Jerusalem to Petra with Gertrude Bell
We will be following Gertrude Bell on an archaeological journey from Jerusalem to the ruins of Petra, a once capital city in what is now southern Jordan originally built sometime around 9000 B.C. which is famous for its rock-cut architecture. You’re probably most familiar with its portrayal in the third Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. One of Petra’s remaining rock-carved structures was used as the entrance to the temple which housed the Holy Grail.
Though the ruins are quite interesting, we’re going to focus on Gertrude Bell’s story. She was an amazing and important historical figure from the not-so-distant past who hasn’t really left much of an impression in the history books, which is of no fault of her own. You’ve likely heard of her British male contemporaries like Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill, but Gertrude accomplished as much if not more than those men during her life as a woman born in the 19th century.
Who is Gertrude Bell?
Gertrude Bell was a world traveler, eloquent writer, mountaineer, archaeologist, linguist, and a British political officer who fought for self-governing Middle Eastern states and outlined the political boundaries of modern Iraq after World War I.
Bell was born on July 14th, 1868 in Durham, England to a wealthy family. Her mother died when Gertrude was three, which led to a lifelong bond between Gertrude and her father, Sir Hugh Bell, which is displayed clearly in the volumes of letters she wrote to her father during her world travels.
After receiving her early education from Queen’s College in London, Bell went on to Oxford University where she became the first woman to graduate with a first-class honors degree in Modern History from the university.
She was a privileged child. She was white, wealthy, and well-educated, but that didn’t add up to all that much in her day, not for a woman in a man’s world. She had to be headstrong, she had to fight with tooth and nail to go where she wanted, to be who she wanted to be, to pursue her interests.
Bell left England soon after her education was complete and when she returned home it was never for long. During her years abroad she traveled around the world multiple times, spending much of her time in the Middle East studying tribal relations, language, and the daily life of the people. She mastered the Arabic, Persian, French, and German languages which propelled her into a career with British Intelligence alongside her writing career.
Remembered for her superior intellect, unrivaled enthusiasm, and thirst for adventure— Bell befriended many of the individuals she encountered in her travels, but she was also thought to be stubborn and unwavering in the face of adversity, never allowing another to cross her without a fight.
After her death, Bell’s legacy continued through her publications and the lasting impression she left on everyone she met. Having not only played a strong role in placing King Faisal on the throne of Baghdad, she also established congenial relations with the King of Jordan. She has been described as, “One of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection”.
An obituary written by her peer D. G. Hogarth expressed the respect British officials held for her. Hogarth honored her by saying, “No woman in recent time has combined her qualities – her taste for arduous and dangerous adventure with her scientific interest and knowledge, her competence in archaeology and art, her distinguished literary gift, her sympathy for all sorts and condition of men, her political insight and appreciation of human values, her masculine vigor, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit.”
In The Letters of Gertrude Bell which were selected and edited by her stepmother, Lady Florence Bell, Lady Bell says of Gertrude, “Scholar, poet, historian, archaeologist, art critic, mountaineer, explorer, gardener, naturalist, distinguished servant of the State, Gertrude was all of these, and was recognized by experts as an expert in them all.”
Is that enough of an impression to leave you with? Now that you have an idea of what a remarkable person Gertrude was, we’re going to listen to some of the letters she sent home to her father. In them, you’ll see her tenacity and warmth, her intelligence and admitted ignorance. Her curiosities carried her to lands that had been until-then essentially off-limits to western women.
Gertrude Bell’s Letters
From JERUSALEM, Jan. 1st, 1900.
Will you send me out a wide gray felt sun hat to ride in, and put a black velvet ribbon round it with straight bows. My Syrian girl is charming and talks very prettily but with a strong local accent. It adds enormously to one’s difficulties that one has to learn a patois and a purer Arabic at the same time. I took her out for a long walk on Friday afternoon and went photographing about Jerusalem. She was much entertained, though she was no good as a guide, for she had never been in the Jewish quarter though she has lived all her life here! That’s typical of them. I knew my way, however, as every Englishwoman would–it’s as simple as possible. She came with us on the following day on a most delightful expedition.
We started at 9 in the morning–it was Sunday and therefore a legitimate holiday–and rode down the Valley of Hinnon and all along the brook Kedron (which is dry at this season) through a deep valley full of immensely old olive trees and rock tombs scarcely older. Then up a long hill and down on the other side into a shallow naked valley, where there were many encampments of the black Bedouin tents, and so into an extraordinary gorge called the Valley of Fire. The rock lies in natural terraces and is full of caves; the Brook Kedron has cut the steepest, deepest cleft for its bed and on either side rise these horizontal layers of stone. They have been a regular city of anchorites, each living in his cave and drawing his ladder up behind him when he went in.
