Page 73 - Life of Gertrude Bell

JERUSALEM 61
rock of the gorge, which led through more flowers to their next
stopping place. The Turks were nervous of English influence in
Syria at this time and Gertrude had decided to pretend German
nationality in order to extract the utmost co-operation from them.
On Saturday March 24th, after nearly a week of gentle travelling,
she wrote to her father: ‘Griisse aus Kerak! do you know where
to find it on the map? ... I am going on to Petra ... I would
telegraph to ask your permission, but there’s no telegraph nearer
than Jericho!’ The Turkish governor or Mudir gave her another
Circassian soldier to help her on her way, though he was reluctant
to let her travel in a region inhabited by the Bani Sakhr and
other tribesmen who paid little regard to Ottoman regulations.
From Kerak they could look down the steep valley below them
across the Dead Sea to the hills of Judea. They went on along
the Roman road to Wadi Musa, six hours distant, stopping to
purchase a lamb and some milk from the badawin and soon after
seven in the evening they entered the defile which led to Petra,
the Bab as Sik, no more than eight feet wide in places and half-a-
mile long. ‘We went on in ecstasies until suddenly between the
narrow opening of the rocks, we saw the most beautiful sight I
have ever seen. Imagine a temple cut out of the solid rock, the
charming facade supported on great Corinthian columns standing
clear, soaring upwards to the very top of the cliff in the most
exquisite proportions and carved with a group of figures as fresh
as when the chisel left them—all this in the rose red rock, with the
sun just touching it and making it look almost transparent.’
They camped under a row of tombs, with pillars and cornices,
topped by a great funeral urn, ‘extremely rococo, just like the kind
of thing you see in a Venetian Church above a 17th century Doge
leaning on his elbow ... ’ Next day she went to the top of Mount
Hor: ‘No daughter of yours could be content to sit quietly at the
bottom of a mountain when there was one handy!’ She and her
guide climbed to the summit where they found Aaron’s tomb. ‘I
have never seen anything like these gorges; the cliffs rise to a
thousand feet on either side, broken into the most incredible
shapes and coloured.’ They returned the way they had come,
meeting a party of slubba, desert tinkers, who were travelling on
the pilgrim way from Mecca to Damascus. These happy people,
despised by the Arab tribesmen, were always willing to help the
wayfarer as that great Arabian traveller Charles Doughty had
discovered on his weary way, and they danced around Gertrude’s