Some Notes From Gertrude Bell

The Papers

The Gertrude Bell papers consist of about 1,600 detailed and lively letters to her parents, of her 16 diaries, which she kept while she was travelling, and of c.40 packets of miscellaneous items. There are also about 7000 photographs, taken by her c.1900-1918. Those of Middle Eastern archaeological sites are of great value because they record structures which have since been eroded or, in some cases, have disappeared altogether, while those of the desert tribes are of considerable anthropological and ethnographical interest.

The letters and diaries, but not the miscellaneous material, were transcribed in automated form between 1982 and 1988, and a catalogue of the photographs was published in 1982, with a second edition in 1985.

Turkey Kayseri / Pınarbashi (Aziziye)
Including notes from (Pinarbashi Uzunyayla) Circassian Villages

The Diaries

15/06/1909

Tuesday June 15. [15 June 1909] Off at 6.25, cold. Up the valley full of flowers to Kaindije 7.10. Then I decided to take the road through the hills (which we ought to have taken from our camp) and we turned up onto a big grassy yaila, very cold, the people ploughing. At 8.20 we came to Köpek Euren a curious place where there was evidently the remains of a fort on the rising ground above the village. Haystacks on 4 poles. The ground very stony everywhere and the stones covered with green lichen. So over the yaila following the tiny clear stream to Gödekli D. At the foot of the hills stands Bey Punar[?] (9.45) We then climbed up the hills, full of flowers, poppies, horned and Chinese, white daphne, something that looked very like an androsaie, veronicas and by the streams quantities of purple primula, long stalked. Patches of snow. At 11.10 we reached the watershed and left the Tokhma Su [Tohma] and the Euphrates behind. The waters now run to the Seihun [Ceyhan]. We came down over long gently sloping yailas, quite empty and very beautiful. On the hills sparse[?] junipers (I think) were growing. We came to the end of this at 12.15 where the waters had formed into a clear little stream that ran down into a valley between bare hills sparcely [sic] covered with juniper. 12.20-12.40 lunch. Very cold wind. So down the valley; a lovely pale yellow cushion iris and yellow berberris. The valley so narrow that we had often to take to the stream. At last our path left it and climbed up very steep to the L. By this impossible road the Circassians were carting tree trunks in their bullock carts. It led us out onto a yaila on the hill side at 3 and we rode down 2 hours through meadows and by a gentle valley to Boran Dere Chai, a Muhajjir village which we reached at 5.10. The temp was 63º. As we came down we saw Erjiyas D [Erciyas Dagi (Argaeus Mt)], very splendid in its snows. The Circassians very friendly though we have camped among their grass. They wanted me to go to the oda. A long, hard, cold day, but very delightful.

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/diaries/d1726.htm

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The Diaries

16/06/1909

Wed. June 16. [16 June 1909] We left camp at 6.25 - it was still very cold - 53º. Boran has quite the air of a European village, hedges made of pine branches surrounding fields and vegetable gardens, poplars and willows, houses with glass windows. The graveyard is up above on the top of the valley on an open plain. In fact from up there the only sign of the village down below is the graveyard above it. At 7 we saw Boran the[?] lower in the valley. The other road via Gunesh comes in here. Then we turned down into a wonderful valley set with neat Circassian villages and all cultivated. Before they came, about 40 years ago, there were no villages here and no permanent cultivation, but the nomad Avshar came in summer for their crops and camped. Now they too have taken to houses following the Circassian example, but their villages are not so tidy or well built. At 7.50 we passed through Kara Geuz, (Karagöz) Circassian; at 8.35 Mehmet Bey on the other side of the valley; at 8.45 we came to Azizieh [Pinarbasi (Aziziye)], Circassian, Avshar and Armenian. I went to the Konak while F. shopped and we changed zaptiehs. Then came one half negro who had come from the Hejaz [Hijaz] 40 years ago when there were no villages in the valley; a merchant. We talked Arabic and he said that the desert was different - evidently still longed for it. Then came another who said how do you do in English and understood no more, an Armenian school master in well blacked boots. He and some others took me up to where a spring gushes out from under the cliffs - wild roses blooming by it. Here the Circassians were digging for cut stones in what had probably been a church - I saw a bit of roughish cyma moulding and a big fragment of round column. We got off at 10.5 and rode up a bare rising ground, then dropped into the valley again having had a fine view of Mt Argaeus [Erciyas Dagi (Argaeus Mt)].

