Hit The Road, Jill

Discover Travelling Women here

I recently saw a statistic stating that eighty-four percent of solo backpackers were women. I don’t know the accuracy of this or how it was derived, but I suppose there must be an underlying reality to it. How different it was in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. In those times it was not considered proper for women to travel alone, almost immoral. A lot of the accounts we have by women travellers were written whilst accompanying their husbands on overseas missions. Seen as observers, what they had to say was not as greatly valued as the writings of the men who conquered territories or planted flags of ‘discovery’. Fortunately, things have changed. What were once dismissed as mere ‘observations’ are now recognised as valued contributions to the West’s interaction with the rest of the globe. Whereas men’s accounts often centre on politics and economics, those of women might include domestic life, dress, diet, things that would otherwise be passed over. In this way they enrich our knowledge and understanding of different cultures. Of course, women also participated in important scientific work and more conventional exploration, and overall, it is this idea of different voices expanding our idea of exploration which is so very important.

Perhaps the supreme example of a woman who accompanied her husband on his travels was Isabel Burton, wife of the exotic explorer and diplomat, Richard. She was not allowed to join him on his postings in West Africa which were deemed far too perilous but travelled with him to Brazil and later Damascus where she became as taken with all things Arabian as her husband. Later she was to spend two years exploring Egypt and India with him. The results of these travels were published as AEI Arabia Egypt India in 1879, and include an account of Jeddah but mainly focuses on their time in India. AEI would still be considered an important first-hand account of travels in the East even without the Richard Burton connection. It abounds with information on local culture, descriptions of Indian society and city life making it a valuable resource on the region in late Victorian times. It is also a well-illustrated work. Our copy is a truly collectable example, beautifully preserved in its original Victorian cloth binding.

May French Sheldon (1847-1936), a keen advocate for women’s rights, was born into an American liberal family but turned against their beliefs and became an imperialist. She became the first woman to lead an extensive caravan of over a hundred porters on an expedition from Mombasa to the lands of the Masai and back, taking in Mount Kilimanjaro. Many people regarded her as a bit crazy, and certainly she appears to have been somewhat eccentric wearing extravagant dress and sometimes wigs, carried on a wickerwork palanquin, but maybe it was just because she didn’t conform to the idea of how a Victorian lady should behave.  She has left us with an extremely entertaining work, one of the very best on East Africa, entitled Sultan to Sultan. Adventures among the Masai and other tribes of East Africa (1892). What I find particularly interesting is the number of illustrations showing us jewellery and clothing in the region, a subject hitherto largely ignored.

One of the greatest mountaineers of the Age, regardless of gender, was Mrs Aubrey Le Blond (1861-1934). Born into a wealthy Irish family, Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed as she was, met and married the renowned explorer of Central Asia, Captain Fred Burnaby, when she was only seventeen. She might have ended up as a ‘good housewife’ but at the age of twenty she went to Chamonix for her health and everything changed. She immediately took to the ice and mountains and after only one summer made a double ascent of Mont Blanc. She was to go on to help design the course for the Cresta Run, became a pioneer of motor racing in the mountains, and developed a speciality of climbing mountains hitherto unclimbed in Winter. During the Summer months she went to the far north of Norway where she made the first ascent of some twenty mountains. Her Norwegian adventures are preserved for us in Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun (1908). A substantial and well-illustrated account, it paints a vivid picture of the harsh environment in which she thrived. We offer a fine copy in the very striking original pictorial cloth binding.

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), it seems to me, stands apart from other women travellers in that she had such an enormous influence over shaping the political events of the Middle East and the establishment of modern Iraq. A person of immense intellect, she spent years travelling through Mesopotamia, where her knowledge of Arabic and keen interest in people and culture helped her build important relationships. Maybe if she had lived longer the history of Iraq wouldn’t have been so turbulent. Bell made her first visit to what we now know as Iraq in 1909. This five-month journey along the Euphrates enabled her to indulge her interest in archaeology. She met T. E. Lawrence at the Hittite city of Carchemish, photographed the relief carvings in Halamata Cave, and travelled to Babylon.  we offer a beautiful copy of her record of this journey, the 1924 second edition of Amurath to Amurath, a fine bright copy in the original cloth.

Written by Julian Mackenzie