themselves - and in that capacity to demand the payment of taxes. The tribes felt justly aggrieved - that wasn't at all what they expected from an Arab government. And what with this disillusion and the fact that we've retaken Ba'qubah, the credit of nationalist institutions is on the wane. I was much distressed by a report that Mustafa Pasha Bajlan had been killed but from all I hear it's not true. I should have regretted him most deeply - as much as I should regret the death of the Naqib. While I was sitting with him this morning listening to his explanation of his neutral attitude throughout Ramadhan, I was overcome, as I not infrequently am - with the sense of being as much an Asiatic as a European. For if I'm not too Asiatic to form a clear opinion, he made a pretty good case. He said he hated the antics of the nationalists - and that's true for he has a good hearty loathing for all Shi'ahs and the "united Islamic front" which the nationalists were preaching seemed to him nothing short of the very devil. He had a great deal sooner combine with any unbeliever - except always the French. "But" he went on "suppose I had got up in the pulpit and said what I thought, it would have been published all through Afghanistan and India, where I am much respected, that I was in the pay of the English and a traitor to Islam. I don't see how that could have done you any good." And for the life of me I don't see either! But to be able to exchange the frankest views with the Ancient East, as I do with the Naqib, is both amazing and delightful. The "united Islamic front" has, I may say, fallen into discredit. The Sunnis never lose an occasion for pointing out that it's all the fault of the Shi'ahs and I take considerable pleasure in replying that the whole thing began from the Mesopotamians in Syria who were all Sunnis. At which they take refuge in God and "No doubt you know best - we're not informed." My best refuge is the Tods. We had the most delicious Sunday swimming party yesterday and dined on the launch under a full moon on the way back. They provide such a welcome change of mental atmosphere - I don't know how to be sufficiently grateful to them. For you know one lives in a very narrow circle and things get all out of proportion. The really bright spot is the settlement with Egypt. If we can get there into terms of good-fellowship with an independent Arab country it will make all our relations with Arabs easier. It's the recognition of the principle of co-operation versus domination which I welcome. I'm afraid my letters are terribly boring but it's no good pretending that I think of anything but the eastern problem, because I don't. It's more than enough for one mind. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.