Half a mile or so further on lies the citadel of this cave town, the Monastery of Mar Saba, itself half cave and half building, its long walls and towers creeping up the steep rock, the dome of its chapel jutting out from it, and the irregular galleries and rows of cells hanging out over a precipice. The rock itself is full of little square windows and these are the cave cells and probably about as old as St. Saba who lived in the 6th century.
Do you know I have been reading the story of Aladdin to myself for pleasure, without a dictionary! It is not very difficult, I must confess, still it’s ordinary good Arabic, not for beginners, and I find it too charming for words. Moreover, I see that I really have learnt a good deal since I came for I couldn’t read just for fun to save my life. It is satisfactory, isn’t it? I look forward to a time when I shall just read Arabic-like that! and then for my histories! I really think that these months here will permanently add to the pleasure and interest of the rest of my days! Honest Injun. Still, there is a lot and a lot more to be done first–SO to work!
Feb. 28, 1900.
Sunday, was too many for me. I did not go out at all but sat at home and read Aladdin and looked at the streaming rain. Monday was a little better. Charlotte and I put on short skirts and thick boots and went for a long walk to a lovely spring she knew of. We walked down a deep valley which as long as we have known it has been as dry as a bone and where to our surprise we found a deep swift stream, Ain Tulma, our object, was on the other side and as there are no bridges in this country, (there being no rivers as a rule) there was nothing for it but to take off our shoes and stockings and wade. The water came above our knees.
The other side was too lovely–the banks of the river were carpeted with red anemones, a sheet of them, and to walk by the side of a rushing stream is an unrivaled experience in this country. When we got to Ain Tulma we found the whole place covered with cyclamen and orchids and a white sort of garlic, very pretty, and the rocks out of which the water comes were draped in maidenhair.
There were a lot of small boys, most amiable young gentlemen, who helped us to pick cyclamen, and when I explained that I had no money they said it was a bakshish to me–the flowers. We had a very scrambly walk back, waded the stream again and when we got to a little village at the foot of the hill, we hired some small boys to carry our flowers home for us. (In this village I lost my way and we found ourselves wandering over the flat roofs and Jumping across the streets below!) I hurried on (as it was 5 and I had a lesson at 5:30) with 5 little beggar boys in my train. They were great fun. We had long conversations all the way home. It’s such an amusement to be able to understand. The differences of pronunciation are a little puzzling at first to the foreigner. There are two k’s in Arabic–the town people drop the hard k altogether and replace it by a guttural for which we have no equivalent; the country people pronounce the hard k soft and the soft k ch, but they say their gutturals beautifully and use a lot of words which belong to the more classical Arabic. The Bedouins speak the best; they pronounce all their letters and get all the subtlest shades of meaning out of the words.
I must tell you this is a great day–a German post office has been opened, and we expect marvels from it. There is parcel post and all complete and I advise you to put German Post Office on to your letters to me. One of our kavasses has gone to be Post Office kavass and as I passed down the Jaffa Street he rushed out open-armed to greet me and begged me to come in. So in I went and retired behind the counter and shook hands warmly with the two postmasters (they dined with us a few nights ago) and bought 6 stamps to celebrate the occasion–which I didn’t pay for, as I had no money–the kavass saying all the time–“Al! ketear ‘al!” which means “It is extremely high,” and is the superlative of admiration in Arabic.
The tourists who were sending off telegrams were rather surprised to see someone seemingly like themselves come in hand in hand with an old Arab and fall into the arms of the officials behind the counter! It was extremely high!
To-day came the joyful news of the relief of Ladysmith. My horse is extremely well. We are going for a long ride to-morrow. The Hardings and I mean to go for 10 days into Moab about the 18th. It will be lovely. We shall take tents. Goodbye.
From AYAN MUSA, Tuesday, March 20, 1900.
From my tent.
I left Jerusalem yesterday soon after 9, having seen my cook at 7 and arranged that he should go off as soon as he could get the mules ready. (His name is Hanna–sounds familiar, doesn’t it! but that H is such as you have never heard.) I rode down to Jerusalem alone–the road was full of tourists, caravans of donkeys carrying tents for cook and Bedouin escorts. I made friends as I went along and rode with first one Bedouin and then another, all of them exaggerating the dangers I was about to run with the hope of being taken with me into Moab.
Halfway down I met my guide from Salt, east of Jordan, coming up to meet me. His name is Tarif, he is a servant of the clergyman in Salt and a Christian therefore, and a perfect dear. We rode along together, sometime, but he was on a tired horse, so I left him to come on slowly and hurried down into Jericho where I arrived with a Bedouin at 1–famished. I went to the Jordan hotel. We then proceeded to the Mudir’s for I wanted to find out the truth of the tales I had been told about Moab, but he was out. By this time Tarif and Hanna had arrived and reported the tents to be one and a half hours behind, which seemed to make camping at the Jordan impossible that night…I determined to pass that night in Jericho and make an early start.
