Under the Sun by Bruce Chatwin

at one stage. Let me know how things are. XXX Bruce

To Derek Hill
    Chania | Crete | 10 April 1965
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    I have been trampling over the White Mountains hunting for a fritillary for Paul Furse. No luck so far. Eye better. See you soon. Bruce
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    In London, Rear-Admiral Furse had told Chatwin about an exceedingly rare flower, the Paeonia clusii , endemic to Crete. One ‘wild April day’ Chatwin decided to dig up a seedling for Furse. He borrowed Allen Bole’s Volkswagen and drove to a gorge above the village of Lakkoi in Western Crete. Ignoring Pliny’s advice to dig at night, he found his Paeonia clusii .Curious things then happened. ‘The seedling was minute, but the fleshy root vast. Growing as it was among boulders, the business became a major excavation, and when the precious root had been secured I was ashamed at the devastation I had caused. As I entered the village, with one peony and a few tulips in a basket, a stout Lakkiot was haranguing the crowd, but I was aware that I was the centre of attention. Shortly after, two police officers stopped me and there began a very curious cross-questioning. Barely understanding the questions my answers were unsatisfactory, and they began to scrutinise each tulip and the peony. I was at great pains to point out that neither were opium poppies and the interview dissolved into laughter. The explanation came a year later. There were two versions and both originated in the stout Lakkiot, the first that I had been walking down the mountainside with an antique vase filled with gold coins, the second that I had been sent to recover a hoard of gold sovereigns buried by the Germans before they evacuated the island.’
    On his return, Chatwin gave the peony – at that time the only one in England – to Furse. When Furse died, it went to John Hewett’s wife Diana, a keen gardener, and then to Chatwin’s old girlfriend Gloria Taylor.

To Charles and Margharita Chatwin
    Chania | Crete | [10 April 1965]
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    What about the PASCAL affair 59 and am I expected back in April, if so when? Can I know soon? Try to postpone till mid-May. I shall return by sea and land as the aeroplane, for CERTAIN, does me no good. Eye took 10 days to recover after KHARTOUM-ATHENS. Much better now, in fact am very fit. Walked Knossos to Phaestos along the ancient Minoan Road. Would mummy like to meet me in Paris for a couple or 3 days on my way back at MY expense?
    Love B

To Ivry Freyberg
    Chania | Crete | [20 April 1965]
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    Your letter went half way round the world before I got it. I lost the focussing however in one eye, but it has at last recovered. I’ll come back in May. Crete is wonderful, but is in the throes of a great spring, hail, thunder and earthquakes.
    Will ring you on return, Love Bruce

To Charles and Margharita Chatwin
    Postcard, hall of the double axes, Knossos | Crete | [21 April 1965]
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    Suggest we leave the Paris excursion to the autumn when I go on business. It sounds a bit complicated now. Shall be there probably for 1 or 2 days in May, but don’t want to be tied down as the Pascal case is not fixed. Quite right about the mug. Am going to Rhodes for 5 days over Easter. Back to climb Mount Ida with the Sinclair Hoods 60 on the 3rd – 4th and then start for home. Will return before the 12th. XX Bruce
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    Chatwin had made an important decision in the Sudanese desert. Encouraged by Cary Welch, instead of going to Rhodes for Easter he invited Elizabeth Chanler to Paris. There, in the Cabinet de Medailles in the Louvre, he proposed. The engagement was still a secret when he met her parents a fortnight later in Ireland.

To Gertrude Chanler
    119a Mount Street | London | [25 May 1965]
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    Dear Mrs Chanler,
    I did enjoy my weekend in Dublin 61 enormously. Thank you very much. Liz obviously had a good ten days. She came back looking wonderfully well. She certainly needed it. Sotheby’s is frantic at the moment and having taken things