BORN TO TRAVEL:

FEMALE TRAIL BLAZER

IDA PFEIFFER

                             

             Ida Pfeiffer, a middle class Austrian housewife, was unique among other housewives. What set Ida apart from other housewives was a singular, innate need to witness how other people lived in the rest of the world. She accomplished this through extensive travel and documentation. Ida Pfeiffer looked deeply at history, culture and diversity without fear, and thus wrote clearly and effectively about the regions she visited. From her earliest days as a child she had an insatiable desire to see the rest of the world. Intrigued by books about geography, travel, and Eastern philosophy, Ida would frequently daydream about seeing Greece, Crete, and Cyprus. She also had fantasies of seeing Africa on safari, or China via the Yangtze River. All of these exotic places were lovely to dream about, but her favorite imaginary destination was the Holy Land.[1]

      In the course of her middle adult years, Ida Pfeiffer would embark on the beginning of many travel adventures; she would travel first to Constantinople; the Greek Archipelago; Jerusalem; the Desert of Sinai; Damascus; Syria; Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt; and Naples, Italy during her Holy Land trip. She wrote her experiences into a journal in the form of a personal diary during the extent of this trip. Originally written as a way to relay her memories to family and friends, she was persuaded to have these travel memoirs published for the general public. The result was the book “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy”; this book was published in 1846, four years after Ida’s return from the Holy Land. The book was very popular in Europe and England, and was translated from the German into English and French. Ida was able to fund her next ambitious trip from the proceeds made from the sale of the book. The next trip was to Iceland and the Scandinavian countries in 1846.

The Early Years

          Ida was born Ida Reyer in Vienna, Austria in 1797, She was the only daughter of a well-to-do merchant and had five brothers. Ida’s father was a pragmatist, and gave Ida the same education and experiences as her brothers. She was allowed to wear boys’ clothes and to romp and play with her brothers in tomboy fashion. She was encouraged to take long, invigorating walks in the meadows and to play athletic games with her brothers. To Ida’s mother, these activities were not appropriate for a young girl, and had no value in her future education.

        When Ida was almost ten, her beloved father died, and Ida’s life changed radically. Ida was still reeling from the loss of her father, and her mother began to pressure her to wear girls’ clothes. Mrs. Reyer wanted Ida to learn the “domestic arts” and to learn to play the piano, as well. These changes were applied gradually, and Ida began to wear dresses regularly by the time she was thirteen years old.

     Ida’s mother was obliged to take in French officers in 1809, when Napoleon’s army invaded Austria and took over Vienna. Ida hated the French, and wished she could be a soldier to oust them form the house, the city, and the country. Mrs. Reyer dragged Ida to see Napoleon enter Vienna when she was twelve; Ida refused to look at the procession. Her mother slapped her face and forced her to stand face forward to look the Emperor; Ida responded by clamping her eyes tightly shut, so she would not have to look at the loathed spectacle.[2]

         Ida was taught French, some Italian, sewing, embroidery, cooking and drawing. Her mother hired a private tutor for her formal education and these sessions also included piano lessons. When she was seventeen Ida fell in love with this young piano teacher, and he with her. They had made plans to marry, but Ida’s mother would have none of it, as the piano tutor was poor and without status. Mrs. Reyer wanted Ida to marry someone with some money and power. Ida pined for her piano teacher, but was no longer allowed to see him. Harangued by her mother to marry well, Ida was not interested. Finally, the pressure at home grew to be too much and Ida told her mother she would marry the next suitor who wanted to court her.

Marriage and Family Obligations; Separation

     When Ida was twenty-two, she met and married a Dr. Pfeiffer,(whose first name escapes historical records), a highly placed official in the Austrian government. He was much older than she, but had the required status and money. The pair made their home in Lemberg, Austria, had two boys together, and lived well until Dr. Pfeiffer discovered a series of misdeeds by his fellow government peers and reported this to the appropriate authorities. The conspirators were caught and prosecuted, but Pfeiffer’s government career was over. For his trouble, Pfeiffer was “blacklisted” by his fellow government workers as an eavesdropper and an interloper. He could not procure work anywhere, and Ida was obliged to give drawing and piano lessons to support her small family. They had gone from a life of luxury to being poor in a short span of time.

