Page 144 - Life of Gertrude Bell

i3° GERTRUDE BELL
taken to Mesopotamia and the prying eyes of Turkish officials
were probably averted for that reason. On December 21st she told
Lady Bell: ‘We have reached our first goal and a very curious
place it is, but I will begin at the beginning. It was horribly cold
last night... it was impossible to keep warm in bed ... I am not
cut out for Arctic exploration ... The men’s big tent was frozen
hard and they had to light fires under it to unfreeze the canvas ... ’
She climbed to the top of the volcano to take bearings and
insisted on her rafiq going with her. ‘Oh! Hamad/ she said as they
breasted the slope, ‘who can have lived in this strange place?’
She received the kind of reply familiar to those who travel with
the Badu, ‘By God we would learn from you. But, indeed, oh
lady, there is no guide to truth but God.’ They were held up next
day by what Gertrude described as a ‘preposterous and provoking
episode’. They were attacked by Druse horsemen, one of whom
covered them with his rifle while another drew sword and
demanded of Muhammad his camel and saddlebag. Her men
were stripped of their revolvers, cartridge belts and cloaks, and
her camel was struck by a swordsman. They were rescued in the
nick of time by some Druse shaikhs who recognised her servants,
and their possessions were restored to them. Ahead of them lay
some stony hills, and cold rain came to hinder their progress.
However, they crossed the wadis of Muqati and Umqad and on
Christmas Day she found herself, as if by way of a heavenly gift,
among the ancient ruins of a fortress which had in its time seen
Roman occupation. She was able to spend the day taking measure­
ments and copying inscriptions from the Greek, Safaitic and
Kufic. Three days later they were in sight of the southern end of
Jabal Druse and in the territory of the Ruwalla tribe, one of the
greatest desert groupings in all Arabia. But she did not meet
them; instead she ran into the Bani Sakhr tribe and was enter­
tained by their shaikh, Ibn Mit’ab, who had two years before
betrayed the great chief of the Ruwalla, Ibn Shaalan, to his pro-
Turkish foes, the Shammar. By the end of the month she was in
the volcanic country between Jabal Druse and Wadi Sirhan
where she found a Roman fort and springs, and stopped to copy
an inscription of Diocletian, emperor of the eastern provinces of
the Empire in the third century a.d., at Qasr al-Azraq.
‘What sort of Xmas Day have you been spending?’ she asked
her family. ‘I have thought of you all unwrapping presents in the
Common Room and playing with the children.’ She was now