"I Was Here" by the R&B singer Beyonce betrays a powerful human desire. So it is to know that when our life has ended, "there was something that, something that I left behind" – that is the question of a legacy. Despite its intensity, this desire, when more closely examined, is an odd one. That is because the most strongly held beliefs about what occurs upon death are effectively adverse to the desire for a legacy. They are that we will pass into another life to which this one will appear negligible in comparison or will be forgotten, or that we will completely cease to exist. If the first is confirmed, our legacies will seem pretty irrelevant in the light of the new reality; if one of the others, they can mean nothing to us. Nevertheless, as Beyonce puts it, humans still want to "leave my mark."

And the bigger the mark, the better. The latest in the traveler series is a person whose legacy is far beyond what most of us can ever expect to leave behind us. Gertrude Bell, as the writer Georgina Howell so succinctly puts it, "After a life full of adventure and rule-breaking, she did something of unique importance: she founded a nation, the nation of Iraq." Her creation of Iraq will be looked at toward the end of this piece because, as Howell intimates, Bell’s traveling preceded – though it also led to – her exercise in nation-building, and her travels in Türkiye predate her most famous or infamous achievement.

Brief sketch of early life

Gertrude Bell was born in England to a wealthy and well-connected family in 1868. Unfortunately, however, she lost her mother at the age of 3. Nevertheless, her father, whom she idolized, continued to adore her and their closeness was preserved when he later remarried. As a result, Bell became the first woman to gain a first in Modern History at Oxford University. Her intellectual caliber, however, made her unsuitable marriage material, so she was packed off for a stay at the British Embassy in Romania to refine her manners. She retained her essential character, though, and from here, she traveled to Istanbul and, a few years later, to Persia, beginning a life dedicated to travel and study in the lands of the Middle East.

As perhaps befits a person whose active life covers the last decades of the 19th and first decades of the 20th century, her essential character is Nietzschean in its self-determination, drive and refusal to bow to hostile circumstances, and her wholehearted embrace of life itself. She is also Nietzschean, as will later be seen in dividing peoples into the great and the less. Yet, she lacks its corollary, which is the most unpleasant aspect of that epoch-defining German philosopher – Friedrich Nietzsche’s scorn of ordinary people. Bell’s Nietzschean qualities can be seen in her writing on Türkiye.

The writing in question comes from letters on her travels to her father and stepmother, which were later edited and published by the latter. The two visits covered in this piece, made in 1905 and 1907, are not the first visits Bell made to Türkiye but are the most extensive and exciting.

1905 trip: From Hatay to Konya

The 1905 trip culminated in one begun further south in Arabic-speaking lands. Even though the 36-year-old Bell is a highly experienced mountain climber, the "awful – indescribable" journey across mountains into what is now southern Türkiye is an ordeal for her. However, she is soon to regard it as having been worth it.

Once down in the plain, Bell feels "it was more exquisitely beautiful than words can say, through gardens of fruit trees and olives with an unbelievable wealth of flowers everywhere."

As a traveler fascinated by history, Bell is drawn to Issus, where Alexander the Great famously defeated the Persian emperor Darius III and Anavarza Castle in Adana Province, whose "splendid acropolis" impresses her. However, she is not a dilettante but rather a severe hands-on researcher. Her measurements at Anarvarza surprise her in proving an Anatolian rather than a Syrian origin for its church architecture.

She continues through today’s quake-stricken provinces, passing through Osmaniye, finding it "in the most lovely country." Of Adana, though, she affirms that "there is absolutely nothing of any interest in the town." She travels westwards to Tarsus by train, then the geography changes as she crosses the Taurus Mountains onto the Anatolian Plateau. There, she picks up the railway from Karaman to travel to Konya.

Konya, Binbirkilise

The most important site in Konya then and now is the tomb of the mystic Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi. She notes that Rumi "lies under a dome tiled with blue, bluer than heaven or the sea, and adorned inside with rich and somber Persian enamel and lacquer." She also sees the graves of his followers nearby and the halls "with polished floors" upon which the dervishes whirl. Bell is an expert in Persian poetry, having published a well-received translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. Thus, of Rumi, she declares that "my visit to his tomb was a real pilgrimage for I know some of his poems and there are things in them that are not to be surpassed," and in the tomb, she feels that "to my mind, the whole quiet air was full of the music of his verses."

She uses the train to travel southwards again to Binbirkilise. This site, described by her as "a fortress city of churches and monasteries," delights her, and she maps it. She also takes an excursion to see a Hittite sculpture carved into the mountains. On her return to Konya, she meets the archaeologist Sir William Ramsey, alongside whom she will work at Binbirkilise in 1907.

1907 trip

In 1907, Bell returned to Türkiye from the Aegean side this time. She passes through the lake district of Türkiye, first encountering Lake Burdur and writing of this "great lake" that "bitter salt it is and very blue, and mountains stand all round it, white with snow, and the fruit gardens border it, pink and white with peach and cherry." She also sees the lakes of Eğirdir and Beyşehir, from whence she returns to Binbirkilise. This time, working with Ramsey, she directs some archaeological digs and, to her extreme delight, discovers a Hittite inscription on the rocks. Despite logistical difficulties such as ensuring adequate water supplies, she exclaims that her archaeological work "it’s all very, very nice – I’m enjoying it thoroughly." She and Ramsey later wrote a collaborative book on their findings, which got Bell elected to the Royal Geographical Society. However, once the dig ends in late June, Bell says, "I took to the road again."

This leads her to Hasandağ in Aksaray Province. Then, the extreme heat of the Anatolian summer starts to affect her travels and research, and one can feel her exhaustion in her writing. Later, having returned to Konya, she heads to Istanbul, where she stays at the British Summer Embassy in Therapia for a while. She finds everything there "delightful," including a meeting with the Grand Vizier, Avlonyalı Ferid Pasha. From Istanbul, she heads home to England.