         Ida’s brothers helped to fund the boys’ education and she inherited a small stipend from her mother’s estate after her mother passed away in 1831. This money was used to pay for living expenses for the family. When Mr. Pfeiffer became ill, he wanted to live with his eldest son from his first marriage in Lemberg. Ida legally and amicably separated from her husband in 1835 and moved herself and the two boys back to Vienna. In 1842, both of her sons had set up households of their own and Ida was free from all family obligations. Her plans immediately turned to resuming her girlhood dreams of travel. The difference was that now, as an adult, she could make those dreams a reality.

Freedom to Travel

               Ida chose the Holy Land as her first destination for two reasons; first, she had always wanted to see the land where Jesus was born, lived and was crucified on the Cross. It was a pilgrimage she wanted to make for religious reasons as well as for tourist reasons. Second, a woman traveling alone was much more likely to receive fewer objections from family and friends if the travel venue was the Holy Land. This area was considered to be a valid destination of respectability for all Christians. Ida also knew the large risk she assumed by traveling alone and had her last will and testament drawn up before departure. Ida was traveling with the most stringent economic limitations. As to her financial condition she remarked, “I was determined to practice the most rigid economy. Privation and discomfort had no terrors for me.” [3]   She had strong doubts as to whether she would ever see her family or beloved Vienna again.

        After ten months on the Holy Land trip, she triumphantly returned to Vienna, with written documentation of her experiences and fresh plans for a new excursion. However, her next destination was to be the frozen tundra of Iceland, the fjords of Norway, and the environs of Stockholm, Sweden; this was quite a contrast to the blazing heat of the desert and the exotic people of the Middle East.

      Palestine Itinerary

      At the start of her Holy Land trip, Ida boarded a steamer in Vienna on March 22, 1842, which was bound for Pesth, Hungary via the Danube River. From there, via several steamboat trips, the route commenced to the Black Sea and into Constantinople, Turkey. Constantinople then was a hodgepodge of Byzantine influence, art, and culture mixed with the Muslim Turkish aspect of mosques, dervishes, language, and traditions.

    The ship carrying Ida and her fellow passengers to Constantinople landed in the harbor early in the pre-dawn hours of April 6, 1842.  The city was ornamented with a multitude of cypress trees, particularly at Scutari, a Turkish town on the Asian side of Constantinople. Scutari was unique, according to Pfeiffer, because it was the “celebrated burying-place of the Turks”[4] and had countless tombstones hidden among the acres of ubiquitous cypress trees. Many Muslim families would have a picnic meal within view of a headstone in the huge cemetery. Only followers of Islam were allowed to be buried within its confines.

      The other curiosity Ida Pfeiffer witnessed at Scutari was the phenomenon of the dancing and the howling dervishes; Muslim holy men that would whirl or howl with abandon so as to achieve a holy trance and commune with Allah and the Prophet Mohammed.

       When Ida first stepped from the kayak that was her transport from the European side of Constantinople onto the soil at Scutari on the Asia side, she was struck for the first time of how far she had come on her journey. From Vienna to Constantinople was 1000 nautical miles. She was also standing on a different continent for the first time in her forty-five years. She related how she was overcome with the significance of Asia itself, how it was the place that was the cradle of civilization, and how Jesus had given his life for all of mankind on this very continent.[5]

     Ida pointed out that during this visit to Constantinople, while she was staying in a suburb there known as Pera, she was lucky to have excellent accommodations and have the locals take a genuine interest in her welfare and comfort.  She was grateful to have such affable surroundings; even with letters of introduction, she was paid no attention by her fellow Europeans as she did not appear to be influential or affluent enough to give any heed.[6] Pfeiffer also asserts that she enjoyed the company of the Turkish people, and felt welcome and kinship from these exotic people who were not Christian or European.

   She spent about six weeks in Constantinople, and then embarked for Beirut.  En route to Lebanon, her steamer passed by the plains of Troy, of Iliad fame. She also saw the Acropolis, then had time to explore the city of Rhodes, home of one of the seven wonder of the ancient world, the “Colossus of Rhodes.” This gigantic statue was but a memory even in Pfeiffer’s time, but was said to span the entire breadth and width of the harbor at Rhodes.

