temperaments; some find the "propelling power" in the impulse of
curiosity, some in the thirst for novelty; others in a strong and
genuine love of knowledge; others, again, in a natural impatience of
inaction, or a rebellion against the commonplaces and conventionalities
of society, a yearning after the romantic and adventurous. But,
generally speaking, they constitute two great classes: those who
discover, and those who observe--that is, those who penetrate into
regions hitherto untrodden by civilized men, and add new lands to the
maps of the geographer; and those who simply follow in the track of
their bolder or more fortunate predecessors, gathering up fuller, and,
it may be, more accurate information. To the latter class, as this
volume shows, belong our female travellers, among whom we find no
companion or rival to such pioneers as a Livingstone, a Barth, a
Franklin, or a Sturt. Unless, indeed, we regard as an exception the
wonderful woman to whose adventures and experiences the following
chapter will be devoted. Of Madame Ida Pfeiffer we think it may justly
be said that she stands in the front ranks of the great travellers, and
that the scientific results of her enterprise were both valuable and
interesting. It has been remarked that if a spirit like hers, so daring,
so persevering, so tenacious, had been given to a man, history would
have counted a Magellan or a Captain Cook the more. But what strikes us
as most remarkable about her was the absolute simplicity of her
character and conduct; the unpretending way in which she accomplished
her really great achievements; her modesty of manner and freedom from
pretension. She went about the world as she went about the streets of
Vienna; with the same reserve and quietness of demeanour, apparently
unconscious that she was exposing herself to death, and hazards worse
than death; so calmly and unaffectedly courageous that she makes us
almost forget how truly grand was her heroism, how sublime was her
patience, and how colossal her daring. The same reticence and simplicity
are visible in every page of the published record of her personal
experiences. She does not pretend to literary skill; she attempts no
elaborate pictorial descriptions; she says of herself that she has
neither wit nor humour to render her writings entertaining; she narrates
what she has seen in the plainest, frankest manner. And she imposes upon
us the conviction that she entered upon her wondrous journeys from no
idle vanity, no love of fame, but from a natural love of travel, and a
boundless desire of acquiring knowledge. "In exactly the same way," she
says, "as the artist feels an unconquerable impulse to paint, and the
poet to give free expression to his thoughts, so was I hurried away with
an unconquerable desire to see the world." And she saw it as no other
woman has ever seen it.
* * * * *
Ida Reyer was born at Vienna on the 15th of October, 1797. Her parents
occupied a respectable position, and took care that she should receive a
decent education; but from her earliest childhood she manifested a
strong distaste for the accomplishments and amusements which were then
considered "proper" for her sex. They were too tame and spiritless for
her ardent nature, and she inclined towards the bolder and more robust
pastimes of her brothers. Up to the age of nine she was their constant
companion--wore clothes like theirs, and shared in all their games,
looked with utter scorn upon dolls and toys, and thirsted after guns and
swords, and the music of the drum. She says of herself that she was
livelier and hardier than even her elder brothers, who were lively and
hardy beyond most boys of their age. Evidently nature had gifted her
with a strong constitution: she was physically as well as mentally
strong. Endowed, moreover, with an heroic will, she loved the heroic in
history and poetry. William Tell was one of the gods of her idolatry,
and on one occasion she was found with an apple on her head, at which
her brothers, like the Swiss champion, were shooting arrows!--a
remarkable example of coolness of nerve and contempt of danger. For
Napoleon, as the conqueror of her country, she entertained an intense
feeling of hatred. In 1809 she was compelled by her mother to accompany
her to the Emperor's review of his Imperial Guards at Schoenbrunn; but
when he approached the ground she indignantly turned her back. Her
mother struck her, and by sheer force held the head of her obstinate
daughter towards Napoleon. She resolutely shut her eyes, and thus was
able to say that she had never seen her country's oppressor.
