p.

4.

Carmel in the North, snow capped Mount Hermon in
Syria, beyond - Away inland to the mountains of the
Jordon Valley, in fom jordan - & south as far as
Jerusalem. Palestine is a peculiar shape, laterally.
Mrs was pleasant, charming, good looking & well
dressed - Mrs Arkin quite a pretty attractive girl
or young woman. She was about 40, short & somewhat
rotund, but not at all Jewish in appearance. And
tho her Amies have 2 daughters - aged 12 & 7 Pretty
pleasant children, but rather too well dressed. That
was one thing about all the women, children & grown
ups - they appeared in a succession of lovely frocks,
but I was not able to gather whether this was normal
or mainly for my benefit.
We started off with a magnificent lunch, off a glass
topped table, marvelous cutlery & crockery - and wall
of the dining room being entirely covered with an oil
painting of the Dead Sea, & that part of the Jordan
valley, the Mooble his beyond - the colouring was
gorgeous, if you remember my letters from Jericho.
After lunch we all went to our beds, had a rest
& it made me furiously jealous & passionately sad, to think
of Arthur & his wife together a few yards away, probably
thinking it was a hell of a reunion not having
seen each other for 3 weeks. And there I was alone,
a 3000 miles away, you alone, & not having seen
each other for nine months that very day. It really
does peeve me, the way those Jewish officers all