[12 October 1919] Oct 12 Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)] Dearest Family. If you were to see my diary you would know why I haven't had a moment to write to you since I left Cairo, for it has reached portentous dimensions. Every day, for 2 hours before breakfast, which was the only time I have had to myself, I have written in it my experiences - the whole of the time except those two hours has been taken up either with travelling or with seeing innumerable people and hearing oceans of talk. I scarcely know where to begin in this remarkable Odyssey and I now have only half an hour. However I'll begin at the beginning and trust to luck to find time to continue. I left Cairo in the evening of Friday 3rd, got to Qantarah [Qantara, El] at 10 and motored over the canal to the Sinai railway station on the left bank. Here I found a compartment in what is called the General's carriage, reserved for me - an unupholstered carriage with leather covered bunks. On one of these I spread my camp bed and slept peacefully till dawn. Some officers who were in another compartment provided me with a cup of tea when I woke. We got to Ludd [Lod (Lydda)], which is Lydda, about 8 and had breakfast, after which I changed into the Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] train and got to my destination at 11. I stayed with the Chief administrator, General Sir Harry Watson. He is lodged in the immense German hospice on the top of the Mount of Olives, a wonderful site but a hideously Teutonic structure. The General was away but Lady Watson, a kind woman, made me welcome, and I had a bath and changed before lunch. Ronald Storrs was just back from leave - he is Governor of Jerusalem. After lunch he telephoned to me to come down to his office in the town, which I did, and we planned out the next two days, whom I should see, etc. Then in the late afternoon, we walked through the wonderful town and saw the sunset from the terrace of the Mosque of 'Umar which is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. The next day was Sunday. I spent the whole morning and up to 3 in the afternoon visiting Moslem magnates. I lunched with an American woman in the town - she knows Jerusalem very well and had the most advanced Moslem lady in the place to meet me. The last named occasionally sees men unveiled and is quite prepared to throw off the veil entirely. At 3 Ronald Storrs picked me up and we motored to Bethlehem [(Beit Lahm)]. It's not often that places and countries are lovelier than you remember them but certainly both Jerusalem and Bethlehem, not to speak of the rocky hills of Judaea, made a wholly fresh inroad on my affections. They seemed to me to be far more exquisite, far more stately than my recollection of them, and the afternoon at Bethlehem was a really satisfactory pilgrimage. We had tea with the Military Governor and motored back in the dusk. That night Sir Harry Watson returned and I had a good and most profitable talk with him. Before going down to the town next morning, I went the round of his offices and saw most of his heads of departments. The rest of the day I spent in seeing the leading Jews, with an interval for lunch with Ronald Storrs. There is practically no question but Zionism in Jerusalem. All the Moslems are against it and furious with us for backing it and all the Jews are for it but equally furious with us for not backing it enough. Our attitude, meantime, is to halt between the two and wonder what to do for the best. About 4 I felt I couldn't talk or listen or understand any longer, so I sought out Ronald Storrs and made him take me for a walk along the chemin de ronde on the walls. That was the nicest part of the day, at the same time I won't deny that the whole thing was extremely interesting. Like the people in authority, I feel a great deal of sympathy with both sides and I believe that if both would be reasonable they would each of them have not very much to fear. But they won't be reasonable and we are sowing the seeds of secular disturbance, as far as I can see. The angelic Sir Harry sent me down to Lydda by motor - otherwise I should have had to leave the night before and spend uncomfortable hours between trains at Lydda. I left Jerusalem at 5.30 a.m. The sun was just rising over the hills of Moab and casting long shadows down the Judaean valleys - it was wonderful. I've always thought I should like to settle in Palestine, but not under a Zionist régime, not yet, perhaps, under a British. We change the world too fast. I caught the 8 o'clock train at Lydda, reistablished [sic] myself in the General's carriage and went very comfortably to Haifa. Here I was met by Mrs Waters Taylor, wife of the G.S.O.I. of the Syrian force which has its H.Q. at Haifa. (I may mention that I have become a G.S.O.I. myself; at least I am so described on all my movement orders.) And who do you think she is, or was? a daughter of Mrs Long! Little did I expect to meet such a one at the foot of Carmel. Her husband was away, but the intelligent woman had reserved me two places in the very crowded train and I travelled up to Damascus in a compartment which contained only me and two officers. These last very kindly gave me some lunch - bread and tinned salmon, most welcome after a 4 o'clock breakfast. I had never been up by that line before; it's very beautiful. It crosses Jordan at the south end of the Lake of Tiberias and winds up the deep Yarmuk valley - where T.E. Lawrence blew up one of the bridges in 1918, riding with 10 Beduin from near Sinai, a remarkable performance. It was also the scene of the final victory of the Islamic armies