It was a day of sorrow for Ida when she was forced to assume the dress
of her sex. She fell ill with grief and disappointment, and her parents
found it necessary to allow her to retain the boy's blouse and cap, to
which she was so partial. Then, as if by magic, she recovered, and
resumed her favourite games. She acknowledges that feminine work filled
her with contempt. Pianoforte-playing, amongst other things, seemed an
occupation so inappropriate and uncongenial, that to escape those odious
"exercises"--which thousands of girls, by the way, have found equally
distasteful--she would frequently cut and wound her fingers severely.
We have alluded to her fondness for history. She was not less addicted
to voyages and travels--to any reading, in fact, which satisfied her
love of adventure. She would envy at times the condition of a
postilion, and the sight of a travelling carriage would set her
dreaming for hours.
She was fourteen years old before she would consent to wear petticoats.
About the same time her parents placed her education in charge of a
young professor, who, recognizing the high qualities of her
ill-regulated character, set himself to work to develop and mature them.
He was so devoted to his pupil, that she on her part became anxious to
anticipate his wishes, and never felt so happy as when he was satisfied
with her efforts. In truth it was the old story of Hymen and Iphigenia
reversed. Her wayward and wilful nature was subdued by the influence of
love; and at the cost of not a few tears, she renounced her childish
caprices in order to please him, and occupied herself with the pursuits
she had previously regarded so contemptuously. She took up even the most
thoroughly feminine avocations, and learned to sew, and knit, and cook.
Meanwhile, she was wholly ignorant of the nature of the feeling which
had transformed the romp into a discreet and retiring maiden, until, at
the age of seventeen, an unexpected incident awakened her to it. A Greek
merchant sought her hand; her parents refused him on the score of her
youth. "Hitherto," she writes, "I had had no presentiment of the violent
passion which can make one either the happiest or unhappiest of women.
When my mother informed me of the proposal, and I learned that I was
destined to love one man and belong to him only, the impressions I had
until then all unconsciously experienced, assumed a definite form, and
I discovered that I could love no person except the guide of my youth."
As he was not less passionately attached to her, he hastened to make a
proposal, to which her parents objected on the ground of his want of
fortune. The young girl openly avowed that she would never marry any
other, and adhered tenaciously to her opposition. But after a while the
young man felt it to be his duty to respect the decision of her parents,
and his correspondence with his pupil ceased. The little romance,
according to Madame Ida Pfeiffer, ended as follows:--
"Three long years passed without our meeting, and without any change
taking place in my feelings. One day, when I was out walking with a
friend of my mother, I accidentally met my old master; both of us
involuntarily halted, but for a long time we could not speak. At length
he contrived to subdue his emotions. As for myself, I was too much
disturbed to be able to utter a word; I felt as if I should swoon, and
returned home hastily. Two days afterwards I was seized with a fever,
which at first the doctors thought would prove mortal."
Her strong constitution carried her through it. On her recovery, in her
burning impatience to escape from the parental roof, she declared she
would accept the first person who sought her hand, provided he was a man
of a certain age; by this proviso wishing her lover to understand that
her marriage was wholly due to constraint. An advocate of some repute, a
Herr Pfeiffer, proposed and was accepted. This was in 1820.
A marriage made under such conditions could hardly prove a happy one.
Her husband was unworthy of her. He treated her harshly, and he wasted
the fortune she brought him. But for the sake of her two sons, Oscar and
Alfred, she endured the miseries of her position as long as she was
able, and devoted herself with assiduous self-sacrifice to their
education. Meanwhile, the prosaic character of her daily life she knew
how to relieve by privately indulging in dreams of travel, of adventure
in far lands, and exploration in isles beyond the sunset. On the
occasion of an excursion to Trieste, the sight of the sea revived in her
all the old passionate longing, and the visions of her childhood became
the fixed resolves and convictions of her womanhood.
MADAME IDA PFEIFFER.
II.
At length she was free to indulge her long-cherished inclinations. Her
sons stood no longer in need of her support; her husband was separated
from her and was living in retirement at Lemberg; her means, though
moderate, were not inadequate to the fulfilment of the projects she had
in view. It was true she was forty-five years old, and that is not an
age at which one usually attempts a tour round the world; but, on the
other hand, it invested a woman with a certain degree of security, and
it rendered more feasible an enterprise which in any case was beset with
difficulties.