This morning I got up at 5 and at 6 was all ready, having sent on my mules and Hanna to the Jordan bridge. The river valley is wider on the other side and was full of tamarisks in full white flower and willows in the newest of leaf, there were almost no slime pits and the Ghor plain wilderness had blossomed like the rose. It was the most unforgettable sight–sheets and sheets of varied and exquisite colour–purple, white, yellow, and the brightest blue and fields of scarlet ranunculus. Nine-tenths of them I didn’t know, but there was the yellow daisy, the sweet-scented mauve wild stock, a great splendid sort of dark purple onion, the white garlic and purple mallow, and higher up a tiny blue iris and red anemones and a dawning pink thing like a linum.
We were now joined by a cheerful couple, from Bethlehem, a portly fair man in white with a yellow keffiyeh (that’s the thing they wear round their heads bound by ropes of camel hair and falling over the shoulders), and a fair beard, riding a very small donkey, and a thinner and darker man walking. The first one looked like a portly burgher. He asked me if I were a Christian and said he was, praise be to God! I replied piously that it was from God. So we all journeyed on together through the wilderness of flowers and every now and then the silent but amiable Ismael got off to pick me a new variety of plant, while the others enlivened the way by stalking wood pigeons, but the pigeons were far too wily and they let off their breech loaders in vain and stood waist deep in flowers watching the birds flying cheerfully away–with a “May their house be destroyed!” from my Christian friend. A little higher up we came to great patches of corn sown by the Adwan Bedouins.
Now we saw a group of black tents far away on a little hill covered with white tombs and here the barley was in ear and, in the midst of the great stretches of it, little watchtowers of branches had been built and a man stood on each to drive away birds and people. One was playing a pipe as we passed–it was much more Arcadian than Arcadia. We had now reached the bottom of the foothills, and leaving the Ghor plain behind us, we began to mount. We crossed a stream flowing down the Wady Hisban at a place called Akweh. It was so wet here that we rode on to a place where there were a few thorn trees peopled by immense crowds of resting birds-they seize on any little bush for there are so few and the Arabs come and burn the bush and catch and cook the birds all in one! On the top of the first shoulder we came to spreading cornfields.
The plan is this–the “Arabs” sow one place this year and go and live somewhere else lest their animals should eat the growing corn. Next year this lies fallow and the fallow of the year before is sown. Over the second shoulder we got on to a stretch of rolling hills and we descended the valley to Ayan Musa, a collection of beautiful springs with an Arab camp pitched above them. I found the loveliest iris I have yet seen–big and sweet-scented and so dark purple that the hanging down petals are almost black. It decorates my tent now.
Half an hour later my camp was pitched a little lower down on a lovely grassy plateau. We were soon surrounded by Arabs who sold us a hen and some excellent sour milk, ‘laban’ it is called. While we bargained the women and children wandered round and ate grass, just like goats. The women are unveiled. They wear a blue cotton gown 6 yards long which is gathered up and bound round their heads and their waists and falls to their feet. Their faces, from the mouth downwards, are tattooed with indigo and their hair hangs down in two long plaits on either side. Our horses and mules were hobbled and groomed.
Hanna brought me an excellent cup of tea and at 6 a good dinner consisting of soup made of rice and olive oil (very good!) an Irish stew and raisins from Salt, an offering from Tarif. My camp lies just under Pisgah. Isn’t it a joke being able to talk Arabic! We saw a great flock of storks to-day (the Father of Luck, Tarif calls them) and an eagle. I am now amongst the Bilka Arabs but these particular people are the Ghanimat, which Hanna explains as Father of Flocks.
This young Gertrude Bell is full of confidence, so sure that the dangers are exaggerated and that everyone she crosses is wanting and willing to chat with her.
She is about 30 years old at this time and just beginning to learn Arabic, a language she would soon master. Her courage propels her forward into discussion and discourse with the women, men, and children she encounters, despite her as-of-yet unskilled attempts at speaking Arabic and grasping its different dialects.
Some of the descriptions she writes to her father of the people she encounters are outdated, but don’t mistake them for racism or purposeful ignorance. She’s a product of her time. The foreign world was just that— foreign, unexplored. Back then, the average English person had little sense of political correctness while they were abroad. The British government was still colonizing what they would call ‘untamed’ lands and people. Proper knowledge and terminology just didn’t exist yet, and we’re still figuring some of that out today.
Gertrude Bell’s appreciation and respect for different people and cultures show through in her letters, and they are character-defining traits that shine all across her legacy. You’ll get a better sense of it in the readings ahead in the upcoming second and third parts of her journey.
It’s one of the most interesting aspects of Gertrude Bell. As an archaeologist she is more interested in people and culture, both present and past, than she is in the beauty of the natural world she travels through. She does appreciate nature, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the people she finds most fascinating. They are her passion. They are why she takes on these daring adventures. The next part of her adventure will be published shortly.
