Page 287 - Life of Gertrude Bell

We wither away but they wane not,
the stars that above us rise;
the mountains remain after us,
and the strong towers when we arc gone.
Labid ibn Rabi’ah
quoted in Amurath to Amurath

Gertrude was buried in the British cemetery at Baghdad on the
evening of Monday July 12th. Troops and mourners lined the
street, and all the notables of Iraq, except the King who was rep­
resented in his absence by the Regent Ali, were there to mourn
her as were the High Commissioner and his staff and the British
advisers.
An official statement from Sir Henry Dobbs spoke of the ‘bitter
personal and official loss through the sudden death on the early
morning of 12 July’ of his Oriental Secretary and the Director of
Antiquities of the Government of Iraq. ‘No word of mine,’ said
Dobbs, ‘can add to the lustre of her name in this country and
among this nation which she served with her last breath, as few
countries and nations have been served by their own sons and
daughters; nor can any record faithfully represent the grief which
has swept over the land at the news of her death and the gratitude
with which the people of Iraq will ever remember her wonderful
work among them. Miss Bell had abandoned a family in which
she was worshipped, a luxurious home, an immense circle of
devoted friends, a wide field of the most varied intellectual and
artistic interests and had for the last ten years of her life conse-
cratedall the indomitable fervour of her spirit andall the astounding
gifts of her mind to the service of the Arab cause and especially of
Iraq.’