If you ever need inspiration to travel, I recommend the Victorian women travellers, those who went without a mobile phone, guide book or even a map. These women set off because they wanted to see what was over a border or across a sea. They had an urge to experience new lands and make friends outside their own home.
Here are a few of my favourite:
Helen Caddick, 1842-1926
Helen Caddick was a single woman of means, a respected pillar of Birmingham society. She travelled because she loved the adventure. While visiting friends in southern Africa, she decided to take a trip to the interior. Everyone around her tried to persuade her not to go, saying it was dangerous. But she took a steamboat to what is now Malawi, and from there she hired 16 men to carry her and her luggage. She knew she would need a translator and took on a young boy from a local mission station whose English was entirely Biblical. He would respond to her summons with, “Behold, I am come.”
"On the second day, I boldly ventured into the improvised kitchen, but I soon came away somewhat horrified at the state of things I found there. The cook held a plucked fowl in one hand and was beating it with the other – black, I feared in both senses – to make it tender. As I wished to be able to eat my dinner, I never went on a tour of inspection again. As far as possible throughout the journey, I ate everything with my fingers, being doubtful of the knives, as I once saw the washing-up boy cleaning them in the way an unsophisticated schoolchild will clean his slate.”
A White Woman in Central Africa, Helen
Caddick, 1900.
Ida Pfeiffer, 1797-1858
Ida was born in Vienna and lived a traditional life, raising two sons. At
the age of 45, she was widowed with sons who were grown and independent. She
had always wanted to travel and believed she should start with a visit to the
Holy Land. Friends tried to dissuade her, called it a dangerous pilgrimage, and
preposterous for a woman alone. However, she wrote, “I made my will, and arranged all my worldly affairs in such a manner
that, in case of my death (an event I considered more probable than my safe
return), my family should find everything perfectly arranged.”
Ida was robbed and cheated but came back nine months later exhilarated
and keen to see more of the world. She sold her belongings and began writing
travel journals to fund future journeys. Her adventures became so popular that
she was often offered free passage on ships and trains in the hope of a
mention. Her books were translated into many languages.
Her description of crossing the Nile to climb the Egyptian pyramids, “Two large powerful men stood side by side;
I mounted on their shoulders, and held fast by their heads, while they supported
my feet in an horizontal position above the waters, which at some places
reached almost to their armpits, so that I feared every moment that I should
sit in the water. Besides this, my supporters continually swayed to and fro
because they could only withstand the force of the current by a great exertion
of strength and I was apprehensive of falling off. This disagreeable passage
lasted above a quarter of an hour.”
Ida Pfeiffer died at home in her native Vienna, aged 62.
A Visit to the Holy Land,
1852; Travelling in China, A Lady’s
Journey Around the World, 1851; A
Visit to Madagascar, 1861.
Mary Hall, 1857-1912
Mary Hall came not from a gentrified background with money as a safety
net to fund her travels. Instead, she was the daughter of a gasfitter and was
born in Southwark. Her first trip was the length of Africa. She covered the
7000 miles with a series of Africans in her employment. Also, along for the
journey, was her dog Mafeking who was to warn her of any danger from wild animals.
Mary Hall had that doughty almost clichéd spirit of travelling women of the era.
She would hang wet clothes from her hammock to dry and continue her march in a
petticoat because she knew she would meet no one who believed it mattered.
Her reason for taking the journey was interesting:
“As I am the first woman of any
nationality to have accomplished the entire journey of Cape to Cairo, I think
perhaps a simple account of how I managed to do it quite alone may be of use to
many who, for various reasons, real or imaginary, are unable to go so far
afield. I hope that a book, written from a woman’s point of view, minus big
game romances, and the usual exaggerations incidental to all things African,
may be acceptable.”
Mary Hall’s travel diaries sold well and she died in genteel Hampstead
leaving an estate of over £7000 (when most estates were less than £1000).
A Woman’s Trek from Cape to
Cairo, 1907; Travels in the Antipodes
and in the Far East, 1914.
Isabella Bird, 1831-1904
Isabella Bird was the daughter of an English minister. A back injury
meant her parents encouraged activity and gave her free rein in horse riding
and rowing. She took her first trip
overseas to see relatives in the United States. For most of her early life, at
least until she was 40, she lived at home taking care of her aging parents. Her
real travel writing and adventures arose when she crossed the Rocky Mountains.
She had arrived on the west coast of the United States and travelled alone on
horseback through the Rockies. She is said to have had a romance with a wild
outlaw she described thus: “Tawny hair,
in thin uncared-for curls, fell from under his hunter’s cap and over his
collar. One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face
repulsive, while the other might have been modelled in marble. ‘Desperado’ was
written in large letters all over him.”
Her writing dispelled any romantic sense of life for the settlers in the
Rockies. She described their lives as so unhappy; they seemed cut off not just
from civilisation but from any pleasure in their daily lives.
Of her arrival in Japan: “If I
accepted much of the advice given to me, as to taking tinned meats and soups,
claret, and a Japanese maid, I should need a train of at least six pack-horses.
As to fleas, there is a lamentable consensus of opinion that they are the curse
of Japanese travelling during the summer, and some people recommend me to sleep
in a bag drawn tightly around the throat, others to sprinkle my bedding freely
with insect powder, others to smear the skin all over with carbolic oil.”
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky
Mountains, 1897; Unbeaten Tracks in
Japan, 1880.
Mary Kingsley (1862-1900)
Mary Kingsley was a dutiful daughter, taking care of her aging parents
until they died. At this point, aged 43, she wrote to English traders and
missionaries in West asking for advice and assistance. She is famous for
arriving in complete Victorian garb – full skirts, high-necked blouses, fully-laced
boots and said that British women in Africa should never dress in a manner they
would not wish to be seen at home. She also credits her full skirt with saving
her life when she was trekking with local guides: “I made a short cut for it and the next news was I was in a heap, on a
lot of spikes, some fifteen feet or so below ground level, at the bottom of a
bag-shaped game pit. It is at these times you realise the blessing of a good
thick skirt.”
Mary caused controversy when she came home for criticising the missionaries
and their arrogance with the Africans they sought to control. She died in South
Africa of typhoid aged 48.
Travels in West Africa, 1897.
Others Victorian writers offered advice to those thinking about taking off:
“Wear a broad-brimmed hat to make
parasols unnecessary. Small rings can be sewn into the hem of your skirt, a
cord passed through the rings, it can all be pulled in quickly to keep it dry
and so that it doesn’t swish rocks downhill on hikes” Mrs H.W Cole, A Lady’s Tour round Monte Rosa; with Visits
to the Italian Valleys, 1859
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) recommends that ladies not take a maid
with them on their travels. “No lady who
values her peace on the journey, or desires any freedom of mind or movement,
will take a maid.” She attributes this to the fact that maids turn easily
to tears because of the hardships of travel.
These women have much in common – they defied the conventional life and took off on adventures of their choosing. Of course, we know about their journeys because they made it home and published accounts of their adventures. It is true that we know nothing of the women who didn’t make it home – the same is true of the male explorers. I salute them all!
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