Beyrout [Beyrouth (Beirut)]. Sunday 15. Dearest Father. Have you ever observed what a lot of iniquity can be put through before ten o'clock in the morning? After, too, I daresay, but I am mainly concerned with the earlier hours of the day, for they witnessed my entrance into Syria. It was a marvel of successful fraud. I must tell you the manner of it. We arrived yesterday morning and were duly quarantined, that is, we lay outside the harbour for 24 hours, but we were allowed to remain on board and no other precaution was taken except that we were each charged a shilling. Thus, you will readily understand it is impossible for the plague to find its way into Turkey. It was a stormy day with great gusts of rain and the tall Lebanon [Liban, Jebel] were half hidden by rolling cloud. In the night a strong wind rose, and as we were lying out in the open. we rolled like - the universe. I was awakened by the noise my brushes and combs made steeple chasing across my cabin and found that I was standing alternately on my head and on my heels, then I went to sleep again and when next I was aware of what was happening, we were in harbour. I had sent a note by the Turkish doctor to Mr Drummond Hay, the Consul, asking him to let me have a kavass early in the morning to help me through the custom house; accordingly while I was breakfasting there appeared a smiling party in uniform who was an old friend of mine. I warned him that I had every possible sort of contraband and we set off together to the custom house. My revolver I put in my pocket, but I was anxious about my gun which would have been confiscated for ever if it had been found. I packed it, case and all, in my cabin trunk, well wrapped round with white petticoats. All promised well, I engaged the chief custom house officer in a friendly conversation about the weather which we were agreed in thinking bad, and the kavass informed the world in general that I was a very great lady and that it was therefore unnecessary to pay too strict attention to my baggage. Most of it passed through unquestioned. They opened an innocent wooden packing case which contained nothing but camp utensils. But conceive my agitation when they next hit upon my cabin trunk. I whispered to the kavass: "It is needless that they should search this very much." He replied "I have understood, Oh Lady." Accordingly he lifted up my gowns as gingerly as if they had been court trains: there were the white petticoats beneath, with lacy edges, aggressively feminine. Just as they were going to put back the tray, one of the men caught sight of a pile of maps - maps are very suspicious objects in Turkey. They lay immediately over the end of the guncase. He stooped down to turn them over and I turned again with a brisk remark to my friend the chief officer. "By God, oh Lady" said he "it is as your Excellency says: God alone knows when the rain will cease. Enough, oh Mahmud! It is finished." The kavass pushed in the tray with alacrity. "Yallah, oh boy!" said he. "Hasten! shall we wait here till nightfall." And the dangerous pass was over. I gave my friend a very polite salaam. "I go, upon your pleasure," said I. "Go in peace" he replied. Thus we defrauded the Sultan. The kavass enjoyed the incident thoroughly, and he will enjoy it more presently for I shall give him a good tip. He is indeed an admirable man. The wind is still very high and it has been raining at intervals, but it is quite mild and I think the weather looks as if it were picking up. But the worse it is, the more determined I am to march to Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] and not to go by sea, for in rough weather it is impossible to land at Jaffa [Tel Aviv-Yafo (Joppa)] and I will not run the risk of being carried back to Port Said. It would be beyond the limit of human endurance. That being so, I shall probably make my camp here. The kavass knows of a good cook whom he is to bring to see me presently and I think I can buy horses as well here as at Jerusalem. It is cheaper to get them at once than to begin by hiring. But I can send a mass of heavy things, books, maps and films, up to Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)] by rail to await my arrival. It would be useless to go there myself at once, for it is far too early to attempt the northern mountains with any approach to comfort and I should only spoil what will be six weeks later a very pleasant part of the journey. Now I must go and see Mrs Drummond Hay, or leave a card. Please tell Walter about the adventures of his gun. The streets of Beyrout are knee deep in mud. I must add that no amount of acquaintance with Turkish money reconciles me to it, as for instance: 6 medjidés, all but a bit, to a pound, 23 1/3 kirsh to a medjideh, 6 beshliks and a fraction to a medjideh - I'll trouble you to tell me how many beshliks there are exactly in a pound or kirsh in a beshlik. Every piece of money is treated as a unit and bears no particular relation to any other sort. You must bear in mind that the kirsh, ie piastre, by which all small accounts are reckoned, doesn't exist at all as a coin.
- At this moment came in Mr Drummond Hay, very friendly and anxious to be useful. He is a mighty hunter and rider and with his help I think I shall have no difficulty in providing myself with horses, good cheap. When he left I went off to see his wife and daughter, the former rather a pretentious lady, but also most friendly - I had never seen her before - the daughter a pretty, delicate looking little thing with a pleasant manner. Drummond Hay is the son of Sir John Drummond Hay who was minister in Marocco [Morocco] and I believe rather a distinguished man. Mrs DH is full of talk about "my father in law." You understand, if they had sent D.H. (as they ought to have done, vide Mrs DH passim) to Marocco, we should still have been all powerful there. I'm going to lunch with them on Tuesday. On my way back I went to see an interesting mosque, which was once a Crusader, and before that a Byzantine, church. It's a 3 shipped basilica with great piers and rather poor Corinthian capitals, but with a fine door, inlaid, which I suspect belongs to the Crusader time. I shall go back and photograph it some morning. So I drove back through streets which I think I observed before are unspeakably muddy - they've had continuous rain for 2 months - and bought a bunch of narcissus that smell very good. And all the town has the nice aromatic stuffy smell of the East, at which I rejoice more than words can say. And oh how glad I shall be to sleep in a reasonable bed that doesn't stand on its head half the time. It's pelting with rain - won't it be delicious in camp!

There was a Syrian on board the boat who belonged to the wealthy Syrian colony in Alexandria. He talked last night rather interestingly about the Alexandrian bourse. They are cotton sellers, you know, and they hang on the American market. Last year the American supply was very small and they raked in money, this year is a bumper year and they are all ruined. They've lost millions. They are chiefly Greeks and Syrians who gamble in cotton - they are immensely rich and they live with a preposterous luxury, keep stables of racers, travel in Europe every summer, spend thousands on jewels. It's a world of which one has no suspicion and yet there they are as busy as you please. It's not a form of occupation that appeals to me much. But he was a good sort, my friend. He says though Egypt is a thousand times more prosperous than it was, they hate us and want Egypt for the Egyptians. Que voulez vous! But the fellahin are beginning to see the advantage of our govt. for they chiefly profit by the change. They are very well off now. There was a Captain of the Khedivial line here today - it's an English SS Co - and he said a good criterion of the wealth of the fellah is the size of the Egyptian Hajj. It grows yearly. The Khedivial carry it. This year it's so enormous that they have had to buy 2 more ships. Interesting, isn't it. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude