Aleppo [Halab]. Tues 9 Feb. My dearest Mother. I really don't know where to begin with Aleppo so I think I will begin with the end and tell you about the evening I have just spent. I asked the Consul here to put me in touch with one of the members of the local Committee of Union and Progress. He accordingly asked a certain Hikmet Bey to come and see me. The Committee here consists of some 300 members, out of whom 7, chosen by ballot, are the executive committee. Who these 7 are is not known even to the other members of the committee but I happened to know the names of 2 and Hikmet Bey was one of them. So he came this afternoon and told me what was being done and was very polite and finally asked me if I would pay a visit to the Club to which all the Committee belongs. Accordingly I went about 9.30, drove into the heart of the town, stopped before a dark doorway, and walked up an unlighted stair and came into a large hall with a green baize table strewn with papers and a number of members of the committee sitting round reading and talking. I was shown into a little room belonging to the managing directors of the club and there I found Hikmet and Ismail Bey (the second of the 7) and various others, civilians and soldiers, to whom I was presented. It was hung round with the most incredible pictures and the most appalling pieces of embroidery, the work of the ladies of Aleppo, for they are about to hold a bazaar for the benefit of the people of Messina! So we all sat down and drank tea and they asked me what I thought of Aleppo, while I expressed my admiration in suitable terms. But I added that among all the beautiful things that I had seen there was one thing so terrible that I must bring it before their notice. It is the Muristan, where for the last 400 years criminal lunatics have been confined in stone[?] cells, unlighted and unwarmed. They sit fastened to the walls with heavy chains like so many wild beasts and stare at you through gratings which open into narrow stinking chambers lighted meagerly from above by slits in the wonderful high domes that were built by the Mamluk king. And the ferocious, hopeless misery of their expressions is never to be forgotten. Hikmet Bey made a careful note of what I said and promised that the matter should be brought before the special committee at once. And with that they brought in a large book and I signed my name in it and wrote some good wishes for the future of the Club. And so we all went into the big room and every body got up and made me deep salaams as I passed and then into a committee room where some 20 persons were engaged in considering what steps should be taken to promote the commerce of the town. They all got up and I was put at the head of the table, presiding over this strange company of Turks and Arabs, Jews, Christians, Sheikhs in turbans, doctors and merchants and Heavan knows what. One after the other they took up the word, sometimes in French and sometimes in Arabic, and told me how much they owed to me and to my country and finally they all got up and cheered me and England. It was absurd and touching and a little false and a little genuine, but whether they were really pleased to see me or not (there was an old sheikh at my right hand whose expression was not smiling!) I had a real sense of exhilaration. The place was alive, the thing was moving, the men round the table - they were nearly all youngish, between 30 and 40 - were beginning to feel what independence was like and power and responsibility; hope was in the air and life, the burden had fallen, it was a new world. Presently they asked me to repeat all I had said about the Muristan and they wrote it down and made me more promises, and - I wonder if anything will come of it. And then we talked about the Alexandretta [Iskenderun (Alexandria ad Issum)] railway and the revival of agriculture, on which subject one of them made a long and eloquent speech - oh they know how to talk! - and then I wished them and their work all success and they cheered the English as I went away. So you see I am almost a member of a Young Turkish Committee.
I spend the whole of my days from morning to night flying about the town seeing sights and people. I have had an interesting talk with the Vali, I have visited his wife who is a niece of Hamdy Beg, I have heard the views of leading Moslem citizens and of Christian archbishops. I have been to the house of half the dealers in Aleppo, photographed Hittite stones and bought a whole collection of Hittite and Assyrian cylinders, and every spare moment I spend in the company of someone or other who knows the town and can show me wonderful bits of decoration or interesting Arab inscriptions. On these expeditions there is a delightful German woman, Mrs Koch, who always comes with me. Koch is a merchant here, they have been here 20 years, and she knows every stone in the city - and most of the inhabitants. I generally lunch with them and it is owing to her that I have got my cylinders at a reasonable price. She is a really nice woman - with good German sentiment, bless them, she begs to send you many greetings. There is an interesting Englishman too, Christie is his name; he is a missionary and a fine Hebrew scholar (I believe). Delitzsh was his master, so we foregathered our mutual acquaintances. Finally the French consul and one of his secretaries are endlessly kind. The secretary, Mr Roseflard[?], is very learned in the history of the town, has read all the inscriptions on the mosques and khans, and given me when I go about with him, a very vivid impression of the great Arab age here. It is a splendid place. Short of Cairo there is nothing like it. One ought to spend months in it. It has been destroyed so often that very little remains of an early period, but there are fragments of beautiful 12th century work and a great deal dating from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Wed 10. [10 February 1909] I'm going off this morning on a long expedition with the two Frenchmen and Mrs Koch to a suburb of the town where the Ayyabite sultans had their palaces. It's an exquisite day - Heaven send the rain may be over! People say here that they generally have a fine month or so about this time of year. The cold and damp and mud when it rains are indescribable. I go about shivering from morning till night! We've bought 11 horses for the journey, and 2 donkeys. It sounds enormous but they have cost only about £120, and I hope I shall sell them again for not much less. I believe in the end it will be cheaper than hiring. I have got some letters forwarded from you the day after I left, and one from Father from Cherbourg. I do wonder how he is prospering. I expect our preparations will take another 4 days and we shall be off on Sunday or Monday, but I shall write again before I leave.
It is all too enchantingly delightful! Your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.

Fattuh and his wife send you many salaams.