The Story of Ida Pfeiffer | Page 4

any European. Returning to Java, she saw
almost all that it had of natural wonders or natural beauties; and then
departed on a tour through the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas, visiting
Banda, Amboyna, Ceram, 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.
* * * * *
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