     Sailing past the island of Cyprus, they came to Beirut, Lebanon where Ida found the heat oppressive, the land barren and dry from drought, and homeless dogs everywhere. Ida and some of her traveling companions made several side trips to see Tyre, St. Joan d’Acre, and an exploration of the ruins at Jaffa. There was said to be marauding Bedouins and dangerous snakes hiding among the ruins, but Ida and her group had no scrapes with the Arabs or the snakes.

Jerusalem   

   Leaving Joppa on horseback with her fellow traveler Mr. Bacleth (a British subject), and two Arab attendants, Ida was not prepared for the sixteen hour ride from Joppa to Jerusalem. The roads were stony and there were no wells or watering places on the way.  They made camp at Emmaus, where Christ showed Himself to the apostles after He had ascended into Heaven. Resuming their journey at midnight, they rode toward Jerusalem, knowing they were drawing closer when the countryside grew more verdant. At last, right before sunrise, they saw the walls of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives just beyond it. Ida expressed her emotions very simply and eloquently when she saw the Holy City. “The red morning had begun to tinge the sky as we stood before the walls of Jerusalem, and with it the most beauteous morning of my life dawned upon me! I was so lost in reflection and in thankful emotion, that I saw and heard nothing of what was passing around me.”[7]

    In the book Celebrated Women Travelers of the Nineteenth Century, the author W.H. Davenport Adams points out that Ida’s years of domestic life and motherhood had not assuaged her curiosity and eagerness to travel. She was a devout Christian and very much wanted to see the Holy Land[8]; she made it a point to see all of the holy and sacred places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sinai Desert, Gethsemane, and Cavalry. She also made excursions to the Dead Sea and saw the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

          When Ida took leave of her sons, Oscar and Alfred, in Vienna before embarking on the first of her travels, she was reluctant to leave them, however, her drive and ambition to go abroad won out. What the boys did not know was that Ida’s passport was only stamped as far as Constantinople; she fully intended to go on Palestine and the Holy Land and then return to Vienna by way of Cairo, Egypt. She knew only that she had waited for years to go on this journey of a lifetime, and that by having attained the age of 45, she felt free to travel. She expressed her view that she had paid her dues in her earlier years. She stated that since she had been “born at the end of the last century, I may travel alone.” [9] This quote sums up her desire to travel on her own, when and where she chose, because she was mature and confident of her own capabilities.

      Ida visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where she passed an entire night.  She had an elderly Spanish lady as her attendant, and was able to see the different services going around her. Armenians and Greeks had their masses and rituals after midnight, and at four o’clock in the morning, Ida was able to go to confession with the Roman Catholic congregation. She lighted a votive candle and prayed until sunrise upon which she went back to her room in a convent. Ida noticed the beauty of the Greek section of the church; this was in direct contrast to the altars of the Armenians and the Copts, which were in real disrepair.[10]

       This church has a chapel built within it; one section is said to contain the stone the angel sat upon when he told the women who came to embalm Christ’s body that he had been resurrected and returned to His Father in Heaven. The other section of the chapel held the tomb of Jesus; lamps illuminated the site twenty-four hours a day. The whole of the church is devoted to different sects of Christianity with little alcoves partitioned off for these groups. The alcoves contained some rough altars, parchment scrolls, old books, candles, and some crude chairs.[11]

 

 Bethlehem, Dead Sea, Nazareth       

      In early June of 1842, Ida set out to see Bethlehem. She found a town of about 2500 people with a disproportionate number of beggar children. The grotto where Christ was born lies within a church that is shared by the Catholics, Greeks, and Armenians, similar to that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Christ’s birthplace is marked by a marble slab; two stairways leading down to it.

