تقرير عن رحلة في كشمير كتبه ديفيد لوكهارت روبرتسون لوريمر ورسائل من إميلي أوفرند لوريمر إلى والديها تم إرسالها من البحرين وكرمان [ظ‎‎٥‎٧‎٢] (١٢٩١/١١٦٦)

KERMAN,
27 - 5 - 14 .
LXII.
Maas
Life Is really very Jolly Just at present. We are begin
ning tennis again, and as the weather has settled down a little
into summer heat we are starting our hot weather regime of early
rising and a lie-down after lunch. It is a very pleasant
routine, but does not seem to leave so much time in the day.
Mother's parcel containing the new summer dresses arrived
safely, and she will be delighted to Know that all four fit
beautifully and are extremely pretty. Lock Is delighted with
them all. I fear they perhapd fit so well as to be a little
tight for comfort in the heat, but if so, I shall probably be able
to let them out a bit. Mother must have had a lot of trouble In
choosing and getting them made, but we are most grateful. Last
years well-washed ones looK so shabby and seedy by comparison.
I am now thoroughly well-supplied with every sort of cool garment
there is a peculiar fascination In the cool and dainty muslin
that you cannot get in your winter clothesor in the wlntry-suramer
things one has at home.
Lock Is Jolly and well and is plunging Into the mysteries
of the Parsee or Gabr language before breaKfast everyday. It
is a most entertaining way of learning a language to get It from
the lips of the ordinary uneducated person, but It requires a
lot of patience and a lot ofgenius to maKe anything at all.
Kemember that they have no Idea of grajnmar, nor a shimmer of
a notion of case or tense. You extract perhaps after mueh labour
the words/ 1 Je faisals' I was doing: then you start asKlng, but
how do you say I am doing It . If you are lucKy you will get
something HKe' Je-suls-en-train-de-le-construlre-a-ce-moment 1
all said very qulcK as If It was one word. Little by llttel
you have to picK out a . .c®. moment and resolve it into its elements-
— to find that it has nothing whatever to do with the verb.
And so on and so on till after some days you trap the victim into
giving you the form 'Je fals' and 'Je suls en train de le falre'
In the meantime you have collected a lot of other things which you
were not just then hunting for and out of them you construct
somthlng else and so piece by piece you get the stuff together.
It Is absorbingly interesting. As Loctysuspected, it looKs as If
many of the Kermani idioms which he has collected are due directly
or Indirectly to the Gabr influence, so that his Kerman studies
would be very Incomplete If he had not managed to worK a little
at the Gabri. It Is one of the depressing and at the same time
seductive sides of any sort of worK, however humble, that you
really can't do It properly without Knowing everything else in the
world too.
Meantime proofs continue to come in, and I need not tell you
that his hobbles are not allowed to prevent his true worK being