A Funny Thing Happened in Jerusalem

Khedivial Mail Line

Greece-Turkey Service

K.M.S.   Osmanieh

March 22, 1914

Angel dear:

We hope to reach Constantinople this afternoon, where there will be mail from you I hope, but we can’t get it till tomorrow as the Consulate will be closed on Sunday.

We’ve been very fortunate this whole week in having quite smooth weather, for all around here it is generally bad and frequently the steamers can’t land, but have to carry their passengers on to the next port.

Athens of course we found wonderful, and I agree more strongly than ever with all who say Grecian architecture excels all others.  Even the ruins are beautiful, and the whole place is most interesting.

We spent a day in Smyrna, but there is little there to see except some ancient Roman aqueducts, and of course all the figs and packing houses.

Such a funny thing happened in Jerusalem.  The consul there is an ex-West Point man and would have graduated in Lover’s class, but left the year before to go into the consular service.  He asked me if I knew any 1908 men there, and mentioned a lot in Panama and TienTsin I know, and finally hit upon Lover.  I replied in a disinterested, indifferent way that I had met him in the Phillipines, and then he launched forth into quite a discourse saying he was a sort of paragon and all kinds of nice things about him – fortunately – for if he had said things that weren’t so nice, it would have been rather embarrassing when he found out the truth.  He showed me lots of pictures (class, athletics, etc.) of him, and I never gave him a hint even that I knew him very well.  He was living at the same hotel, so we saw him all the time and he was awfully good to us.

It is getting colder now every day as we get farther north, but I love it.  Father is crazy about playing “Rum” and wants me to play with him all the time.

Oceans of love,

Alice