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/diaries/d1727.htm

The Letters

Friday June 18. [18 June 1909]

Friday June 18. [18 June 1909] Three more days of very hard travel and work. We left our Circassian village on Wed. - it was still bitter cold, 53ø when I got up and that was just after sunrise. It was very nice but very unexpected to have such cold weather. We rode down into a beautiful wide valley, all cultivated and set with neat Circassian villages, stone built and surrounded by fields and gardens enclosed in fences of pine branches. 40 years ago, before the Circassians came from the Caucasus [Bol'shoy Kavkaz], fleeing from Russian rule, there was neither house nor corn field in all this valley, but the Avshars, the nomad Turks, came up in summer for the pasture sowed a little barley and left in the autumn. The Circassians have brought the country into cultivation and following their example, the Avshars too have settled into villages and taken to civilized ways. From village to village run quite respectable roads which the Circassians have made for their wooden bullock carts. After 2 or 3 hours' riding we came to Azizieh [Pinarbasi (Aziziye)], a large place, where we had to change zaptieh and buy provisions.

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letters/l899.htm

JORDAN AMMAN

The Letters

Thurs 26. [26 April 1900]

Thurs 26. [26 April 1900] We got off at 6.30 and rode all up the Wady Sir [Wadi es Sir], a most beautiful green valley full of oaks growing in clusters as though they were in an English park. Corn and water mills and every sign of prosperity showed us that we were reaching the Circassian country. Their first village was Es Sir at the head of the valley, good stone built houses, with verandahs supported by wooden pillars, neat clean courtyards with a couple of figtrees and a few willows growing in them and a tidy well clad population - it was extraordinarily un-Arabic. These people have fled before the Russians and have been settled here by the Sultan. I expect they in their time will drive the careless lazy Arabs out and become a rich colony. From Es Sir we got into a really good road such as carts can go along, Circassian made of course, which led us onto a high plateau covered with cornfields and down into the Zerka [Zarqa] valley, the Jabbok of the Old Testament, at the bottom of which lies Amman ['Amman]. It is a town with a long history. It was the capital of the Ammonites (Rabboth Ammon was its name); David took it and the tribe of Reuben held it. The Romans rebuilt it with great splendour and called it Philadelphia, the Arab invasion destroyed it and now the Circassians have repeopled it and built their neat one storied houses with the stones of citadel and temple. Our camp lies in front of the largest and most perfect theatre I have yet seen - the Circassians live in its great corridors - on one side of it are the ruins of the Odeon, on the other a long row of Corinthian columns which lined the Avenue de l'Opera, so to speak, and in front runs the charming stream, edged with willows. Through the town this stream was arched over by a continuous bridge, parts of which remain, for the valley is narrow and they wanted all the space they could get for their columned streets. Further up, the ruins of the enormous Thermae, walls of what is said to be the Forum built into Circassian houses, and the big outer wall of a Christian basilica. The Acropolis stands high up on the hill opposite to us. On the way up, we passed a charming, richly decorated bit of a mausoleum and the columns of a big temple. They say the foundations of the citadel date from the dark ages, before David, any time you please, but there will soon be little left of the big walls for the Circassians are industriously carrying them down piecemeal to build them into their houses. The whole top of the hill is covered with the ruins of the temples and forts, and there is one lovely little domed building, all arcaded and carved within, which is said to be Persian. It is not unlike the work at Mashetta [Qasr el Mushatta]. We arrived here at 10.30, lunched and rested and have had a very pleasant afternoon examining and photographing all these ruins. The Circassians are most friendly. As we walked along the streets we were constantly offered cups of coffee, which we usually accepted for it was very good. The weather is heavenly - a bright sun and cool air, and we are very happy.

