Monday Feb 15. El Bab [Al Bab]. Dearest Mother. I left Aleppo [Halab] this morning getting my caravan under weigh [sic] at 8. It consists of 7 baggage animals and 3 muleteers mounted on 2 horses and a donkey, Jusef, Fattuh's brother in law, a boy of about 16 who is wild with joy at setting out on his travels, 2 soldiers, Fattuh and me. I suppose no one ever had so many horses as I have. For I have 12 and one donkey. We have to carry with us a great deal of provisions since I do not expect to find any on the other side of the Euphrates. One of my muleteers, Hajj 'Amr, has been with me before. Four years ago he came as far as Antioch [Antakya (Hatay)]. The others, Selim and Habib, are new. The correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, lately arrived in Aleppo from Diarbekr [Diyarbakir (Amida)], rode with me for an hour and a half, a pleasant man called Mygind - he passed through Tehran [(Teheran)] 2 years ago and saw Springy there. He is very interesting about his recent Turkish journey. It was a warm misty day, with one or two showers - not enough to detract from being on the road again. Fattuh had some things to do in the bazaar and did not catch us up till after 2, by reason of which I had no lunch except some bread my soldier, Abbas Chowwish gave me and a little chocolate I had with me. We rode 7½ hours through rolling cultivated country, not very interesting. There are a good many artificial Tells, Hittite I daresay, with modern mud villages Bellow them, and at one place I saw many fragments of columns. I climbed up the Tell here, its name was Tell el Hal, but found no pottery fragments of any age. At 4 we got to El Bab and put up in the Khan. The baggage came in an hour later. There is a hill above the village with a Ziyara on it, the grave of a holy man with a mosque round it. I climbed to the top of the minaret and had a wonderful view of a wide stretching valley, full of cultivation and villages and scattered over with artificial mounds. The people all along the road were grubbing up locusts' eggs. The Govt. gives them so much a stone for them, but they don't work very energetically and I expect there will be a plague of locusts this year. I am lodged in a little bare room into which I have put my camp furniture. Fattuh and Jusef are next door, the soldiers across the yard and the horses in the stables Bellow them. I've just had dinner and am extremely sleepy after the first day's ride.

Tues. Feb 16. [16 February 1909] We had another longish day, 7½ hours which means 9 for the baggage animals. The way was lightened by the company of a charming Circassian, Mahmud Agha, a native of Bumbuj, which is Hierapolis. He was most intelligent and agreeable and helped me to read an old and much effaced Arabic inscription that we found in a village on the way. We got the name of the Khalif out of it so we can date it and that is not bad. Mahmud Agha takes a great interest in the new Govt. He told me that all were now equal before the law and no one would have to wait for months at the gates of the Seraya before he could get justice done, please God. The peasants in the villages have no votes, for the reason that none of them are registered. They would all take to their heels, said Mahmud Agha, if they thought that their name was written down somewhere by the Government - a delicious way of regarding their rights and duties as citizens! His own family had left the Caucasus [Bol'shoy Kavkaz] when the Russians took it and had gone to Roumelia where they and the others settled down and built houses; and then the Russians came there too and they all left their possessions once more and came to Bumbuj where the Sultan gave them lands; and if the Russians came once again by God he didn't know where they would go. So we came in sight of Hierapolis and followed the great water conduits that led from all sides towards the city. And they brought us to the sacred tank, fed by a deep underground spring, but there is no trace now of the tiers of seats that used to stand round it. The Circassian colony has taken all the stones, from there and from the walls and theatre to build their houses. But you can still see the line of the wall - I walked half round it before the baggage came in. It encloses an emormous empty space of featureless mounds and ruins, with the Circassian village in the middle. I wish I had Lucian with me; I should like to see what he says about it. I'm afraid your polite edition will not contain De Dea Syria. Tomorrow we cross the Euphrates - a great moment. We have just been discussing whether I might not ride round by Carchemish [Barak (Karkemis)] and join my tents on the east side of the river in the evening, but Hajj Muhammad, one of my soldiers, stopped the plan, saying to Fattuh: "My brother! it is the Euphrates." And indeed the river is apt to stand upon its dignity and if a wind got up in the evening no boat could take me over and I should have to be content to sit and dream of my tents far away. So I have decided to make the expedition to Carchemish in a different way. Today while I was riding, I suddenly remembered why the great fertile plain strewn over with artificial mounds seemed so familiar: it was because just the same country and just the same mounds I have seen round Kadesh on the Orontes ['Asi]. Kadesh and Carchemish, Hittite capitals both, and both placed in the richest lands of all Syria. No doubt it was to the fertility of the country that that earliest civilization owed its existence. I have just been reading Ammianus Marcellinus and find that when Julian passed through Hierapolis on his way to his death in Mesopotamia, a gateway fell down and killed many of his soldiers. The oracle can't work for anyone now for there are no gateways left. It is so delightful to be on the road again that there are moments when I can scarcely believe it to be true.

