Baghdad Ap. 22 Dearest Father. At last I have a letter from you, dated 13 March and posted at Adelaide - as you rightly surmised it has reached me before the first letter which I hope to get this week. Don't think for a moment that they will send Australian letters by overland mail - they won't. Probably they don't know about it.
I am very much interested by your accounts of the fifth continent and its inhabitants, but what you say confirms my mystic feeling that I should never want to go there or to see them at home. But I like hearing about them from you. It must be horrid to have to cook one's own dinner always - it would be horrider to eat always the one I should cook, I'm bound to say. I can't but think that you paid too much for your portrait - à propos of portraits, do you see that Sargent is dead? I'm so sorry.

As for my plans, I'm thinking of coming home for a couple of months towards the end of July, so as to have two peaceful months at Rounton. If I drop into the end of a London season, I rush about so and it's not very restful. Also, I spend more money than I need or want to spend. So, barring accidents, that's what is in my mind. I think it would be a good plan.

Things aren't looking entirely satisfactory. There is this big Turkish concentration nominally to put down the Kurdish reBellion - which appears to have collapsed - but very likely with a view to terrorizing us and the 'Iraq when the League of N. comes to its decision. It is accompanied by intrusive propaganda in this country which is having a certain amount of effect and is eagerly being taken up by bad hats. The visit of the Commission in itself has been an encitement to lawlessness. When a number of elderly European gentlemen come round and ask you with great solemnity whether you like your Govt and whether you wouldn't prefer some other, you naturally begin to think that your opinion is of great value, in the first place, and that you may expect some favour from the Govt you have honoured by declaring for, and in the second place it sets your thoughts wondering whether after all you really do like the Govt you are, tant bien que mal, obeying. Largely to the general relaxation of the authority of Govt due to this cause, I put down a little flaring up of personal jealousies long latent among the chiefs of the Sinjar leading to local disorders which have had to be suppressed by force. I have no doubt that the Turks will try to make capital out of it, though if any section of the community is heart and soul anti Turkish it is the Yazidis of the Sinjar who suffered uninterrupted persecution at Turkish hands.

Again in Sulaimani [Sulaymaniyah, As], Shaikh Mahmud has lifted up his head which was bowed to the dust when the Commissioner went there and got a unanimous anti-Turkish vote. It is partly propaganda and partly the immemorial difficulty of controlling with regular troops guerrilla bands which always have the legs of you. I was in Kirkuk yesterday, as I will tell you, and I didn't like what I heard. These things should be dealt with very promptly and I don't think we have dealt with them promptly enough - partly (between ourselves) because H.E. had planned a tour in the frontier mountains to the north and wanted to put off decision till he got to Kirkuk which won't be till May 2. Meantime disorder is increasing in Sulaimani and one can only hope that, as on many former occasions, (though not always) it will turn out to be less serious than was anticipated.

The tourist season must be nearly at an end but there has been an influx of people lately. On Saturday I had to lunch Sir CampBell Rhodes who had met Elsa at Calcutta. He is one of the 10 Anglo-Indian merchants, members of the Legislative Council and he was very interesting. He gave me an entirely new aspect of things British, but not official, the Englishman who regards himself as a part of India just as much as the Hindu is a part and means to take his share in running the fortunes of the country. It was on the whole very encouraging. I took him in the afternoon to see some sights and brought him back to tea and we talked of India most of the time - he did, I mean.

On Sunday your M. de St Hardouin rolled up, with a word of introduction from Anthony Henley also. The Smarts (he is British Consul in Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)]) were lunching so I asked M. de S.H. too - he was leaving that night for Tehran [(Teheran)]. I thought him charming.

He rather cramped our style, however, for I wanted to ask Mr Smart about the Balfour riots. I have heard since. He thinks the French (this is secret) didn't feel at all averse to a little anti-British demonstrating which would draw a red herring across the path of their own unpopularity, but once it began it went much further than they had bargained for, as such things do, and the net result is to make people scoff at their inability to maintain law and order. Because everyone knows that the Damascenes are sheep and that they wouldn't have dared to do anything if they had known that the French meant to repress them firmly.

Ken and I took Hilton Young out in the afternoon and we picnicked in Karradah gardens. Mr Young leaves next week - I'm sorry he is going. He presents his report before he goes - what I know of it will be very drastic but I only know in deep confidence.

In the evening I had the Sinbads, Ken and Iltyd to dinner. We were mainly engaged in canvassing the merits of a little black and white puppy which Col. Prescott had offered me. She ought to have been a spaniel but she has got mixed up with an Airedale and has the oddest little ugly pathetic face and very apologetic manners. I've got her so far on appro. She is singularly intelligent and already has a passion for me. I think I may keep her. The servants all call her Peter so I've called her Petra - my poor Peter!

We have been having odd weather - violent duststorms at the end of the week and on Sunday night a terrific thunderstorm and heavy rain which sent the temperature down with a bump. Very nice that was. J.M. [Wilson] and I had got permission from the A.V.M. to go up to Kirkuk by air mail in order to see a little excavation which is being done there under the auspices of the Museum. We went yesterday morning and came back this morning - 2½ hours up and 2 hours down, with a following wind. I like flying. The only contretemps was that they forgot to put my little valise into the plane and I arrived with nothing. However, my hostess, Mrs Miller (Captain Miller is Administrative Inspector) lent me brushes and combs and things, and once you have made up your mind that you have no luggage, it is rather an exhilarating feeling.

We got in about 10.30, saw some things in the town that we wanted to see and after lunch went out to the dig which is being very well done by a certain Dr Chiera, an Italian, professor of Assyriology at an American University. It's a villa, a house belonging to some wealthy private person who lived about 800 B.C. Chiera has found masses of tablets from which we hope that we shall ultimately piece together the story of the family. It's a comfortable house with a bathroom, hot and cold water laid on, so to speak (we found and traced the drain while we were there), nice big reception rooms, a paved court and all you could wish. It was very interesting and the country round Kirkuk looked so agreeable with scarlet ranunculus on the edges of the green barley fields. It was delightfully cold too.

The local squadron leader (Robb, I thought very well of him) came to dinner, and the man in charge of the armoured cars (Captain Warden I think his name is, he was at Oxford with Hugh Stobart) and with Captain Miller we all had a great talk about Sulaimani affairs and other things. The Millers aren't in the house you and I stayed in, but they are all attractive, those Kirkuk houses, with their vaulted rooms and the little irrigation streams splashing through their green gardens. It was a nice expedition and J.M. and I were glad we went.

The King has asked me to go out to his farm near Khanaqin for a couple of days during the holidays at the end of Ramadhan. They begin on Friday or Saturday but as H.M. wants to leave on Friday afternoon I expect they will contrive to see the new moon on Thursday. I shall go, I think; a couple of days out of doors would be good and it doesn't look as if it would be too hot.

That's my news. Goodbye dearest. Your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.