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Letter from Gertrude Bell to her father, Sir Hugh Bell

Letter from Gertrude Bell to her father Hugh Bell, written over the course of several days from the 4th to the 7th of May, 1905.

Summary
There is currently no summary available for this item.
Reference code
GB/1/1/2/1/9/11
Recipient
Bell, Sir Thomas Hugh Lowthian
Creator
Bell, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian
Creation Date
-
Extent and medium
1 letter, paper
Language
English
Location
Coordinates

37.7162193, 32.6621262

[3 May 1905] [Beginning of letter missing] ... more when and why all this country ceased to be inhabited. It was evidently very flourishing in the first Christian centuries - they turned all the temples into churches and built more besides. And then silence; and an end to history, and wandering Yuruks camping in palaces and monasteries and the terraced fields all overgrown with brushwood and with pine. I rode through the hills a couple of hours and more before I joined the road I left yesterday when I branched off to Olba. It was all rock and pine and scrub, a couple of tiny Yuruk camps near the one place where there was a spring. When we came out onto the road I felt that I had indeed reached the Central Asia Minor plateau. As far as the eye could see the barren country went rolling away, rocks and pines and more rocks and more with great patches of snow on them. Over this wild and barren country runs the road to Karaman [(Laranda)], surely the most useless road in Asia Minor. It seems a pity when they make so few that they should have wasted their energies on one by which no mortal travels but the Yuruks and me. All the way from Selefke [Silifke (Seleucia)] to Karaman there is only one village on it, Mara [Kirobasi (Magara)] where I am camped tonight. There are cornfields round it among the rocks but the corn has scarcely begun to grow. A desolate place. I have a good camping ground, however, and spend my time rejoicing in mountain freshness. You can't think what it's like to be on top of Taurus [Toros Daglari] after a fortnight of Cilician plain and coast. May 5. [i.e. 4 May 1905] We have ridden all day over the grey plateaux, plunging through snow drifts and battling against driving sleet. But it has been delicious. At the edge of the melthing snow drifts the ground was covered with crocus, iris, anemone and yellow aconite. I found the Arncliff wild tulip growing in great patches, but flowering sparsely, as it does at Arncliff. There were no people at all anywhere, the one place marked on the map proved to be a Yuruk cemetary [sic] and we rode for 8 hours and met 2 Yuruks with their wives and camels. Then we came to a valley, the first break in the rolling plateau; it was sleeting hard at the time and as there were big caves in the rocks into which we could put the horses I resolved to camp here instead of going on and camping possibly in the open. Moreover all the steep valley is full of rose red tulips. The caves are in the top of the rocks - they are cave dwellings, I daresay prehistoric - and Bellow them is a narrow ledge just wide enough for our tents, and only just. Before my door the ground falls away in a very steep slope to the stream 300 ft Bellow. And there is absolutely nobody here but a few bustards. It's the most delightful camp in the world. May 7. [i.e. 6 May 1905] Karaman [(Laranda)]. I daresay it doesn't often occur to you to think what a wonderful invention is the railway but it is very forcibly borne in upon me at this moment for I am going to Konia [Konya (Iconium)] in 3 hours instead of having a weary 2 days' march across a plain of mud. Yesterday I rode in here some 35 miles. The mountains have no other side, if you can understand me. The road I have come by rose some 6000 ft from the sea and did not descend more than 600 on the north side. Inside, the country is exactly what I have often pictured it to myself - a great barren upland with abrupt hills rising out of it from place to place. One of my soldiers and I rode on ahead and did the journey in 7 hours. We arrived in a thunderstorm and I went to the hotel and slept for 3 hours till my mules came in. I don't remember having been so tired for a long time. The hotel of Karaman is in the first stage of development from the primitive khan. Your host provides a roof and every man is his own cook and housemaid. It was a streaming wet evening and I was thinking with some discouragement of the next day's journey when I learnt that Karaman is on the German line - it has only been open for a year and it is not yet marked on the maps. So I arose and called the name of Zander blessed and resolved to ride no more. The train goes in the afternoon. I have spent the day exchanging visits with the Kaimakam and seeing the town. There are some beautiful Seljuk mosques and a madrasseh which is worth yesterday's journey to see, but all in ruins. Even the wall of my room is busy falling down into the street and the rain came in last night through the roof as it has never come into my English tent. Turkey must be a marvel of delicate balance or it would never manage to keep together at all. En revanche, I wonder what the Kaimakam thinks of the hats of English travellers of distinction. I have worn mine for 4 months in all weathers - you can scarcely tell which is the crown of it and which the brim. Sunday 9th [i.e. 7 May 1905] (I'm a day out in my dates somewhere for I see I dated yesterday the 7th and it was the 8th) I arrived at 8 last night and went straight to the German Consulate to get my letters. I found a delightful long one from you, another from Elsa, equally delightful (I long to talk over your travels with her) and lots from Mother, bless her, the last dated April 15. The dear little German consul and his wife received me with open arms and insisted on my staying to dinner. I stayed and sat talking till 10.30 - it was such a pleasure to be with civilized beings again! I am deciding to go straight to C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] from here. I shall wind up my camp and leave in day or two. I have telegraphed to you to write to the Embassy (since you are such friends with the O'Connors they might as well keep my letters! It's super in this country. I've lots to tell you about the German railway and all sorts of things, but it must wait. The Emperor seems to have been filibustering a good deal and think of dear Rosen going to Morocco - 2 cs and 1 r I think! Rounton sounds delightful - I long to be there. We'll spend Whitsuntide there together. I want to stay a day in Paris to see Reinach - you don't think some of my dear family might by any chance meet me there? It wd be such immense fun. I shall telegraph from C'ple when I am leaving so you wd have plenty of time to bustle across to the Hôtel St Romain! Of course, I'm ruined. I hope you are pretty well off. Ever dearest Belloved Father your very affectionate daughter Gertrude

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