   Pfeiffer’s impression of Bethlehem was that of extreme poverty and of Catholics who also clung to their native Arab customs in dress, language, and demeanor.[12]

    The excursion to the Dead Sea and the River Jordan was undertaken with a large cavalcade of Bedouin Arabs as guides and protectors, horses, camels, donkeys, cotton blankets, cooking utensils, and many weapons for defense on the road. There were many robbers and highwaymen to fear and the Bedouin spears, guns, and knives provided good defense.[13]

    These weapons proved valuable during this trek, for near the Jordan River, the Arab guides became wary and told Ida and her fellow travelers of approaching robbers. Though not even a cloud of dust could be discerned, these people are trained to hear horses’ hooves for as many as 20 miles away, and they could make a rough estimate of how many people were coming. [14]Most of the men rode off to meet the threat head on and left Ida and her fellow Austrian, Count Berchtold at the oasis where they had stopped to rest and water the animals. Ida relates the reaction of the bandits when they saw their opposition; “But when the enemy saw such a determined troop advancing to oppose them, they hurried off without awaiting our onset, and left us masters of the field.”[15]

    The group also went on to the Dead Sea and were so tired they made a quick camp to rest for the night and did not even notice the body of water so close to them until morning. Many other travelers had reported becoming nauseous at the odor of the Dead Sea, but Ida did not even notice it. She related the Dead Sea is long and narrow in shape and is more the size of a large lake than a sea. The surface was motionless and opaque. She reported that the salt smell that wafted from it was heavy but not too noxious.

    In mid-June, Ida and company went to Nazareth.  They saw the grotto where Mary, mother of Jesus, received word from the angel that she was to be the mother of God. The workshop of Jesus’ foster father Joseph is also found there. Ida also went to the synagogue where the Pharisees wanted to do away with Jesus after he was found teaching the people His lessons.

   Ida was very ill on this expedition, and again had to hide her illness from her fellow travelers for fear of being left behind. She was able to recover enough to eat some bread with wine in the evening.

    The next day they rode the six hours to Tabarith, a small town at the base of Mount Tabor, one of highest peaks in Syria, with oak trees at the Summit. This was also the site of the “Sermon on the Mount”. The land around here is very rich and fertile, but the local “pacha” set taxes on the peasants according to his own need and judgment. Each separate tree was taxed, whether it was lemon, orange, or olive. The peasants did not grow enough produce for a surplus and thus were overly taxed. The pacha could also move the peasants from one parcel of land to another, or ban him totally from the area, so the peasants did not even have pride of ownership for their tax burden.[16]

 

EGYPT

     Ida left Jerusalem for Beirut on June 20, 1842. The distance between the two cities is 200 miles. This route took almost 10 days in record heat, with very little in the way of water or food en route.  There was no sign of vegetation in all of the ten-day trek, two of the best horses sank from exhaustion and dehydration and had to be put down.

   They passed through the valley that lies between the desert and Mount Lebanon, which was very fertile and lush. The rocks on this mountain were all white quartz and sparkled in the sun. The home built by Lady Hester Stanhope was sighted in a niche on the mountainside.[17]

        After traveling through Damascus, Syria, the voyage through the desert continued without much change until Ida’s group drew to close the town of Balbeck. Riding through a high rocky pass, they saw a Syrian solider leading a woman ill with plague on the back of a donkey. The soldier had tar on his face to protect him from the disease. She was laying face down over the donkey’s back and was listless and immobile. According to Ida, her face was sunken and yellow, but bore no scars or lesions of the plague. She was being taken from her native village where the disease had not become epidemic. She was to go to another village where the plague was rampant, so as not to contaminate others.[18]

       On August 7th, 1842, Ida Pfeiffer reached Alexandria and immediately had to go the quarantine house to stay for ten days before being allowed to continue on to Cairo. Even though Ida had a “Teshkeret” (a clean bill of health) from Beirut, she and other fifty other travelers had to succumb to the law.

     Ida had set foot for the first time on African soil, but was not amused or happy by the imposed quarantine. The quarantine house was like a jail, and the travelers were locked into their rooms at night. Ida made friends with a Lebanese woman whose family was also in the house and they shared provisions.

    On August 17th, Ida and her fellow prisoners were set free of the quarantine house. The next day, Ida caught a steamer bound for Cairo. She was impressed with the width and color of the Nile River, remarking on its clear green color.

     The Arab people on board the boat treated her very well, particularly the Arab women. They let her cook her meals first over the fire, and shared some of their basic supplies with her. When there was something to be seen from the deck of the ship, all of these folks would make way to give her the best possible view.

