The Story of Ida Pfeiffer | Page 4

Ternate, and Celebes.
For a second time she traversed the Pacific, but on this occasion in an opposite direction. For two months she saw no land; but on the 27th September 1853 she arrived at San Francisco. At the close of the year she sailed for Callao. Thence she repaired to Lima, with the intention of crossing the Andes, and pushing eastward, through the interior of South America, to the Brazilian coast. A revolution in Peru, however, compelled her to change her course, and she returned to Ecuador, which served as a starting-point for her ascent of the Cordilleras. After having the good fortune to witness an eruption of Cotopaxi, she retraced her steps to the west. In the neighbourhood of Guayaquil she had two very narrow escapes: one, by a fall from her mule; and next, by an immersion in the River Guaya, which teems with alligators. Meeting with neither courtesy nor help from the Spanish Americans--a superstitious, ignorant, and degraded race--she gladly set sail for Panama.
At the end of May she crossed the Isthmus, and sailed to New Orleans. Thence she ascended the Mississippi to Napoleon, and the Arkansas to Fort Smith. After suffering from a severe attack of fever, she made her way to St. Louis, and then directed her steps northward to St. Paul, the Falls of St. Antony, Chicago, and thence to the great Lakes and "mighty Niagara." After an excursion into Canada, she visited New York, Boston, and other great cities, crossed the Atlantic, and arrived in England on the 21st of November 1854. Two years later she published a narrative of her adventures, entitled "My Second Journey Round the World."
Madame Pfeiffer's last voyage was to Madagascar, and will be found described in the closing chapter of this little volume. In Madagascar she contracted a dangerous illness, from which she temporarily recovered; but on her return to Europe it was evident that her constitution had received a severe blow. She gradually grew weaker. Her disease proved to be cancer of the liver, and the physicians pronounced it incurable. After lingering a few weeks in much pain, she passed away on the night of the 27th of October 1858, in the sixty-third year of her age.
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This remarkable woman is described as of short stature, thin, and slightly bent. Her movements were deliberate and measured. She was well- knit and of considerable physical energy, and her career proves her to have been possessed of no ordinary powers of endurance. The reader might probably suppose that she was what is commonly known as a strong-minded woman. The epithet would suit her if seriously applied, for she had undoubtedly a clear, strong intellect, a cool judgment, and a resolute purpose; but it would be thoroughly inapplicable in the satirical sense in which it is commonly used. There was nothing masculine about her. On the contrary, she was so reserved and so unassuming that it required an intimate knowledge of her to fathom the depths of her acquirements and experience. "In her whole appearance and manner," we are told, "was a staidness that seemed to indicate the practical housewife, with no thought soaring beyond her domestic concerns."
This quiet, silent woman, travelled nearly 20,000 miles by land and 150,000 miles by sea; visiting regions which no European had previously penetrated, or where the bravest men had found it difficult to make their way; undergoing a variety of severe experiences; opening up numerous novel and surprising scenes; and doing all this with the scantiest means, and unassisted by powerful protection or royal patronage. We doubt whether the entire round of human enterprise presents anything more remarkable or more admirable. And it would be unfair to suppose that she was actuated only by a feminine curiosity. Her leading motive was a thirst for knowledge. At all events, if she had a passion for travelling, it must be admitted that her qualifications as a traveller were unusual. Her observation was quick and accurate; her perseverance was indefatigable; her courage never faltered; while she possessed a peculiar talent for first awakening, and then profiting by, the interest and sympathy of those with whom she came in contact.
To assert that her travels were wholly without scientific value would be unjust; Humboldt and Carl Ritter were of a different opinion. She made her way into regions which had never before been trodden by European foot; and the very fact of her sex was a frequent protection in her most dangerous undertakings. She was allowed to enter many places which would have been rigorously barred against male travellers. Consequently, her communications have the merit of embodying many new facts in geography and ethnology, and of correcting numerous popular errors. Science derived much benefit also from her valuable collections of plants, animals, and minerals.
We conclude