over Byzantium in the 7th century, but that doesn't concern us much now. We came out onto the Hauran plain at Dera'ah [Dar'a] about 5.30 and there found a restaurant and dinner. After which I went to sleep, which was the best thing to do as there was no light in the carriage, till we reached Damascus at 11. I found a servant of Major Clayton's at the station and went to the hotel where I always used to lodge in the old days. Major Clayton is brother of Sir Gilbert and chief political officer in the Damascus province. He is very intelligent and very pleasant - without his help and counsel I could not have learnt all that I've learnt in these 5 days. For you must understand that from Damascus to Aleppo [Halab] the inland province is ruled by an independent Arab Government. They have neither advice nor help from the French because they won't have anything to do with the French; nor from us lest the French should be offended by our intervention. Therefore they go their own way and their way is not good. Faisal is ruling Amir and while he is away in London, his younger brother, Zaid, aetat about 19, acts for him. Round him, and filling all the important military posts, are a group of men who are nearly all of Mesopotamian origin, soldiers in the Turkish army who were captured by us at one time or another and volunteered for service with the Sharif. They are all violent Nationalists and are out for an independent Syria and Mesopotamia without any foreign control. Specially do they want us to withdraw from Mesopotamia, partly, no doubt on the principle of ôte-toi que je m'y mette. These are the people I wanted to see and I have been seeing them extensively. The first morning I woke pretty early and walked through the town to the great Mosque of the Umayyads built on the site and out of the materials of its predecessor the Roman temple. It's a pilgrimage one mustn't neglect whenever one comes here. Also it gave me the opportunity of seeing what Damascus looked like in Arab hands. It is a good deal ruined, bazaars roofless, roads in disrepair - this is the work of the Turks before the occupation - but above all it is disgracefully dirty, far worse than I ever saw it before and this is undoubtedly due to the fact that the Arab Govt. is all round perceptibly worse than that of the Turks. After that I went to the Political Officer, saw Major Clayton and others, and read masses of papers, lunched with them and talked and talked, and finally went off to see (a) the chief of the Military Council, a man of Baghdadi origin, (b) the Chief Administrator, a Damascene. An hour with each of these brought me to dinner time; I dined with Major Clayton and we talked the whole evening. Early next morning he took me to call on the Amir Zaid - did I say he was a nice boy? he is. His house was full of Arab officers of the General Staff in khaki with khaki helmets to which the Arab kerchief, but in khaki, is bound with a rope of gold, a fine headdress. Shouldering them, a crowd of negro eunuchs, in full Arab dress, brought from the Mecca [Makkah] palaces. I went back to Major Clayton's house where people came to see me all the morning, among others the (a) above mentioned, Yasin Pasha who is the leading personality here, a very interesting man though I don't trust him a yard and believe him to be hand in glove with the Turks. After lunch more visits and more talk, and more - till one's head swam. Major Clayton and I dined with an old Egyptian friend of mine, Colonel Newcomb. He was taken prisoner in 1917 while he was fighting with the Arab army, escaped to Constantinople [Istanbul] and after many months made his escape from there also with the aid of a local Jewess whom he subsequently married. She is a pity, there's no denying it; moreover Col. Newcomb is the kind of man who never ought to have married at all. He is an adventurer and really good at the job. The Amir Zaid was the other guest and we had a cheerful evening. Next morning I shifted my billets to a room in Major Clayton's office and had all my visitors there. There were swarms of them. I lunched with Mrs Mackinnon - do you remember her husband, Dr Mackinnon, was head of the Mission Hospital here. I always used to stay with them the night before I ran away from the Turks to whatsoever forbidden desert I was going and they put me up when I came back from Arabia in 1914. The Belloved Dr Mackinnon died last year - it was very sad going back to the house, but I like her and was glad to be with her again. Then I called on one of my best friends in all Syria. He used to be Greek Catholic Apb in Aleppo and is now Patriarch here - a delightful, cultivated man who speaks French almost like a Frenchman. It was extremely interesting to hear his point of view and I thought him as wise as ever. There were two more visits to pay before dinner, one on Captain Brunton, Intelligence Officer, and a nephew of Sir Lauder. I knew him before and there's little he doesn't know about the town; the next on Shaikh Muhammad al Bassam who used to help me whenever I wanted to buy camels or engage servants to travel in the desert. He has grown immensely rich, chiefly by smuggling goods out of Mesopotamia and selling them for immense sums here during the war - he is said to be worth ´ a million, and I really can't regret it though we tried vainly to stop the process all the time I was in Baghdad. He has also married a new wife - the old one having obligingly died. She is 20 and he 60 bien sonné, and they have a baby a year old. I dined with Major Clayton and General Smith, the O.C. troops in Damascus. Next morning I went with a man called Izz ud Din, a