   She wrote of their kindness and good-nature “they all behaved in such a courteous and obliging way that these uncultivated people might have put to shame many a civilized European.”[19]

      They arrived at Cairo into the harbor of Bulak on August 21st, 1842.  Ida was struck by the overcast sky and the relative coolness of the temperature, as Syria had been boiling hot.

     Ida wanted to see the Pyramids at Giza and the great Sphinx as soon as possible. The very next day she hired a guide to take her to the ancient sites; however, she first had to learn to ride a dromedary (a one humped camel) before she could go further on this junket. She found the camels to be temperamental, but also very practical and their gliding walk quite comfortable to ride with.

    She found all of the ancient artifacts to be even more huge than she had expected. The Pyramid at Cheops stand over 500 feet tall and is built on a rock over 150 feet high, buried under sand. It dated back over 3,000 years and it was said that 100,000 men built it over 26 years.

    Ida found the Sphinx to be very weathered and three fourths buried in sand. The head alone was twenty-two feet high.

    On the way back to Alexandria to leave for Naples, Ida’s ship traveled through the Red Sea, through the Isthmus of Suez. The French would begin work on the Suez Canal seventeen years later.

        Once more in harbor at Alexandria, Ida boarded the Sicilian steamer Hercules bound for Naples, Italy. They arrived at Naples on October 9, 1842, after making brief shore trips at Palermo, Sicily and Sardinia.

       Ida passed about eight weeks in Italy, including seeing Rome, Florence and Milan, and was back in Vienna in December,1842 after cruising back up the Danube river from whence she began her Holy Land trip.

 

IDA’S WAY

    Ida Pfeiffer certainly used the courage of her own convictions to make her first major journey a reality, and her resolute determination also helped in making her subsequent overseas trips occur.

She not only traveled alone and on a tight budget; she was setting out alone and without anyone in particular to champion her or look out for her health. The uniqueness of her outlook is realized when the reader of her travel diaries understands that there was never any doubt that she would be a solitary traveler by choice and a highly observant travel writer. Ida never wavered in her quest to travel and actually see the world she had dreamed of as a child. Her only concern was when and how soon she could embark on her journeys.

      She wrote plainly and directly of what she saw and experienced. The only flaw that shows itself in her writing was her inability to accept people in their won environs and habitats. She more often than not found fault with people that she did not understand or found to be indecent, dishonest, or unsanitary. She also had a stubborn streak that did not heed advice directed toward her own welfare. Her family did not want her to go on the Holy Land trip at all, but Ida knew she what she was going to do and was determined to do it without a look back.

      Ida was one of the first women to make travel writing acceptable and lucrative and from the publication of the first book A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy, she made a niche for other women to write in the travel genre. She also made a name for herself as a remarkably self-sufficient and adaptable traveler.[20]

 

   


[1] “Travels of Ida Pfeiffer,” n.d., http://www.moonstoneerp.com/focus/Ida1.html (2/3/01)

[2] Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, “In Ladies’ Company; Six Interesting Women” (London: Ward & Downey, 1892) 172-173.

[3] Rebecca Stefoff, “Ida Pfeiffer: Twice Around the World, in “Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers” (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 15.

[4]   Ida Pfeiffer, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy”, (London: Ingram Cooke & Co., 1852) 48.

[5]  ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy,” (London: Ingram Cooke & Co., 1852)48-49.

[6]  Ida Pfeiffer, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy”  (Ingram, Cooke & CO., 1852) 41.

[7]  ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852) 109.

[8] W.H. Davenport Adams, “Celebrated Women Travelers of the Nineteenth Century”  (London: W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Parternoster Row, 1883), 222.

[9] Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, “In Ladies’ Company; Six Interesting Women” (London: Ward and Downey, 1892) 187.

[10] Ida Pfeiffer,  A Visit to the Holy Land,Egypt, and Italy. (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852) 116-117

[11] Ida  Pfeiffer, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852) 113-115

[12]  ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke, & Co., 1852) 124-125.

[13] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke, & Co., 1852) , 140

 

[14] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke, & Co., 1852) , 140-141

[15] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852, 155

[16] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852) 168.

[17]  ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852), 195-196

[18] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852), 226

 

[19] ---, “A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy” (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852), 226

[20] Rebecca Stefoff, “Ida Pfeiffer: Twice Around the World, in “Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers” (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 15