Having completed the necessary preparations, she set out on her first
great journey in March, 1842. It was natural enough that a woman of
religious temperament should be attracted to the Holy Land. She visited
its holiest places, and the effect they produced upon her imagination is
a proof that years and the cares of domestic life had in no wise
chilled its early warmth. Returning in December, she proceeded to
compile a narrative of her experiences, which was published in 1843,
under the title of "Travels of a Viennese Woman to the Holy Land," and
immediately obtained a worldwide popularity. Its merits, however, are
not of a literary character; its attractiveness is due entirely to its
simplicity and straightforwardness. The reader at once discovers that he
is dealing with a writer who makes no attempt to deceive, who neither
diminishes nor exaggerates, nor adapts her facts to preconceived
opinions. To this we may add that Madame Pfeiffer, though an accurate,
is not a profound observer.
From the sultry heat of the East she next betook herself to the sullen
cold of the North; and the result of her wanderings in 1846 was a lively
book upon Scandinavia and Iceland, describing perils which few men would
care to confront, with evidently unaffected enjoyment.
But these comparatively short excursions were but preliminary to the
great enterprise of her life, the prologue, as it were, to the five-act
drama, with all its surprises, hazards, amazing situations, and striking
scenes. The experience she had acquired as a traveller she resolved to
utilize in the accomplishment of a tour round the world, and on this
notable adventure she set out in June, 1846, being then in her fiftieth
year, on board the _Caroline_, a Danish brig, bound for Rio Janeiro. She
arrived at the Brazilian capital on the 16th of September, and remained
there for upwards of two months, exclusive of the time devoted to
excursions into the interior. On one of these excursions she narrowly
escaped the murderer's knife. She and her companion, in a lonely spot,
were overtaken by a negro, who, with a lasso in one hand and a long
knife in the other, suddenly sprang upon them, and gave them to
understand, more by gestures than words, that he intended to murder
them, and then drag their bodies into the forest. They had no arms,
having been told that the road was perfectly safe; their only defensive
weapons were their parasols, with the exception of a clasp knife, which
Ida Pfeiffer instantly drew from her pocket and opened, resolved to sell
her life as dearly as possible. They parried their adversary's blows as
long as they could with their parasols, but these did not long avail;
Madame Pfeiffer's broke in the struggle, leaving only a fragment of the
handle in her hand. The negro, however, dropped his knife; the
courageous woman made an effort to seize it; he thrust her away with his
hands and feet, recovered it, and brandishing it furiously over her
head, dealt her two wounds in the upper part of the left arm. She
thought she was lost, but despair nerved her to use her own knife; she
made a thrust at his breast, but succeeded only in wounding him severely
in the hand. At the same moment, her companion, Count Berchthold, sprang
forward, and while he seized the villain from behind, Madame Pfeiffer
regained her feet. All this took place in less than a minute. The negro
was now roused into a condition of maniacal fury; he gnashed his teeth
like a wild beast, and brandished his knife, while shouting fearful
threats. The issue of the contest would probably have been disastrous,
but for the opportune arrival of assistance. Hearing the tramp of
horses' hoofs upon the road, the negro desisted from his attack, and
sprang into the forest. A couple of horsemen turning the corner of the
road, our travellers hurried to meet them, and having heard their tale,
which, indeed, their wounds told eloquently enough, they leaped from
their horses, and entered the wood in pursuit. Two negroes afterwards
came up; the villain was captured, securely pinioned, and, as he would
not walk, severely beaten, until, as most of the blows fell upon his
head, Madame Pfeiffer feared the wretch's skull would be broken.
Nothing, however, would induce him to walk, and the negroes were
compelled to carry him bodily to the nearest house.
