Gertrude Bell reminds me of myself in many way. Okay, she obviously had more time, money and better hats, but she reminds me of myself in the way she is so absolutely thrilled to travel in the orient.
One of her letters to her father begins with an excited "I'm in the middle of the orient! This is so much fun!" (transl. by me, because I read a German translation).
I wrote almost EXACTLY the same thing in my travel diary on my first trip to Jordan. Of course, Bell had the fortune to be traveling in the Lebanon at the time, where I doubt I'll be going any time soon, but still.
Another similarity is that her letters are about as entertaining to a reader as my diary would be to a stranger. Actually, I think my diary would be more entertaining, because I find myself unable to keep from commenting on my own, ridiculous trains of thought. (apparently I'm one of those diary writers who write and communicate with an unseen audience*, though trust me, none of my diaries will ever see the light of day.)
In other words, while I appreciate her enthusiasm and while I'm sure I'll get back to this book should I ever be fortunate enough to travel in any of the areas she traveled in, it does get a boring to hear that she had milk and honey for lunch again, and yes, it was excellent.
So, sorry, Ms. Bell. Traveling with you would have been a lot more fun than reading about it afterwards.
(in her defense, I should mention that this book contains letters that were written to her father and her step-mother, so they weren't meant for publication, certainly not all together in a book. So it's not really her fault that they get boring after a while.)
*There really are different styles of writing diaries, and there was an interesting exhibition about that and about diaries in general in the Frankfurt Museum of Communication a while back)