S.S. Rossia. Sunday 10. Dearest Mother. I seem to have been a lifetime on this boat but I dimly remember posting a letter to you on a Thursday morning and I suppose it is really only three days ago. I spent an amusing morning at Smyrna [Izmir] with Mr van Lennep. There is not much to be seen, we were chiefly in the bazaars which are delightfully Oriental and of enormous size. Here and there you come out of the narrow covered streets into a square court surrounded by some old khan, the walls of it dating back to Genoese times and the deep verandahs housing a motley collection of Armenian Antiquity dealers, Turkish counting houses, store rooms, baths and heaven knows what. Bales of dried fruits were lying everywhere, ready for shipping, but all the business with the agriculturists of the interior, which makes the bazaars of Smyrna such a wonderful centre of trade, was over a month ago. (The ship was rolling so at this point t... I had to leave off: to continue -) I lunched with the Cumberbatches, nice people. She is a Levantine of sorts, pretty and pleasant, he agreeable, friendly and most English. They have two very English little children - there is a third which I did not see - and Mr C.'s mother was also there, a great friend of Mr Chirol's. It was delightful to be in a well organised English house, after the upside-downess of the van Ls, bless them! After lunch I made my adieux, took a kavass and landed myself and my luggage without contretemps on this boat. It is small and comfortable. I have an excellent deck cabin leading out of the saloon. All the stewards speak Russian and we communicate by signs. My fellow passengers are an American Catholic priest, a Russian engineer and 400 Russian peasants who are making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)]. There are also various nondescript Turks infidels and heathens with their wives, but they make no show. The pilgrims are camped out all over the deck. They bring their own bedding and their own food and their passage from Odessa costs them some 12 roubles. They undergo incredible hardships: one woman, the Captain told me, walked from Tobolsk [Tobol'sk]. She started in March! it's a long outing. At dusk every day the popes hold a service, all the people chanting the responses. It's very touching and curious, the peasants in their wadded coats and high boots, the men in astrakan caps, and the women with some dark woollen stuff drawn round their heads and necks, some standing, some sitting up on their red and yellow quilts, the uncertain light of the ships' lamps touching stern, worn faces worthy of Memling, and losing itself between decks. The Captain is a cheery little fat soul. We talk in French German and English at meals and he is voluble in all. The American is an odd being. You wouldn't think that the strictly Yankee type was compatible with that of a priest and indeed it was some time before I found out his calling for he is not so much as tonsured. He too is making a pilgrimage. The Russian engineer, on the other hand, is purely secular. He reckons that 3 days are more than enough to exhaust the sights of Jerusalem. On Friday we were all day in sight of land. After lunch we got in between Kos and the mainland and passed Halicarnassus [Bodrum] quite close. Bare hills behind and a few rocky islands, with Kos backing them, before - this is the landscape with which Herodotus must have been familiar. We rounded the rocky headland of Cnidus - you remember the beautiful copy in the Vatican of the Praxitelean statue of Aphrodite which he made for her shrine at Cnidus? We were so close that we could distinctly see the sheltered bay which was the harbour, but there is no town there now. Ahead lay such a maze of islands that we seemed to be in an inland sea. We threaded through them all the afternoon and sighted the lights of Rhodes [Rodhos] at dusk - a gorgeous clear sunset with a tiny moon overhead. Saturday we were out of sight of land till after dark, when we saw the lighthouses of Cyprus. It was very rough and this ship rolls madly on the slightest provocation and never leaves off. Consequently the Russian did not appear all day and the American (his name is FitzGerald) wore a green countenance and put in but fleeting appearances at meals. I held out bravely, but I was not very hungry for lunch! I slept a good deal of the afternoon after which I felt quite brisk again. Today again there was a strong land wind and it was very rough. We got to Tripoli [Trâblous] about 3 and, tempted by a beguiling Arab who spoke a little English, I went ashore. It was most entertaining. We were lying about a mile out and the boats danced up and down by the ship's side, the waves dashing