Our traveller was much impressed by the beauties of the tropical
scenery. In one of her rambles she crossed a small waterfall; she struck
right into the depths of the virgin forest, following a narrow path
along the bank of a little stream. Stately-crested palms waved high
above the other trees, which intertwining their inextricable boughs,
formed the loveliest fairy-bowers imaginable; every stem, every branch,
was garlanded with fantastic orchids; while ferns and creepers glided up
the tall, smooth trunks, mingling with the boughs, and spreading in
every direction waving curtains of flowers of the rarest fragrance and
vividest hues imaginable. With shrill twittering cry and rapid wing
flashed the humming-bird through the transparent air; the pepper-pecker,
with glowing plumage, rose timorously upwards; while parrots and
parroquets, and innumerable birds of beautiful appearance, enhanced, by
their voices and movements, the loveliness of the scene.
* * * * *
From Rio Janeiro Madame Pfeiffer sailed in an English ship, the _John
Renwick_, on the 9th of September, for Valparaiso, the great sea-port of
Chili. In sailing southward, the ship touched at Santos, where the
voyagers celebrated New Year's Day, and they made the mouth of the Rio
Plata on the 11th of January. In these latitudes the Southern Cross is
the most conspicuous object in the heavens. It consists of five shining
stars, arranged in two diagonal rows. Towards the end of the month
Madame Pfeiffer gazed upon the sterile cliffs and barren mountains of
Patagonia, and next upon the volcanic rocks, wave-worn and wind-beaten,
of Fire-Land, or Tierra del Fuego. Through the Strait of Le Main, which
separates the latter from Staten Island, the voyagers passed onward to
the extreme southern point of the American Continent, the famous
promontory of Cape Horn. This is the last spur of the mighty
mountain-chain of the Andes, and consists of a mass of huge basaltic
rocks, piled together in huge disorder as by a Titan's hand.
Doubling Cape Horn they encountered a furious gale, which raged for
several days; and soon discovered, like other voyagers, how little the
great southern ocean deserves its name of the Pacific. "Such a storm as
this," says Ida Pfeiffer, "affords much food for reflection. You are
alone upon the boundless ocean, far from all human aid, and feel more
than ever that your life depends upon the Most High alone. The man who,
in such a dread and solemn moment can still believe there is no God,
must indeed be irretrievably struck with mental blindness. During such
convulsions of Nature a feeling of tranquil joy always comes over me. I
very often had myself bound near the binnacle, and allowed the
tremendous waves to break over me, in order to absorb, as it were, as
much of the spectacle before me as possible; on no occasion did I ever
feel alarmed, but always full of confidence and resignation."
Madame Pfeiffer reached Valparaiso on the 2nd of March. She was by no
means pleased with its appearance. It is laid out in two long streets,
at the foot of dreary hills, these hills consisting of a pile of rocks
covered with thin strata of earth and sand. Some of them are crowded
with houses; on one lies the church-yard; the others are sterile and
solitary. The two chief streets are broad and much frequented,
especially by horsemen, for every Chilian is born a horseman, and is
usually mounted on a steed worthy of a good rider.
Valparaiso houses are European in style, with flat Italian roofs. Broad
steps lead up into a lofty entrance-hall on the first floor, from which,
through large glass doors, the visitor passes into the drawing-room and
other apartments. The drawing-room is the pride, not only of every
European settler, but of every native Chilian. The foot sinks into heavy
and costly carpets; the walls are hung with rich tapestry; the furniture
and mirrors are from European makers, and gorgeous in the extreme.
A singular custom prevails among the Chilians on the death of a little
child. Such an incident is a cause of sorrow and tears in most European
families; in Chili it is the occasion of a great festival. The deceased
_angelito_, or little angel, is adorned in various ways. Its eyes,
instead of being closed, are opened as wide as possible; its cheeks are
painted red; then the cold rigid corpse is decked in the finest clothes,
crowned with flowers, and set up on a little chair in a flower-wreathed
niche. Relatives and neighbours crowd in to wish the parents joy in the
possession of such an angel; and, during the first night, they keep a
kind of Irish wake, indulging in the most extravagant dances, and
feasting before the _angelito_ in a mood of the wildest merriment.
