Baghdad. Sep 3 Darling Father. Your letters from Ceylon [Sri Lanka] are perfectly delightful. It is no good trying to send them by overland mail. The post nearly always pays no attention. Nor is it worth while. Your letter ending Aug 12 got here on Aug 30 and Elsa's last enchanting letter took, I think, one day longer.
Last week I wasn't well so I only had energy to write a very scrappy letter to Mother. Happy to say I'm all right again. I've been to the office these last three days and today I did a full morning's work - 7 to 1.30 - without feeling in the least tired.

There has been very little going on except horrible intrigues which I don't like to write about. Col. Slater is at the bottom of them; he has turned out to be a malevolent, wicked little man. Poor Nigel has had a great deal of both [sic] over it for Col. Slater is playing to the ultra-nationalist gallery, hoping to make himself a position in the country, and he has been deliberately blocking the policy Nigel has to carry through - a policy with which, I may say, I am in entire agreement. The King is furious. I went to tea with him a couple of days ago and he poured out his heart - he has been playing up very well and he finds himself countered at every turn by cabinet opposition incited by Col. Slater. Thank heaven Sir Henry will be back in a fortnight and I expect he will make short work of him. But it has been very difficult and worrying. This is, of course, deeply confidential.

Other matters of interest are (a) that Balliol has offered to take Zaid for a year if he will follow a course of study to be laid down by the Master. I do hope he will go. I have drafted for Nigel the most persuasive letter I could think of to the King. I am so dreadfully afraid that King Husain will {keep up} persist in forbidding it - heaven knows why - and that Zaid won't dare to disobey. People ought to disobey their parents sometimes, you know - some parents at least.

(b.) the Colonial office says that we must send in calendar annual reports, to the League of Nations, instead of, as hitherto, reports covering the financial year. So I who happily thought I had got the horrible thing off my hands find that I shall have to add another 9 months to it. Also they appear, in a truly red-tape fashion, to wish us to imitate as closely as possible the Palestinian report, minus Zionism. I looked up the General Survey in the last report and find in it such items as that it is satisfactory to find that tobacco growing is on the increase! Good heavens! our mujtahids, our Constituent Assemblies, our clash of creeds and races and their gradual assimilation - what has Palestine to show for things like these? I find myself writing in the middle of the Kurdish story that it is regrettable to state that owing to Shaikh Mahmud's antics tobacco growing is on the decrease.

Incidentally what the League of Nations apparently takes most interest in is venereal disease - we're to be very careful to report about that!

You remember the tale of the gentleman who had a bed for his guests? those who were too short he lengthened out and those that were too long he snipped off. I feel as if I were one of the latter category. However, I shall have a good talk about it with Sir Henry when he comes back. I know he will help.

I can't tell you what an angel Dr Sinderson has been to me. When I was ill he came to see me twice a day. (I wasn't very ill, but it happened to coincide with a burst of very awful weather.) He won't let me pay him - what do you think I ought to do? Could you get me a little present for him when you return to England. A tool case or something of that kind. I will pay for it but I would like you to send it to him as if it were from you. What do you think?

Surely I told you that Haji Naji loved the tools? he is so much overcome by your goodness that he has insisted on sending an abba to Mother, Elsa and Moll. I am posting them. Mother's is black, but the other two are a rather glaring[?] blue. However perhaps the children will wear them. Isn't he an old dear!

If by next mail I hear from you the name of your ship I will have another shot at catching you at Port Said. I should have to write by the mail of the 11th so that unless I hear from you next mail (Aug 7) it will be too late. But anyway this letter won't catch you in Ceylon so I have no doubt that Mother will forward it to you at Port Said - if she knows the name of your ship.

The weather which was a fortnight ago truly awful, is now getting much better. It is still very hot from about 11 to 6, but after sunset the temperature really drops and {by} before morning I, sleeping on the roof, have to pull up a blanket. It is such a relief to shiver!

Sep 4. [4 September 1924] I continue to be much better. Ever your very devoted daughter Gertrude.