T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 434

To Hogarth (hotel paper) Baron's Hotel Alep. Syria 23 March 1913 The first thing is that Baron's have invested in a new note paper. I wish one could feel that they had progressed: I forget when I wrote you last. I know I asked for money, & today I learn that my last batch of small has only just gone to Beyrout. I thought that you would have had it with my last letter; it is about 5 or 7 £s worth of stuff: one rather fine inscribed bead, of two faces, worn, but still clear in the important parts. It will take quite a respectable place in your ranks. If you were staggered by the price I suggested for the lots sent this will reconcile you a little, since of course it is counted in in the ... I came here with a cargo of Deve Huyuk stuff, to get it off, & return with money: here also I boxed & sent off four Graeco-Roman plated jars, which will cause you to break commandments I expect. Most unfortunately the supply of them is given out; perhaps it is only a temporary shortage, but it has sent the prices up to five - six pounds ottoman each piece. I wanted you know, to go about the village & hunt up some for you: and I hope still to ... so. Woolley will not sell those sent home till July, by when you will have heard from me about them: with the 25s he proposes they would be stunning things. In one ... box are a terracotta horse & a clay goddess: those are yours: both bought in Aleppo:- you may not want them, and in that case send them to my people. Dump on them always anything you don't want. Also in one of the Deve-Huyuk boxes are a few silly little things of mine that you are welcome to: there is a paper put on the t.p of the box with them. At Jerablus Woolley has been working at the railroad's, mainly in arranging the light railway track, which is a considerable engineering matter: I have been watching over the digging out of the S. gate, which is interesting architecturally, being quite complete in the firs course: foliated mouldings, & with a good pavement rutted with deep wheel-marks. On an outside tower was a peculiarly brutal lion, fortunately damaged. By hard luck there is a very tolerable gateway all over the top of the Hittite, which it would be unkind and expensive to carry off; so that we will never get the whole gate out. No sign of sculptures on it at all. Maj Wahid sends you his salaam; and also Salam Youms! The last is a very interesting phenomenon; but Salam is today much our friend, because he wants building stone. L.