* * * * *
On the 1st of March our adventurous traveller, having resolved on
putting a girdle round about the world, took her passage for China in
the Dutch barque _Lootpuit_, Captain Van Wyk Jurianse. On the 26th of
April, her eyes were gladdened with a view of the "island-Eden" of the
Southern seas, Tahiti, the largest and most beautiful of the Society
group. From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of
"the Earl and the Doctor," who recently visited it, Tahiti has moved the
admiration of voyagers by the charms of its scenery. It lifts the summit
of its pyramidal mass out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which
sweeps down to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it.
Cool verdurous valleys slope gently into its mountain recesses, their
swelling declivities loaded with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut
trees. The inhabitants, physically speaking, are not unworthy of their
island-home; a tall, robust, and well-knit race, they would be comely
but for their custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is
born. They have thick jet-black hair and fine dark eyes. The colour of
their skin is a copper-brown. Both sexes, at the time of Ida Pfeiffer's
visit, preserved the custom of tattooing, the devices being often very
fanciful in design, and always artistically executed.
The Tahitian women have always been notorious for their immodesty; and
notwithstanding the past labours of English missionaries, the island
continues to be the Polynesian Paphos. The moral standard of the
population has not been raised since they came under the shadow of a
French protectorate.
Madame Pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the Lake Vaihiria, assuming
for the occasion a kind of masculine attire, very suitable if not
peculiarly becoming. She wore, she tells us, strong men's shoes,
trousers, and a blouse, which covered the hips. Thus equipped, she
started off with her guide, and in the first six miles waded through
about two-and-thirty brooks. Then, through a maze of ravines, she struck
off into the interior. As they advanced, she noticed that the fruit
trees disappeared, and that instead the slopes were covered with
plantains, tarros, and marantas, the last attaining a height of twelve
feet, and growing so luxuriantly that it was with some difficulty the
traveller made her way through the tangle. The tarro, or taro, which is
carefully cultivated, averages two or three feet in height, and has fine
large leaves and tubers like those of the potato, but not so good when
roasted. Very graceful is the appearance of the plantain, or banana,
which varies from twelve to fifteen feet in height, and has fine large
leaves like those of the palm, but a brittle reedy stem, not more than
eight inches in diameter. It attains its full growth in the first year,
bears fruit in the second, and then dies; thus its life is as brief as
it is useful.
Tahiti is an island of many waters; through one bright crystal
mountain-stream, which swept along the ravine over a stony bed, breaking
and dimpling into eddies and tiny whirlpools, and in some places
attaining a depth of three feet, Madame Pfeiffer and her guide waded, or
half swam, two-and-sixty times. We are filled with admiration at the
resolute spirit of this courageous woman, who, though the track at every
step became more difficult and dangerous, persisted in pressing forward.
She clambered over rocks and stones; she forced her way through
intertangled bushes; and, though severely wounded in hands and feet,
never faltered for a moment. At two points the ravine narrowed so
considerably that the entire area was filled by the brawling torrent.
In eight hours the bold traveller and her guide had walked, waded, and
clambered some eighteen miles, and attained an elevation of fully
eighteen hundred feet. The lake itself was not visible until they came
upon its very margin, for it lies deep down in a dark hollow among lofty
precipices, which, with startling abruptness, descend to the edge of the
darkling waters. To cross the lake the traveller must trust to his
swimming powers, or to a curiously frail kind of boat which the natives
construct on the spot with equal skill and rapidity. Ida Pfeiffer was
nothing if not adventurous, and whatever was to be dared, she
straightway confronted. At her request, the guide turned boat-builder.
He tore off some branches of plantain, bound them together with long
tough grass, laid a few leaves upon them, launched them in the water,
and then requested Madame Pfeiffer to embark. She acknowledges to have
felt a little hesitation, but, without saying a word, stepped "on
board." Her guide took to the water like a duck, and propelled the crazy
craft, which, however, made the transit of the lake, and back again,
without accident.