Attractiveness of Bell’s writing

Bell’s letters make compelling reading in part due to her fabulous style. For instance, in her 1905 trip near Osmaniye, Bell remarks: "In the middle of the day, we came to a village buried in lovely gardens, the air heavy with the smell of lemon flowers." This is a simple sentence, yet it is highly evocative and sensual.

Or there is this atmospheric piece of writing of an experience she had by Lake Beyşehir in 1907: "At the end of the lake a heavy thunderstorm gathered and crept along the low hills to the east and up into the middle of the sky ... the clouds broke upon us in thunder and lightning and hail and rain and I saw the four Hittite kings, carved in massive stone, against a background of all the fury of the storm."

It is so dramatic as to be almost cinematic.

Her writing can also be amusing. Fattuh is an Armenian servant originally from Aleppo who Bell took on in Tarsus and with whom she developed a strong bond. Near Hasadağ, Bell is looking for a place to make her camp and she noted an anecdote:

"Oh! Fattuh, to whom does this poplar garden belong?" Bell asked. "To a priest, my lady," Fattuh replied. "Doesn’t he mind our camping in it?" Bell asked. "He didn’t say anything," Fattuh replied. "Did you ask him?" Bell asked. "No, my lady," Fattuh replied.

"We must give him some backshish (payment)," Bell said. "At your excellency’s command," Fattuh replied. A pause. "My lady." Bell asked, "Yes?" "The priest is dead," Fattuh said. "Then I don’t think we need to bother about the backshish," Bell replied. Fattuh said: "No, my lady."

Bell on Turks, Türkiye

Bell’s view of the Turks is overwhelmingly positive. Well into her 1905 trip, she exclaims, "I have fallen a hopeless victim to the Turk; he is the most charming of mortals." On her 1907 trip, she refers to the Turks as "perfectly charming people." One aspect of Turkish culture that she repeatedly refers to is its hospitality. Bell is constantly receiving freely-given gifts of food, places to say and assistance. For instance, one "charming gentleman" she meets by chance helps her measure an ancient site.

In Adana Province, she says: "In the blazing middle of the day, we came to two tiny trees outside a village and I sat down in the shade of them to lunch. No sooner was my coming observed than one of the inhabitants appeared with a large tray of fried eggs, curds and bread for me and my servants. It was pure hospitality – I might give no tips. I could only thank my host sincerely and eat heartily."

The bestowers of hospitality range from governors to district governors to the most humble villagers.

As for the Turkish language, Bell starts speaking what she calls "fragmentary Turkish" but appreciates the tolerance and understanding her interlocutors offer as she stumbles in her speaking. The language deeply attracts her, noting that "the chief interest of this journey is that I find myself speaking nothing but Turkish." That she really gets into the language can be seen from one point in 1907, when a villager who cannot conceive why Bell is interested in old churches dismissively and repeatedly tells her there are only ruins (ören in Turkish) to be seen. Here, Bell correctly notes that in Turkish, "you repeat the word changing the first letter to ‘m’ when you want to say ‘and so forth’" and she renders her increasingly exasperated interlocutor’s "ören mören" into English as "ruins muins."

That the land of Türkiye enchants her has already been made evident. As further examples, though, when still on the Mediterranean side of the Taurus Mountains in 1905, she describes the scenery as "beyond comparison beautiful" and "more heavenly than words can say." Again, in 1907, she penned, "I don’t suppose there is anyone in the world happier than I am or any country more lovely than Asia Minor."

Bell and Iraq

Eclipsing her enchanting writing, the legacy for which Bell is best known was touched on at the beginning of this piece – that of creating Iraq. It is so significant that I feel it needs to be looked at here, even though it has little connection with her travels in Türkiye. After years on expeditions similar to the ones covered in this piece but in the Arab lands to the south, Bell began work for the British government in the region during World War I and continued to work for them until her suicide in 1924. Following the war, she drew up the modern state of Iraq on the former Ottoman territory.

As is well-known, Iraq, for most of its history, has been associated with most of the evils that can beset a state, so the question of Bell’s responsibility for its tragic history has to be posed. And, of course, in one genuine sense, the problems that have beset the country originate in a fundamental decision she made. That was to create a state where three peoples – Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds – with deep mutual suspicions of one another were forced into one polity, thus making the chance of a successful consensual-based government highly improbable.

Moreover, Bell, who was hostile to democracy in this region, did not foresee such a government for her state. This outlook of Bell is rooted in her imperialist assumptions, the core of which, of course, is that some people are destined to rule over others – most infamously expressed by the imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling as "the white man’s burden." Bell’s imperialist mindset did not simply place the white British at the top – though it certainly did do that – but for her, underneath, there was a hierarchy of superiority in other peoples too. In the context of Iraq and its three main component peoples, Bell placed the Sunni Arabs at the top. She designed a state where they would dominate, even though they were not a majority population. It is this that partly, but only partially, ameliorates the criticism of Bell. She did not intentionally set up a state that would become a byword for failure. Instead, she misread the direction of history. Taking for her model the British Empire, which was then at the apogee of its power, she failed to see that its paternalistic form of energy would seriously crack within just the subsequent generation to be replaced with the idea of states run by their peoples, an idea that, as has already been noted, ill fit such a state as Iraq and thus helps to explain its subsequent misery.

This brings us back to the question of legacies and another aspect of them. Although we may seek to establish an estate, the way that a gift will play out may be in a way that is entirely unforeseen by us and redound to our dishonor rather than our honor, making the desire for one even less understandable. Indeed, in Bell’s case, her legacy has affected how she is viewed and, unfortunately, understandably, has overshadowed her travels and writings, far more to her credit.