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letters/l405.htm

SYRIA

The Letters

Sat 28. [28 April 1900]

Sat 28. [28 April 1900] After a most delicious night by the Zerka [Zarqa] and a morning bath in it before sunrise, we were off at 6.35. We rode up a lovely country, all thick cornfields scattered over with little oaks, smiling and prosperous beyond words and the Circassians working in it everywhere, the fathers of industry. After an hour and a half's ride suddenly we saw in front of us magnificent ruins, a great triumphal arch and hundreds of columns - it was Jerash [Jarash]. This place has no history. It was one of the Roman towns of the Decapolis and it must have been of surprising magnificence. It lies chiefly on the western side of the valley, what ruins there were to the east being concealed or destroyed by the big prosperous Circassian village which has grown up in the last few years. You can trace the line of the wall right up the hillside and along the crest both on the east and the west. Directly we had chosen our camping ground, I flew off with my camera to get the lovely morning sun on the ruins. It is all very florid, something like Palmyra [Tadmur], says Dr R. [Rosen], but bigger. You go under the arch, pass a great stadium, and find yourself in a big open place with an almost complete circle of Corinthian columns round it. On one side, perched up on a hill, is a lovely temple and a theatre near it, the proscenium of which is wonderfully perfect; on the other a street runs north through the town and the whole street is bordered on either side by columns, many dozens of which are still standing. Presently you come to a carrefour with 4 blocks of building on which statues stood, and another columned street leading out at right angles; then a fine building with elaborate niches and cornices, and then the Propylaeum of the great Temple of the Sun which stands, almost perfect, on a height above. There is another theatre near to it and, opposite, great ruins of baths; and so the columned street continues to the ruined gateway at the northern end, just opposite our camp. A mill stream runs through this gateway now and the lower part of the city wall is built into the mill. The corn is standing high down the streets between the columns, and all over the great courts and roads leading to the Temple of the Sun. All round rise the low hills covered with a stunted oak and the Circassians come and go along the beautiful road that they have made and build acanthus leaves and the inscriptions of emperors into their tidy houses with small concern for the wonderful city which they have inherited. We have had a peaceful afternoon, an early lunch and a long rest. I have just read Mother's article on thrift, which I admire very much. I now feel that I need not hesitate to extend my journey to any limit - isn't that the right lesson to be derived from it? but seriously, I think it's a very beautiful and good bit of morals. After tea Dr R. and I walked all over the ruins a second time. They looked most lovely in the evening light. I have since bathed in a stream with a pergola of vines above me and a lot of lovely Roman stones tumbling into the river on purpose to hold my soap. We have been watching the Circassians driving in their cows - hundreds of them, cows I mean, more than I have yet seen in the whole of Syria.

The Diaries

13/01/1914

Tues Jan 13 [13 January 1914] Breakfasted with the Mudir and the Yuzbashi. We talked at length of the Govt of which they all complain. They say the Circassians were much mistaken to leave Russia. Ishaq told a long tale of how the English had desired to see the Circassians an independent kingdom, not under Russia; but all the tribes quarrelled together and cd not decide on a single head. Then Russia took them. Then they sent a deputation with presents. They lodged in a hotel and Victoria {hearing they were} receiving the present then inquired what Circassians they could be and sent for them "took them from the hotel." But she explained that now Russia had taken Circassia, some had become beys and some soldiers, and generals and some officials in Russia, England would no longer intervene. I said what Turkey wanted was not a fleet and an army but gendarmes and trade. Ishaq's wife sent me flowers, marigolds and dark red carnations. In the evening came one to invite me to call on the Protestant mu'allim from Salt. Wonderful night with moon filling half the theatre with light

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