Page 70 - Life of Gertrude Bell

58 GERTRUDE BELL
She asked her stepmother to send her a telegram as soon as she
had news of Maurice’s arrival in South Africa and to ensure that
her latest article for the Monthly Cousin was not offered for publica­
tion elsewhere since ‘The style of it was only suited to that
journal.’ By late February 1900, when rain had returned to
prevent long excursions, she was able to announce that she could
read from the Arabian Nights, ‘just for fun’. ‘Do you know these
wet afternoons I have been reading the story of Aladdin to
myself for pleasure, without a dictionary! It is not very difficult,
I must confess, still it’s ordinary good Arabic, not for beginners,
I must confess, still it’s too charming for words ... I really have
learnt a good deal since I came for I couldn’t read just for fun
to save my life.’ She had found a Syrian girl companion by now
whose elocution was even more to her liking than Khalil’s.
Thus armed with an elementary understanding of the tongue
and guided by Dr and Nina Rosen, she prepared to make her first
journeys into the Syrian desert. She had sent home for a wide grey
felt sun hat, ‘not double, but it must be a regular Terai shape and
broad brimmed’. Even before that piece of headgear arrived she
cut an uncommon figure in Jerusalem where most days she was
seen riding side-saddle to places of interest, examining the
shrines of Christianity, Islam and Judah with great interest and
increasing knowledge. If she was expecting to have to climb or to
forage in the desert she might wear trousers, an almost unheard
of sartorial departure for a woman; but she would still ride side­
saddle. In the conflicting order of social priorities to which she
and her family clung, ladies did not ride astride a horse. She
would often ride over from the German to the British consulate
while she was in Jerusalem to take tea with Mrs Dickson or to
visit her husband at his vineyard, to which, surprisingly, was
attached a soap factory. She partnered Mrs Dickson at whist
parties among the English community. Sometimes she would go
alone to places of interest, on other occasions she would be
joined by the Rosens on a picnic ride to some historical site or a
high spot from which they could gaze down at the Mediterranean
or the Dead Sea —‘It’s true I could bicycle to Jericho with my
feet up’. The tomboy, if less prominent than a few years before,
was still an attractive part of her.
She explored a new path to Bethlehem with the Rosens: It
was lovely, a beautiful valley full of Olives, but the road shocking,
as all the roads are.’ On another ride with the Rosens they were

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