Page 7 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

6

1926

Worked with D all the morning & did Arabic all the afternoon. D is awfully good at teaching it & I learnt more in an
afternoon with him than during a week at the school. Later we went a picnic to a spring among the date gardens,
taking tea in the car. Very pleasant out there & just like Siwa. Daly loves the place, & he has absolutely made it
during his five years here. I can see that he feels about it as I did of Siwa & hates anybody to criticize it. He works
awfully hard & is intensely anxious that all his work wont be wasted, as it might be if someone came who didnt
bother about things. He was pleased to find that I talked much better Arabic than he expected. The mail boat came
in in the evening & I hear there are some cases for me on board, but cant think what they are as all our stuff arrived
at Basra the same day as we did on the Tubristan so couldn't get down here till the next slow mail which is due next
Wednesday. Meantime we are making curtains etc for new house. Took on a Persian cook & a Baluchi butler-valet
who seems a good fellow & certainly valets me well. So comfortable to have a native servant again, one does miss
them. We walked along to the customs to ask about the cases but they had not yet arrived there. An English mail,
from the south, but nothing of any real interest in it for me, mostly bills! Champagne for dinner as it was D's birthday
consequently very sleepy after dinner. Tomorrow we sup with the Shaikh. I am anxious to meet him.

Easter Sunday [4th April]

Wrote letters in the morning for the up mail, via Basra & overland, which left at noon. It depends whether it catches
the convoy at Bagdad as to whether it gets home quickly. In the afternoon we went to tea with the missionaries. A
dreadful house, very damp & smelly, & all the windows shut, quite painfully ugly, & a most unpleasant tea. The
whole white population were present, afterwards a service at the church - the sort of performance that simply makes
one squirm. Impromptu & very personal prayers, a long solo sung by a female with a dreadful voice and a German
accent, & a sermon in broadest American which lasted half an hour. Altogether a most trying experience. Afterwards