The Story of Ida Pfeiffer. Unknown

The Story of Ida Pfeiffer / and Her Travels in Many Lands

      CHAPTER I.—HER BIOGRAPHY

      Ida Pfeiffer, the celebrated traveller, was born in Vienna on the 14th of October 1797.  She was the third child of a well-to-do merchant, named Reyer; and at an early age gave indications of an original and self-possessed character.  The only girl in a family of six children, her predilections were favoured by the circumstances which surrounded her.  She was bold, enterprising, fond of sport and exercise; loved to dress like her brothers, and to share in their escapades.  Dolls she contemptuously put aside, preferring drums; and a sword or a gun was valued at much more than a doll’s house.  In some respects her father brought her up strictly; she was fed, like her brothers, on a simple and even meagre diet, and trained to habits of prompt obedience; but he did nothing to discourage her taste for more violent exercises than are commonly permitted to young girls.

      She was only in her tenth year, however, when he died; and she then passed naturally enough under the maternal control.  Between her own inclinations and her mother’s ideas of maidenly culture a great contest immediately arose.  Her mother could not understand why her daughter should prefer the violin to the piano, and the masculine trousers to the feminine petticoat.  In fact, she did not understand Ida, and it may be assumed that Ida did not understand her.

      In 1809 Vienna was captured by the French army under Napoleon; a disgrace which the brave and spirited Ida felt most keenly.  Some of the victorious troops were quartered in the house of her mother, who thought it politic to treat them with courtesy; but her daughter neither could nor would repress her dislike.  When compelled to be present at a grand review which Napoleon held in Schönbrunn, she turned her back as the emperor rode past.  For this hazardous manœuvre she was summarily punished; and to prevent her from repeating it when the emperor returned, her mother held her by the shoulders.  This was of little avail, however, as Ida perseveringly persisted in keeping her eyes shut.

      At the age of thirteen she was induced to resume the garb of her sex, though it was some time before she could accustom her wild free movements to it.  She was then placed in charge of a tutor, who seems to have behaved to her with equal skill and delicacy.  “He showed,” she says, “great patience and perseverance in combating my overstrained and misdirected notions.  As I had learned to fear my parents rather than love them, and this gentleman was, so to speak, the first human being who had displayed any sympathy and affection for me, I clung to him in return with enthusiastic attachment, desirous of fulfilling his every wish, and never so happy as when he appeared satisfied with my exertions.  He took the entire charge of my education, and though it cost me some tears to abandon my youthful visions, and engage in pursuits I had hitherto regarded with contempt, to all this I submitted out of my affection for him.  I even learned many feminine avocations, such as sewing, knitting, and cookery.  To him I owed the insight I obtained into the duties and true position of my sex; and it was he who transformed me from a romp and a hoyden into a modest quiet girl.”

      Already a great longing for travel had entered into her mind.  She longed to see new scenes, new peoples, new manners and customs.  She read eagerly every book of travel that fell into her hands; followed with profound interest the career of every adventurous explorer, and blamed her sex that prevented her from following their heroic examples.  For a while a change was effected in the current of her thoughts by a strong attachment which sprung up between her and her teacher, who by this time had given up his former profession, and had obtained an honourable position in the civil service.  It was natural enough that in the close intimacy which existed between them such an affection should be developed.  Ida’s mother, however, regarded it with grave disapproval, and exacted from the unfortunate girl a promise that she would neither see nor write to her humble suitor again.  The result was a dangerous illness: on her recovery from which her mother insisted on her accepting for a husband Dr. Pfeiffer, a widower, with a grown-up son, but an opulent and distinguished advocate in Lemberg, who was then on a visit to Vienna.  Though twenty-four years older than Ida, he was attracted by her grace and simplicity, and offered his hand.  Weary of home persecutions, Ida accepted it, and the marriage took place on May 1st, 1820.

      If she did not love her husband, she respected him, and their married life was not unhappy.  In a few months, however, her husband’s integrity led to a sad change of fortune.  He had fully and fearlessly exposed the corruption of the Austrian officials in Galicia, and had thus made many enemies.  He was compelled to give up his office as councillor, and, deprived of his lucrative practice, to remove to Vienna in search of employment.  Through the treachery of a friend, Ida’s fortune was lost, and the ill-fated couple found themselves reduced to the most painful exigencies.  Vienna, Lemberg, Vienna again, Switzerland, everywhere Dr. Pfeiffer sought work, and everywhere found himself baffled by some malignant influence.  “Heaven only knows,” says Madame Pfeiffer in her autobiography, “what I suffered during eighteen years of my married life; not, indeed, from any ill-treatment on my husband’s part, but from poverty and want.  I came of a wealthy family, and had been accustomed from my earliest youth to order and comfort; and now I frequently knew not where I should lay my head, or find a little money to buy the commonest necessaries.  I performed household drudgery, and endured cold and hunger; I worked secretly for money, and gave lessons in drawing and music; and yet, in spite of all my exertions, there were many days when I could hardly put anything but dry bread before my poor children for their dinner.”  These children were two sons, whose education their mother entirely undertook, until, after old Madame Reyer’s death in 1837, she succeeded to an inheritance, which lifted the little family out of the slough of poverty, and enabled her to provide her sons with good teachers.

      As they grew up and engaged successfully in professional pursuits, Madame Pfeiffer, who had lost her husband in 1838, found herself once more under the spell of her old passion for travel, and in a position to gratify her adventurous inclinations.  Her means were somewhat limited, it is true, for she had done much for her husband and her children; but economy was natural to her, and she retained the simple habits she had acquired in her childhood.  She was strong, healthy, courageous, and accomplished; and at length, after maturing her plans with anxious consideration, she took up her pilgrim’s staff, and sallied forth alone.

      Her first object was to visit the Holy Land, and tread in the hallowed footsteps of our Lord.  For this purpose she left Vienna on the 22nd of March 1842, and embarked on board the steamer that was to convey her down the Danube to the Black Sea and the city of Constantinople.  Thence she repaired to Broussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo; and travelled across the sandy Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea.  From Egypt the adventurous lady returned home by way of Sicily and Italy, visiting Naples, Rome, and Florence, and arriving in Vienna in December 1842.  In the following year she published the record of her experiences under the title of a “Journey of a Viennese Lady to the Holy Land.”  It met with a very favourable reception, to which the simplicity of its style and the faithfulness of its descriptions fully entitled it.

      With the profits of this book to swell her funds, Madame Pfeiffer felt emboldened to undertake a new expedition; and this time she resolved on a northern pilgrimage, expecting in Ultima Thule to see nature manifested on a novel and surprising scale.  She began her journey to Iceland on the 10th of April 1845, and returned to Vienna on the 4th of October.  Her narrative of this second voyage will be found, necessarily much abridged and condensed, in the following pages.

      What should she do next?  Success had increased her courage and strengthened her resolution, and she could think of nothing fit for her energies and sufficient for her curiosity but a voyage round the world!  She argued that greater privations and fatigue than she had endured in Syria and Iceland she could scarcely be called upon to encounter.  The outlay did not frighten her; for she had learned by experience how little is required, if the traveller will but practise the strictest economy and resolutely forego many comforts and all superfluities.  Her savings amounted to a sum insufficient, perhaps, for such travellers as Prince Pückler-Muskau, Chateaubriand, or Lamartine for a fortnight’s excursion; but for a woman who wanted to see much, but cared for no personal indulgence, it seemed enough to last during a journey of two or three years.  And so it proved.

      The heroic woman set out alone on the 1st of May 1846, and proceeded first to Rio Janeiro.  On the 3rd of February 1847,