Born: 14 October 1797, Austria
Died: 27 October 1858
Country most active: International
Also known as: Ida Reyer
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Ida Reyer, the daughter of a successful merchant in Vienna, as a child began to read descriptions and accounts of the Holy Land. Her greatest desire was to visit and view with her own eyes this country that so intrigued her. She was married at the age of twenty-three.
To her sons she had soon to be both father and mother, as she lost her husband in the early years of her marriage. The children demanded her constant care and attention, but her longing for travel was never stilled. In 1842 she sailed for Jaffa and from there she travelled to Jerusalem on horseback, overcoming many obstacles in the desert. She visited Egypt, Sicilia, Italy, and then returned to Vienna. Two years later she went to
Iceland. In 1846 she made her first trip around the world, visiting Brazil, Chile, Tahiti, China, India, Armenia and the Caucasus.
This courageous traveller had now awakened the interest of the Austrian and on her second around the world trip, in 1851-1866, she visited England, Africa, India, the South Sea Islands, Australia, California, Oregon, Peru, Ecuador, sailed up the Mississippi and on the Caribbean Sea, returning with many interesting specimens for the Museums of London and Vienna. In many places she was the first European to set foot on the soil. Geographic Associations made her an honorable member, and Prussia gave the gold medal for Art and Science. In 1856 she went to Madagascar, was imprisoned for a long time on a fake charge of treason. Sick from fever she finally was allowed to return to Vienna, where she died in 1858. She had travelled 240,000 Km. by sea and 32,000 Km. by land. Her notes and diary were published by Dirnbock, and can still be read with unflagging interest.
The following is excerpted from Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women, written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company.
Ida Pfeiffer, an Austrian traveler, born at Vienna. She began her career by a trip to Palestine and Egypt when she was forty-five years old.
In 1846 – 1848 she made an expedition to South America, China, India and Persia, and in 1851 – 1855 she made a journey to Africa and Australia, resulting in valuable acquisitions for the Museum of Natural History, Vienna.
Her works, which have been translated into English, include: Journey of a Viennese to the Holy Land, Journey to the Scandinavian North, and a Women’s Journey round the World.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
PFEIFFER, MADAME IDA, Has gained for herself a celebrity as wide as her travels have extended, and this is all over the world, by her extraordinary daring and enterprise. She seems to have a mission for “going about,” whether it be “to do good” we have not yet learned; but certainly the extent of her travels is altogether unparalleled, even by the most celebrated travellers of either ancient or modern times. We are told that Madame Pfeiffer is, as it were, urged on by “a passionate desire for locomotion, associated with a noble ambition, that of adding by personal enterprise to the cause of knowledge.” If this be the case, we must at least accord to her the praise of a noble spirit, however much we may regret that it was not developed in some more benevolent and feminine way. Of her heroism, as far as that word can be applied to mere acts of daring and defiance of danger, no one can entertain a doubt who reach the following brief outline of her locomotive life:
Ida Pfeiffer was born, it appears, at Vienna, at the close of the last century. She married and had children, how many we know not, but we learn that she devoted much attention to the education of her two sons, and that for awhile her life glided on tranquilly in the domestic channel. But it seems that underneath this apparent tranquility there was a secret desire for travel—a restlessness that could not be conquered. She ever entertained the hope of indulging her master passion, and therefore, although her “means were small, and home duties occupied her whole time and attention, she contrived to put by a small sum yearly, so that when the death of her husband and the establishment in life of her children set her free from domestic ties, she was in possession of the means of indulging her propensity for seeing the world. Accordingly, in 1842, she set out on her first journey, and traversed Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt, expending thus the savings of twenty years. Of this, journey she published a Diary in two volumes; this was well received, and went into a second edition; and in 1845 she set out on another trip, to Scandinavia and Iceland, of which countries on her return she published a very interesting and graphic account.
