Page 90 - Life of Gertrude Bell

7* GERTRUDE BELL

‘delicious* climate and country, and joining archaeological digs
at a Byzantine tumulus and at the ancient Ionian site of Colophon
where the shrine of the Claros Apollo was unearthed. She went
on to Smyrna (modern Izmir): ‘You should see me shopping in
Smyrna, quite like a native only I ought to have more flashing
eyes.’ She called at Pergamos to survey its temples and palaces,
at Magnesia and Sardis, picking up a copy of Herodotus in
French with the aid of which she was able to follow the routes of
earlier travellers in the region. At Sardis she remarked: ‘I was
delighted that I had Herodotus so fresh in my mind ... It’s a
madly interesting place ... Some day I shall come and travel here
with tents but then I will speak Turkish, which will not be
difficult... ’
In the third week of March she was cruising along the coast of
Cyprus aboard the s.s. Cleopatra, a large vessel with only three
first-class passengers, two men and Gertrude. One of her fellow
passengers was the young Englishman she had met at Ephesus
with the American bishop, Mr Paton, who turned out to be a
student of Dante, ‘an agreeable enough travelling companion*.
The ship’s doctor, a fiery Czech, proved the butt of Gertrude’s
dislike this time. He was ‘consumed with a hatred of all things
German ... rather like Sidney Churchill [the brother of Harry
Churchill at the British Ministry in Tehran]—a man with a
grievance against the world in general for being as it is. The
Captain was a ‘charming little Italian’ and they all spoke his
language at meals. T began with French but there were so few
things they could say in French that I found it better to be com­
paratively dumb myself in Italian.’ By now Gertrude had learnt
to print her own photographs and spent many hours on her long
journeys in improvised darkrooms. There was a short stop at
Rhodes, time enough to examine the fortifications of the crusading
Knights. She arrived at Haifa at the end of March and found
temporary accommodation at Mount Carmel, before moving
down into the town to engage in more linguistic exercises.
She found two shaikhs who agreed to act as instructors at
Mount Carmel. ‘I love my two shaikhs. It’s perfeedy delightful
getting hold of Persian again, the delicious language! But as for
Arabic I am soaked and sodden in it and how anyone can wish to
have anything to do with a tongue so difficult when they might be
living at ease, I can’t imagine. I never stop talking it in this hotel
and I think I get a little worse daily ... The birds fly into my room