Damascene who spent 6 months with us in Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)], a refugee from the Turks - I made great friends with him there - to see a school for the education of girls whose fathers had been killed fighting the Turks - the Daughters of the Martyrs, they call them. It is supported by a philanthropic society, of which the President is a well educated and pretty young woman Bellonging to one of the best Moslem families here. She is engaged to 'Izz ud Din and being extremely advanced, sees him and other selected men unveiled, a thing which could not have happened before the war and is rare even now. The school was admirably run. I saw all the classes and then we had the children out in the garden where they danced Arab dances and sang patriotic songs. There was a chorus, strophe and anti-strophe. On the one side the older girls, representing the ladies of the oeuvre, addressed each of the younger girls, reminding her that she was the daughter of a martyr and a child of Arab birth; on the other, the chorus answered that they would never forget that they owed their liberty to King Husain (this pen won't write), to Sidi Faisal, and (in the last verse) to President Wilson - and he mad, poor man, or at length recognized to be mad. But they didn't mention that. Of course there's a lot of wild talk and a great many people who are thinking only of themselves and using Nationalism as a ladder, but there is also a real feeling underneath, and there is the Spirit of 1919 all round, in Egypt, in India, in Mesopotamia also. If the French won't recognize it, there will be risings and massacres and Heaven knows what. And it doesn't make their task easier that there is not a person in the country (except the Catholics and Maronites) who does not hate and fear them. Fortunately Gourraud [i.e. Gouraud] is coming out which may improve matters, for he is a wise man. Well after that a most interesting talk in Major Clayton's house with another old friend, the leading doctor here, educated in the American College at Beyrut [Beyrouth (Beirut)]. He speaks excellent English and designs to go to the U.S.A., with two others, in order to lay the Syrian case before the politicians. It will do no good, but neither can it do any harm, and I've given him a letter to Senator Lodge. I wonder if in the end he will go. Lunch with Major Clayton - you see it was so invaluable to be able to talk over with him all I had heard and have his views on it. When I got back to the Hotel, I found that the C.in C. (General Congrieve, acting for Allenby) who was here for the day, was giving a big luncheon party there to the Arab officials. Col. Waters Taylor was with him and introduced himself to me and then brought up the C.in C. While we were talking, the Amir Zaid came to pay his respects. I withdrew, tactfully, but there was no one to act as interpreter, so I was pushed back into my chair by the Staff and interpreted a long and interesting conversation. There are moments when I really do feel surprised at the things I find myself doing. Major Clayton and I and lots of others, dined with Sidi Zaid and had a very amusing evening. The clou was Ja'far Pasha, Governor of Aleppo, whence he had arrived that day. A Baghdadi, the most capable administrator the Arabs have turned out and a very merry fellow. He speaks 7 languages fluently and tried me in all of them. I can't answer for his Kurdish, nor can I now carry on a conversation in Turkish, but I held my own in 5 others, English, French, German, Arabic and even Persian. I wish I still talked Turkish. He came to see me this morning, Ja'far Pasha, and we had a long talk - but only in Arabic for there were other Arabs there. I shall see him in Aleppo I hope. Then I had a tedious lunch with 'Izz ud Din, so long and so much too much to eat. His fiancée was there and other relations and acquaintances, including 'Izz ud Din's sister, who had never appeared unveiled before stray men before and had perpetual accesses of shyness when she recovered her face. She forgot to do so however, during lunch, being too busy eating and talking. Finally they gave an immense party in my honour at the newly founded museum which is lodged in a library built by Saladin's brother and decorated with mosaics of the period. The Chief Administrator, 'Ali Ridha Pasha, presided, and there were besides some 30 or more of the leading notables and learned men of the time. And me. After a sumptuous tea, three long speeches were delivered with my life and times as the subject matter, an embarrassing process and I wondered what the Malek[?] al 'Adil, the pious founder, would have thought of it. I leave tomorrow for Beyrut and I'm thankful to be gone for I could not bear any more of this and it would get worse daily. It's only in Damascus that I am such a well known character; at Beyrut I shall be at peace. But it has been useful too, though not a little ridiculous, because it has enabled me to see so many people and learn so much. I don't think I need stay more than a day in Beyrut. Then to Aleppo by rail - it's the devil's own journey, so long and boring. I shall find motors there to take me to Baghdad. I have met here a Mesopotamian officer whom I know, Major Mocatta, and he will carry this letter. He is going home as fast as he can go and that will probably be faster than the post. I have no news of England except that the rly strike is over, Heaven be praised. Goodbye dearest family. I am your affectionate daughter and sister Gertrude. It's a perfectly delicious climate here at this time of year, but too many fleas, if you will forgive the expression.