Page 130 - Life of Gertrude Bell

n6 GERTRUDE BELL
assistant Lawrence had written to his brother: ‘We arc expecting
Miss G. Bell (whose book ‘Between the Desert and the Sown*,
you might like).’ On May 18th Gertrude wrote to her stepmother:
‘The Kaimakam came over ... and told me that Mr Hogarth had
left but that Mr Thompson was still at Carchcmish. Accordingly
I went there — it was only 5 hours’ ride — and found Mr Thompson
and a young man called Lawrence (he is going to make a traveller)
who had for some time been expecting that I would appear. They
showed me their diggings and their finds and I spent a pleasant
day with them. ‘Three days later Lawrence wrote to David
Hogarth: ‘ ... Gerty has gone back to her tents to sleep. She has
been a success: and a brave one. She called him (Thompson)
prehistoric! (apropos of your digging methods) till she saw their
result... ’ In a letter to his mother on May 23rd, however,
Lawrence inferred one of those head-on disputes to which
Gertrude’s unequivocal manner was always liable to give rise:
‘ ... we showed her all our finds, and she told us all hers. We
parted with mutual expressions of esteem: but she told Thompson
his ideas of digging were prehistoric; and so we had to squash her
with a display of erudition.’
Gertrude called on Fattuh’s wife, Zekiyyah, on the way
through Aleppo and had coffee with her, and then took her
servant to see an American doctor in Beirut. ‘I can’t say how
sorry I am, always, to say goodbye to this delightful country
where I have to leave so many friends.’