Page 113 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ASIA MINOR 99
Hogarth oflf to learn epigraphy in Greece before allowing him to
return to the master), had been in the region in 1882 with Sir
Charles Wilson and had written in the Athenaeum drawing
attention to the need for an architectural and historical investiga­
tion of its derelict churches. The letter had attracted Gertrude’s
attention and she unblushingly wrote to the famous author of
innumerable works on the Church and the Roman Empire,
suggesting that they should carry out such an investigation
together. Now they met for the first time. On May 16th she
wrote: ‘The consul and his wife met me at the station and dined
with me at the hotel and I found there ... Professor Ramsay, who
knows more about this country than any other man, and we fell
into each other’s arms and made great friends.’
Gertrude had already examined the territory and many of the
churches —she counted twenty-eight in all—and as soon as she
met the Professor she asked him to accompany her to one of
them where there was a barely decipherable inscription she
wanted him to look at and copy, which she believed to contain
a date for the building. She was right. The chronology of die
churches, said Ramsay, centred on the inscribed stone she had
discovered. There was little time to go further into the matter
then. They arranged to meet again at the site in about a year’s
time.
Gertrude returned home to her family which had now moved
into her grandfather’s home at Rounton. She prompdy took
charge of the garden and with the help of the Bells’ Scots gardener
turned it into one of the hordcultural show-places of the north of
England, between times noting in a diary some intimate dis­
cussions on political, military and imperial matters with ‘Springy’,
Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, her newly acquired brother-in-law G. M.
Trevelyan, Dr Rosen, Sir Alfred Lyall, Valentine Chirol, Sir
Frank Swettenham, Professor Ramsay and a host of other
visitors. She also began another account of her travels in the East
which she called The Desert and the Sown.
In the autumn she went to Paris to continue her work on
ancient manuscripts with Reinach, and returned to England for a
few weeks, during which time she attended a house party at the
home of Lord Roberts. ‘It’s very amusing being in military circles.
The party is the Roberts family, Sir Ian Hamilton, and a few other
soldiers ... It’s interesting seeing Lord “Bobs”. He is, of course,
quite a dull little man ... Sir Ian tells thrilling tales.’
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