AMURATH TO AMURATHI'
THIS book is a record of travel in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris during the spring and summer of 1909. The districts through which the writer travelled are the most interesting in the world, and the five months of travel were those critical days during which the Constitution born in the summer of 1908 trembled in the balance. Miss Bell is admirably equipped to do justice both to the place and the time, not only as archmologist, linguist and intrepid traveller, but as one full of a sincere love of the country and people, with a gift for entering into the life and thoughts of the men she meets, whatever their race or profession. The book is many-sided. It reflects the keen interest felt by the author in mountain and desert, men and monuments, past and present. "The banks of the Euphrates echo with ghostly alarums, the Meso- potamian deserts are full of the rumour of phantom armies." The layman can understand the long hours spent in measuring and surveying mosque and palace and fortress, for she makes him feel that they are the monuments of men once living and that each marks a stage in the unbroken continuity of Eastern history. She makes us feel the delight of travel where the guidebook is the Anabasis, and seeing from the mound which marks the capital of the Hittites "the line drawn from Samosata to Thapsacus strung with battlefields whereon the claims of Europe and Asia were fought out." At the same time she makes us take to heart the lesson "that the people of the West can conquer but never hold Asia, even when they go under the banners of Alexander himself." And while giving the past a very living existence, she presents us with a. remarkably vivid gallery of contemporary portraits drawn with humour, kindness, and great literary charm. The conversations she records, held with every kind and condition of men, during a crisis of such vast importance in the history of the East, must remain of great historical value. She sums up her own opinion of the crisis in words full of good-will, but also full of warning. "The victories of peace are more laborious than • "Who may know Ha loved one passes the prime, while ever with him and never left alone? Who may not satisfy to-day who satisfied yesterday? And If he satisfy, what should yefall him not to satisfy to-morrow.? "—See Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Ma elEail, P. 128.
-tdmurath to. Aram-Mk. By Gertrude Bell. London : W. Heinemann. [16a. net.]
those of war. They demand a higher integrity than that which has been practised hitherto in Turkey, and a finer con- ception of citizenship than any which has been current there." Yea, indeed! "Still stands the ancient sacrifice." Perhaps the East as well as the West will return to the old answer of the man of Tarsus, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty." 'I he old tyranny, she says, is lifted, but it has left its shadow over the land. Indeed the shadow as experienced by many characters in the book is sufficiently black. " Christian and Moslem, see how we labour ! If the Constitu- tion were worth anything the poor would not work for such small rewards." " They talk of liberty," says another, " but there is no change in the world." Most enlightening, in view of recent events, is the conversation between an Arab and a zaptieh. " When there is liberty," says the guardian of the law, "there will be no raiding and the Arabs will serve as soldiers." " No," returns the Arab, " we will not bow our heads to any Government. To the Arabs belongs command." Perhaps the tone which will prevail in the end is to be found in the despairing wish of the poor peasant : " We should be better satisfied to see the soldiers govern. We need a strong hand that the poor may enjoy the fruits of their labour " ; or else in the pious assertion of Sheikh Hamri, "How can there be liberty under Islam P Shall I take a wife contrary to the laws of Islam and call it liberty P God forbid! " There are two scenes which particu- larly impress the imagination as typical of those stirring days. The first is the graphic account of the caravan's arrival at Mosul just at the moment when the guns were announcing the deposition of Abdul Humid and the accession of the new Sultan. The second is the meeting of the Christian guide Fattuh (a most fascinating personage who describes himself as belonging to "no religion but the religion of God ") with a caravan of Moslems fresh from the massacres of Adana. To abridge these descriptions would be to spoil them. Let the reader see for himself. Of a different order of interest is the account of the perilous dash across the Desert and the amazing apparition of the fortified hunting palace of Ukheidir, deserted for a thousand years and hitherto unknown. Nor can we readily forget the superb compliment of the Bedouin who gave Miss Bell his horse to hold as he went forward to reconnoitre some suspicious strangers : " In the day of raids I do not trust my mare to my own brother, lest he should see the foe and fear and ride away. But to you I gave her be• cause I know that the heart of the English is strong." It is indeed a wonderful thing to travel along those "rolling waters that are charged with the history of the ancient world," to breakfast with devil worshippers and dine with a Prior, to see Noah's ark reposing on the mountain-top in a bed of red tulips, to sip coffee with a bishop, and, looking over the plains of Assyria, to hear His Beatitude recount how St. Matthew converted the eldest son Of Sennacherib, and then to descend to the Plain and hear from the lips of one who lived by carnage, and lived well, bow he got his guns from the Persian Gulf and his protection from the Sultan. How much light is thrown on current politics by simple facts, learned at first hand, with regard to the secular war of Tribesman and Culti. vator, the beneficent influence of the advancing railway, and the sure hopes, based on visible records, held out by irrigation La chose vue, bow much it is ! But still more is the human heart which provides the link between the present and the past, between races and creeds, and makes us understand that we cannot be indifferent to them, for they are all moricdia. To our mind, among many charms, this is the principal charm of this enchanting book.
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