spray into them. The boatmen in their cotton clothes were wet through. We called upon the Prophet loud and often during the voyage - and most effectually, for we landed on a little rocky point with whole skins. Here a small gentleman in a Fez, with a little of the English, took possession of me and raced me off through the lower town. It's wonderfully picturesque - narrow, paved streets, the houses all of stone with jutting out cornices and buttresses like medieval castles and here and there arching over the streets in great bridges of stone. Having come out of the further side of the lower town, we got into a tram, together with 48 Arabs (I counted them and we picked up some more on the way) and two small mules drew us between orange gardens to the upper town at the foot of Lebanon [Liban, Jebel]. Here we again threaded narrow streets and climbed up to a crusading castle from whence we had a beautiful view - the mile and a half of fertile country between us and the sea on one side, and the slopes of the great range on the other rising up to enormous summits deep in snow. A flaming sunset over all. This warned me that I had better get back to my ship. I took a cab back to the lower town and got to my boat at dusk. A family, I don't know of what race, they spoke Arabic, came back with me - husband wife and 3 children. A porter carried them over the rocks into the boat and to my surprise they fervently embraced him at the end of the transit! I feared lest it might be a local custom, but as the other evidence seemed to show that it was not, I think he must have been a dear friend of theirs. I got back quite safely - it was a cheap expedition, 4/ in all, though I think I overpayed my guide and my cab. The boatmen came asking for bakhshish, pointing to their wringing wet clothes, but Mr FitzGerald met them with an eloquent burst of Yankee. "You get right home" said he "and draw up close to your fireside. That'll dry you better'n any piastres." Now whether they had a fireside is not known, but at any rate they retired. There is an Arab of sorts come on board; at intervals of 5 minutes he comes in and has a glass of cognac and a piece of orange; he usually brings a friend (always a different friend) who joins in this refection. When the gait of the Arab begins to get shaky, I shall go to bed. The Captain says: "If one Arab come on board, hundred twenty five sees him off - dere comes his cook, his coachman, all his shop keeper, and dey all meets him at de oder end" - a different set of them I suppose. What a comfort Harvey and Nichols don't see us off every time we go abroad and drink cognac with us - to say nothing of the oranges.

Mon 11. [11 December 1899] We arrived here this morning at dawn and after breakfast I came on shore and walked up to the Oriental Hotel which seems good and comfortable. It was a delicious sunny day so I took a cab and a Syrian guide and drove out an hour and a half along the coast to a valley recommended by Murray. Here I lunched on a rock overlooking the sea by the edge of an old Phoenician road - such a road as that on which Telemachus drove his chariot over Uncle Tom's feelings! The Tyrian purples must have been finely shaken up on it. There were some very interesting rock cut stele - Egyptian (but one had to look on them with the eye of faith, for nothing but the border remained) and Assyrian, on which the figure of the monarch, with his high Assyrian hat, were still quite clear. Narcissus and cyclamen grew all over the rocks. On my way back I called at the Consulate and sent in my card and a letter from Mr Tyrrell. Mr Drummond Hay, the Consul, was in and I paid him a short visit. A pleasant friendly little man who was much relieved to find I was not a distressed British subject. He has a wife and daughter, but I did not see them. I established relations and settled that when I come riding down here from Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)] in the Spring, I should send my luggage to him by sea. He is going to Palmyra [Tadmur] in the Spring, so we may meet there. I also interviewed Cook and thought his prices exhorbitant - we shall see what better can be done in Jerusalem [El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] when the time comes. I think it will be much cheaper to run myself. This place is charming, the bay most lovely and such sunshine everywhere. They have had violent storms however, and all the bridges are broken down everywhere. I expect they break with each shower, from the look of them. I am now going back to my Russian boat and tomorrow I reach Jaffa [Tel Aviv-Yafo (Joppa)] from whence I shall telegraph to you. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude