Gertrude
May 4, 1909
I...rode through blazing heat across the plains of Assyria, deep in corn.... It was so hot that I had to go into a house, in a village I passed, to lunch.... I photographed and took notes in the monastery all the afternoon. My tents were pitched on the slopes of the mound and I sat and watched the people watering their flocks at the pool while the moon rose over Assyria and found it, I expect, very little changed.

Gertrude Bell Letters
The Robinson Library
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Gertrude Gertrude
Some day, I hope the East will be strong again and develop its own civilization, not imitate ours, and then perhaps it will teach us a few things we once learnt from it and have now forgotten, to our great loss.
--Gertrude Bell
From the book, Kurdistan, In the Shadow of History.