Page 241 - Life of Gertrude Bell

TI-IE MANDATE 221
remained to be discovered and where she kept a keen vigil lest
robbers or thoughtless troops should disturb the debris or the
hidden tombs in which were buried the earliest known records of
mankind. And she made frequent journeys to Ctesiphon where
the great Roman-inspired arch, damaged in war-time fighting, was
in danger of collapse. Gertrude and the Director of Public Works,
J. M. Wilson, an able and sensitive architect, had taken it on them­
selves to preserve for posterity a structure of which she had written:
‘It is the most remarkable of all known Sassanian buildings, and
one of the most imposing ruins in the world.’ When in Baghdad
she would often trudge through dusty lanes or slither through
mud and slime to the central bazaars of die city, protected at their
entrance by the splendid Saracenic hall of Khan Aurtmah, in order
to rescue from unscrupulous salesmen priceless cuneiform tablets
and other precious objects stolen from the archaeological sites.
This was the period of the British Museum’s and the University
of Pennsylvania’s interest in Ur and of the visit of the redoubtable
Dr H. R. Hall who later spoke of the great help Gertrude ren­
dered him and of her ‘devotion to her self-imposed mission’.
In February 1920 Gertrude received news of the death of her
uncle Sir Frank Lascelles. ‘I did love him so much,’ she wrote to
Chirol. ‘Domnul, please take care of yourself. There’s no one to
replace people like you—I mean to replace them in my own life.’
In March her father arrived in Baghdad, ‘looking extremely well
—it’s impossible to say what a joy it is to see him’. She took him
on a tour of the country, staying with the Political Officers
stationed along their route and meeting Arab notables as they went.
Fattuh arrived too from Aleppo to help raise her spirits. But it was
altogether a depressing time. Trouble was in the air throughout
the country and her long and bitter battle with Wilson had taken
its toll of her. And despite his genial manner, her father was
suffering the early pangs of financial trouble, something that was
unique in his experience. As the post-war depression began to
take a grip on the economy, the ordinary share-values of the
Dorman Long Company, in which Sir Hugh and Sir Arthur
Dorman were by far the largest stockholders, began to fall. In the
hope of boosting their quoted price the two old men began to buy
them up and in the end they competed with each other as much
out of vanity as of tactical necessity. Their buying spree did
nothing to improve things, however. Neither was reduced to
poverty but the decline of the company’s fortunes, along with