All this was but preparatory; she was, as it were, trying her wings, and finding that they answered so well, she announced her intention of travelling round the world. On the 1st. of May, 1846, being then fifty-one years of age, she left Vienna to accomplish her arduous undertaking. At Hamburg she was joined by a travelling companion, one Count Berchthold, who was somewhat advanced in years; but finding him too slow for her fiery impatience, she afterwards left him behind as a useless incumbrance. He, however, went as far as Brazil with her, and in that luxuriant country assisted her in collecting specimens of its animal and vegetable productions. On one occasion when thus engaged they were attacked by a negro armed with a knife and lasso; the travellers had only two parasols and a clasp knife between them, but this latter weapon was wielded so well by the lady, who bore the chief brunt of the attack, that the assailant made off after inflicting several wounds on her arm; he was perhaps induced to fly by the fortunate approach of two horsemen. Nothing daunted by this maladventure, Madame Pfeiffer, when her wounds were dressed, was ready to pursue her wanderings, and bidding adieu to her slow companion, proceeded into the interior to visit the Puri or native inhabitants of the Brazilian forests. Mounted on a mule, and accompanied by a single guide, she set forth, and passed through swamps, and forests, and trackless llanos seldom trodden by human feet. Weeks and months she spent in these wild solitudes, sometimes tarrying awhile in the wigwams of the natives, whom with ready tact she always managed to conciliate, so that the best quarters were placed at her disposal, and grand hunts and national dances got up for her especial amusement. She had thought of crossing the continent from Rio to the Pacific, but found this impossible, in consequence of the disorganized state of the country; she therefore left Brazil in a small sailing vessel, chosen for the sake of economy, went round Cape Horn, and after stopping awhile at Chili, again took ship for China, by the way of Tahiti, which island she reached, but found it difficult to obtain accommodation there, as it was very full of French troops. She had been ill on her voyage, but having, as we are told, a sovereign contempt for drugs, “prescribed for herself salt-water baths in a cask,” by which means she was restored to health. Having in a fortnight seen as much as she desired to of high and low life in Tahiti, and acquainted herself with its natural beauties, by making a tour round the island on foot, she was ready to advance another step in her journey, and hey presto! she is next in the Celestial Empire, where at Canton she manages to look about her a little, notwithstanding the dangers to which she is exposed from the prejudice of the people against the English, and especially against a woman, who seemed to have come among them to fulfil a prophecy, which said that the empire should be destroyed by such. From China to Calcutta was but a step or two for this seven-leagued-booted lady, and accordingly we next find her there, then at Bombay, which she left by a small steamer bound to Bassora. In this vessel, which was over-crowded, she had an attack of fever, and lay under the captain’s dining-table on the quarterdeck until she was safely through it (the fever, not the table.) She went to Bagdad, and from thence to Mosul, travelling across the desert for a fortnight on a mule, sleeping on the bare ground, and feeding on the meanest fare. At this latter place she made up her Diary, and the curiosities she had collected, and despatched them to Europe, having yet to traverse the most dangerous part of her journey.
After many hairbreadth escapes and startling adventures, Madame Pfeiffer manages to circumvent her treacherous guide and cross the Koordish Mountains, and reach the missionary station at Oroomiah, where she was hospitably entertained for awhile. From thence she continued her journey through Persia, and returned home by way of Russia, Constantinople, and Athens, reaching Vienna on the 4th. of November, 1848. After three years of rest and quiet, during part of which she was occupied in preparing for publication the journal of this great tour, in May, 1851, Madame Pfeiffer visited London, and from thence set sail to the Cape of Good Hope intending to penetrate the African continent in the direction of the newly discovered Lake Ngami, but her funds failing her, she was obliged to content herself with a few rambles and the execution of her second project, the exploration of the Sunda Islands. Accordingly, in the beginning of 1852, she reached Sarawak, and from thence passed into the interior of Borneo. She afterwards visited Jara and Sumatra, going fearlessly into the midst of the cannibal Batacks, whom Europeans had hitherto avoided, and who considered her a kind of superhuman being. From the Molaccas she went to California, having had a fVee passage offered her to that “execrable gold land,” as she terms it. From thence she passed down the western coast of America; then she visited the source of the Amazon, crossed the Andes, and then traversed the length and breadth of North America, and looked upon its most grand and beautiful lake, forest, and mountain scenery. Towards the close of 1854 we again find this extraordinary woman in London. Her account of this journey was subsequently published, and perhaps exceeds in interest and novelty any of her other books.
Madame Pfeiffer is meditating, we understand, if she has not already set out on, another journey. When we reflect on the vast amount of fatigue she has undergone, on the extent of ground over which she has travelled, on the imminent peril to which she has on many occasions exposed herself, we are struck with astonishment. She is by no means a bold masculine-looking woman, as one would suppose, but is in “her every-day life plainer, quieter, and more reserved than thousands of her own sex who have never left the seclusion of their native village.”
Her books, all of which have been published in England, are pleasantly written; she has great graphic power of description, and a considerable amount of scientific knowledge, which enabled her to make correct geographical observations, and describe correctly the animals and plants that she meets with