Wed Feb 17. [17 February 1909] Jusef, Hajj Muhammad and I rode off in the early morning and in 3½ hours behold there was the Euphrates! a noble stream, as wide here as the Thames at Chelsea though the water is now very low - a circumstance I cannot regret for it facilitates our crossings so greatly. Half an hour more brought us to the ferry where we found a mixed company of camels donkeys and carts waiting to be taken over. I however went first by right of my Consulship. We drove our horses into a boat the pattern of which was invented by Sham, Ham and Jephet, I sat in the high bows and by some mysterious process connected with long poles we got across. The camels, poor things, had been waiting for 2 days; yesterday there was a wind and the boats could not come for them. The camel drivers had eaten misery; no bread they had had, no fire, no tobacco Wallahi. So we came to Tell Ahmar [Tall al Ahmar], a little Arab village lying at the foot of a huge artificial mound. Along the fertile Euphrates bank there are another half dozen of these mounds and each one marks the site of a very ancient city. I climbed to the top of Tell Ahmar and eat my lunch with great content, watching the Euphrates flow between his high banks and my baggage horses arrive far away at the other side of the ferry. Then to work. There are some Hittite stones here of which Mr Hogarth asked me to take casts; Hajj Muhammad put me into the hands of one Ibrahim, a villager and we started out to look for them. On the way, Ibrahim informed me that he was not Belloved of the Kaimakam of Bumbuj and he proposed to put himself under my protection, please God. "Please God" said I, non committally. The stones needed some digging out so we sent into the village for picks and spades, and the greater part of the population came with them. They have the smallest idea of how to move heavy stones but what with Hajj Muhammad's advice, we got them rolled into suitable positions. On one side of a large inscribed block there was a bull in high relief. A discussion arose as to the character of the animal represented and Ibrahim opined that it was a pig. "In the ancient days" said Hajj Muhammad severely "they made pictures of men and maidens, horses, dogs, bulls and lions. But they did not make pictures of pigs." This remarkable statement was received deferentially by all, and Ibrahim observed with conviction: "No, they did not make pictures of pigs." What a delightful country this is and what enchanting people and how lucky I am to be with them again. The earth being cleared away I worked for two hard hours at a cast of one of the stones and got it finished by 5 o'clock. There are 4 others and one is enormously large - Heaven knows how long they will take to mould. Then I came in to tea and found my tents pitched Bellow the Tell and above the village. The broad Euphrates sweeps slowly past the Tell and I have just watched the sun set beyond the white cliffs of his other bank. I doubt whether there is anyone in the world so happy. The only cloud on the horizon is that a doubt has just arisen as to whether the jackals will not eat my paper cast in the night - I have to leave it to dry on the stone. I do trust they won't.

Thursday Feb 18. [18 February 1909] The jackals did not fancy my cast, so all was well. I've been so busy all day I have not had a thought for anything but Hittite stones. At 8 we set to work; I taught some of the Arabs how to mould stones with paper and it was a fine sight to see us all engaged on Hittite inscriptions. My scholars did it excellently and were vastly entertained by the new occupation. We worked for 4 hours by which time we had finished all the large inscriptions - and my arm was aching tired. In the middle of the day rose the devil's own wind, filled the tents with dust and made all occupations disagreeable. However I succeeded in copying the new part of the inscriptions and in turning over the great stones so that I could see what was beneath. We found 2 small fragments of inscriptions which must be moulded tomorrow, and the legs and turned up shoes of a fine Hittite gentleman whose body is unfortunately lost. One of his feet is placed on the head of some sort of animal. Then I rode off down the river with Ibrahim and a party called Muhammad and we saw 2 more stones which Mr Hogarth had not seen and a mound with the head of a Hittite lion lying broken off on the top of it, while the body of the lion is buried in the ground. We intend to dig it out tomorrow; Muhammad says there are inscriptions on it. I hope and expect that they are Hittite; it will be rather a blow if they are Cuneiform. A well filled day.

Friday Feb 19. [19 February 1909] No the lion turned out badly. We dug him out, in streaming rain, and there was nothing but his legs and no inscription of any kind. So, it being very stormy weather, I rode off with a couple of Kurds from a neighbouring village, charming people, and we explored the river for an hour or two down stream but found nothing but a Latin inscription, some uninteresting caves (all caves are dull) the remains of some fine bit of building, Roman I should say, and the vestiges of an old village under a tell. So I came back through wind and rain and got home to lunch at 2.15, famished. Since when I have been finishing up my work here. I think we shall go on south tomorrow, for the weather is so uncertain that I dare not cross and go to Carchemish [Barak (Karkemis)] lest when I got back at night I could not recross the Euphrates. I don't care much what the weather does for I am so well equipped to meet it. Will you please tell Marie that the riding skirt she made me is the best I have ever had.
I hope I shall be able to write to you again in a few days. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude

Sat. [20 February 1909] After all I've got to Carchemish [Barak (Karkemis)] - a marvellous site. I'll tell you about it in my next letter. This goes from here.