Page 115 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ASIA MINOR IOI
though she did find time to write to Elsa and to note regretfully:
!
*1 can scarcely bear the idea of not being at her wedding.’ The
Ramsays arrived on Friday May 24th, when Gertrude was in
the middle of digging. They appeared in donkey carts and Lady
Ramsay got out and began to make a pot of tea in the open
while the learned Sir William started to discuss the problems pre­
sented by the Church on which Gertrude was working as though
he had been there all along. The work which they performed in
uncovering and deciphering old and worn legends, in uncovering
brick and stonework, in establishing an elaborate chronology, is
told in the book they wrote together at Rounton Grange and
published in 1909. It provides a considered account of the
project, unlike the letters which were often scribbled on the spot
or before a well-earned sleep. A Thousand and One Churches also
provides an early insight into a skill which was later to earn
Gertrude a reputation that was unique in government service
of being able to take the driest, most mundane contemporary or
historical subjects and invest them with the force and colour of
her easy, compelling writing style.
There was, however, one other lesson in eastern thought which
impressed itself on her before she left for home with her rubbings
and measurements, and her full if barely legible notebooks. She
found herself in a garden with her servant Fattuh, and what she
describes as ‘the following preposterous conversation’ took
place:

GB — loq: Oh 1 Fattuh, to whom does this poplar garden belong ?
F—To a priest, my lady.
GB - Does he mind our camping it it?
F—He didn’t say anything.
GB — Did you ask him?
F—No, my lady.
GB—We must give him some backshish.
F—At your Excellency’s command.
A pause
F —My lady ...
GB-Yes?
F—That priest is dead.
GB —111 Then I don’t think we need bother about the back­
shish.
F—No, my lady.