An Account of a Journey in Kashmir by David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer and Letters from Emily Overend Lorimer to her Parents sent from Bahrain and Kerman [‎625v] (1272/1291)

5.
m
no need to speechify In Ulster. One can ot help feeling that
the Nationalist loyalty was aloo for thorn very expedient. Had Br.
too&ps "been withdrawn, and any disloyal mutterings heard, Ulster
would not have sat still, hut have joyfully tai-:en the heaven sent
opportunity of "driving the rebels would dare to raise ^
the Popish flag, ontil the says -!!_
so on the whole the Nationalists are for the racraont safest under the
their much despised Union Jack. However, let us try to believe
in the sincerity of their loyalty, as 1 remarked in this connection
once before "God is great" (the Persians' eomment on anything he
does not understand, or can hardly credit).
are delighted to see by the double sets of letters wh. have
just come (August 5 , and August 1 £ and thereabouts) that you are all
wholly convinced of the inevitability and justice of the war. It
takes all the sting out of HJtt’dshlp and bereavement when we can feel
that we are on the right side. Papa's J uilus Caesar quotation
was very happy. It vlll.no doubt take a long struggle and untold
suffering to throw the Colossus but at least the graves we find
ourselves will not be dishonourable ones.
Contrary to your fears we get the full Neuter sometimes in less
than 24 hours, so we are able to follow with you the slow but
steady repulse of the Gemsans and the magnificent conduct of the
Allies. Austria seems to have crumpled up nd we hope that Russia
will soon be able to make some real impression on Germany ih the Haa
1 do wish we could have been allied with anyone but Slavs. However
war,like misery, acquaints a man-,with strange fiedfellows.
You win be glad to know that L.'s Bakhtiarl reasearches re
progressing splendidly. This little B. whom he now has in tow
is as keen as mustard. He has collected from all the B.s at
present In Herman all they know of poetry and legend, so that L.s
3000 odd lines of popular verse cover a very vide range both in
time and subject and are probably thoroughly typical and representat
ive. L. is now collecting tales of all sorts, and in the evenings
when he is too tired to take down any more new material (mind you
it is a pretty fatiguing performance) he is getting from him full
descriptions of ways and customs etc. A good deal L. knows fr.
observation himself, and having been so long and so^open^yed
in the country himself he is able to throw himself into the spirit
of it all as would not otherwise be possible. Illahl is reail a
most wonderful person; about 3 ^ times more intelligent than a nerson
of the equivalent rank at home. He can tell you exactly how a
mill works and the name of every spoke and rivet in the wheel; in
what, rotation a farmer sows his crops; the different sorts of plough
they use in the winter-quarter districts and the summer-quarter
districts ^ they re of course nomr.ds) and why they have to be differ
ent: the kinds of oodles in wh. they put heir babies when travel
ling, slung on he mother's back etc. etc. rt s descriptions of
these things are not always clear, he has made rude little models
of many of them, fashioned just with a penkife and wood broken off
a tree; they are really awfully well done complete down to the tinle
est wooden pin, the ploughshare even shod with a little bit of tin
the cradle even fitted with a wooden dolly duly lashed in with
strips of cloth. It brings home to you the immense gain in