From my camp. Nahr Dumer. Jan 20. Dearest Father. You see I'm off! I got off finally this morning at 12 - the first day's start is always an endless matter and I'm thankful to have it over. It was blazing hot and I, having like a prudent traveller kept to my winter clothes, had to pack my coat away in my saddle bags and ride in a shirt. The road is all along the coast, not particularly interesting, but one has a broad blue sea on one side and mulberry orchards on the other. Wherever the ground is uncultivated it is covered with flowers, white irises, blue and red anemones and cyclamen - I have a bunch of them on my dinner table. I have a charming camping ground near a river, and a full moon besides, and an absolutely clear sky and I am dining out of doors in the front of my tent. I mention all this in the hope of giving pain for I strongly suspect you are in the middle of a fog - if you are in London. It is a great thought that I shall be many months under this little green roof. There came a Syrian woman and invited me to go and dine with her in the middle of the mulberry trees but it was too lovely an evening to leave my tents so I paid her a visit after dinner and we sat on the floor and drank tea sociably together.

Jan 21. [21 January 1905] 'Ain el Kantarah. Today we have had a full day's ride and all goes well. I began by bathing in the river at dawn - a mighty cold business. I left the servants packing up and rode on alone to Saida [(Sidon)] where I spent an hour seeing what there is to see which is not much. But the port is charming with a ruined castle built on an island in the sea and connected with the town by a narrow stone bridge. I got permission from the chief officer who was busy having his head shaved completely bald at the time, to lunch there and very agreeable it was. The castle is built on old foundations, probably Phoenician, and the walls are full of fragments of great columns. Phoenicia is a very great name to the imagination and all this coast too was the battle ground of the Seleucids and the Ptolomies - they fought almost every inch of it backwards and forwards and there were great towns where there is now nothing but blown sand. I am camping half way on the road to Tyre [Soûr]; 20 yards from the sea on a little bit of flat sandy grass, an ideal piece of ground for a camp. A great snowy line of mountains lies behind my tents, there has just been a gorgeous sunset and the moon is rising over the Lebanon. It's wonderfully nice. I am beginning to rejoice again in the comfort of my saddle. The first day I generally feel it's rather a toss up whether I remain in it or not. NB the horse does the tossing up. He was rather fresh yesterday morning and bucked about through the streets of Beirut [Beyrouth]. A strong sense of what was fitting alone kept me from biting the dust of Beirut.

Sun 22. [22 January 1905] A strong wind rose in the night and blew up clouds. In the morning it looked very threatening and was blowing hard. So I jumped up in order to get my tents packed before the rain came and at 7.30 we were ready. As I rode off, down poured the rain but I was well wrapped up in a waterproof and didn't mind at all. It rained for an hour. The road was innocent of all metalling, except that which the creator had been pleased to provide; there were indeed bridges, but entirely disconnected from the causeway at either end so that except for the look of the thing they might as well not have been there. But when I got into the Black Plain of Tyre [Soûr] the road was better and I was able to push forward. I got into Tyre at midday and went to the house of an interesting little missionary lady whom I knew - her name is Miss Lord and she has a face like a Pre Rafaelite, or rather a Byzantine, saint and she has lived here 25 years with another English woman - the only Europeans here. It's a miserably poor country and suffers terribly at the hands of the govt. There are no Jews; they won't come, says Miss Lord, because they remember the curse laid upon Tyre. It's curious that the name of this great city, the first mistress of the seas, is known to most Christians only through the anathemas of the wild prophets of Judaea to whom all the {greater} wider civilization and all the arts were accursed. There is nothing left here, nothing but the site, and even that is altered for Alexander built a long causeway to connect the island city with the land and the sand has silted up and made the island a peninsular. After lunch I took a guide and rode inland for an hour into the hills. It's no wonder the Phoenicians were seafarers for it would be difficult to find a more barren stony country than theirs. I went up to see a wonderful great sarcophagus raised high on a pedestal of huge squared stones - the tomb of Hiram it is called, and whether it is his or not, it is Phoenician and of immense antiquity. There is an extraordinary charm in these stony hills and valleys. They look like a land of dead bones - grey limestone rocks and a few grey fig trees (you know the whitish colourlessness of them when they are leafless) and a few grey green olives. But when you come near, the valleys are full of tiny niches which are gardens of anemones and cyclamen, and the rocks are full of beauty, and the high perched villages have an air of romance, and the naked hills a wild and desolate splendour. I came back at 5 to find my tents pitched by the sea on the S. side of the island. It poured for about an hour, but is now clear and I am as warm and comfy as can be.

Mon. 23. [23 January 1905] It is fine again, coldish but delicious for travelling. I began the day by hunting up a thief who had stolen a Bellt from Sim'an - Sim'an is my cook. I found the thief but not the Bellt. So we rode away without it. A very nice journey today, over lovely rocky headlands with great views across sea and land. There were rain storms all about, but never on us by good chance, and rainbows and the sea had all the blues and purples in the world in it. Two miles out of Acre ['Akko] I stopped at the house of some Persians who are friends of mine - the daughter of the late prophet and her husband and mother. They greeted me with enthusiasm and gave me delicious Persian tea and I sat talking with them for a long time. When I left they embraced me warmly and gave me a bunch of hyacinths and narcissus - the Persians love flowers, bless them, and always have their gardens full of them. So I rode into Acre after sunset and found my camp pitched outside the city gates and my dinner a cooking. I spent the interval in visiting a very nice missionary lady, Miss Ramsay and now I'm going to have a bath as I shall not be able to bathe in the sea tomorrow at the gates of Acre.

Tues. 24. [24 January 1905] It was rather cold in the night and in the morning horrid cold weather and rainy. I breakfasted with Miss Ramsay and her sister and spent the morning with them. Miss Ramsay took me round the town which she knows intimately, having lived there for 23 years. There is, however, not much to see. These places have suffered so terribly from the vicissitudes they have passed through that they say there is not a house in Acre ['Akko] older than 100 years. The Crusader fortifications of the port are interesting and very picturesque and there are old columns in the mosque and one old khan, a very splendid place where the Persians live, with granite columns all round - I wonder where they came from. I came into Haifa in the afternoon, horrible weather and am lodging with my former innkeeper. I have spent the afternoon receiving relays of people, Persian and Arab; it has been very pleasant seeing them again. It's raining and hailing like anything - thank Heaven I'm not in a tent!

Wed. 24. [i.e. 25 January 1905] Oh I've had such a day! I've lunched with my Persians, I've drunk tea with my horsedealer, I've spent hours in conversation with my landlord, I've visited everyone I know in Haifa (which includes half Haifa) and now I'm going to dine with the English doctor and his wife. The weather is better and I'm off tomorrow morning - I doubt if it will be very nice in tents tomorrow, but still!
I'll send this letter off from here. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude