This Ebook was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.
BY IDA PFEIFFER.
An unabridged translation from the German.
I have been called, in many of the public journals, a “professedtourist;” but I am sorry to say that I have no title to the appellationin its usual sense. On the one hand I possess too little wit andhumour to render my writings amusing; and, on the other, too littleknowledge to judge rightly of what I have gone through. The onlygift to which I can lay claim is that of narrating in a simple mannerthe different scenes in which I have played a part, and the differentobjects I have beheld; if I ever pronounce an opinion, I do so merelyon my own personal experience.
Many will perhaps believe that I undertook so long a journey fromvanity. I can only say in answer to this—whoever thinksso should make such a trip himself, in order to gain the conviction,that nothing but a natural wish for travel, a boundless desire of acquiringknowledge, could ever enable a person to overcome the hardships, privations,and dangers to which I have been exposed.
In exactly the same manner as the artist feels an invincible desireto paint, and the poet to give free course to his thoughts, so was Ihurried away with an unconquerable wish to see the world. In myyouth I dreamed of travelling—in my old age I find amusement inreflecting on what I have beheld.
The public received very favourably my plain unvarnished accountof “A Voyage to the Holy Land, and to Iceland and Scandinavia.” Emboldened by their kindness, I once more step forward with the journalof my last and most considerable voyage, and I shall feel content ifthe narration of my adventures procures for my readers only a portionof the immense fund of pleasure derived from the voyage by
THEAUTHORESS.
Vienna, March 16, 1850.
With the hope that we may forward the views of the authoress, andbe the means of exciting the public attention to her position and wants,we append the following statement by Mr. A. Petermann, which appearedin the Athenæum of the 6th of December, 1851:
“Madame Pfeiffer came to London last April, with the intentionof undertaking a fresh journey; her love of travelling appearing notonly unabated, but even augmented by the success of her journey roundthe world. She had planned, as her fourth undertaking, a journeyto some of those portions of the globe which she had not yet visited—namely,Australia and the islands of the Asiatic Archipelago; intending to proceedthither by the usual route round the Cape. Her purpose was, however,changed while in London. The recently discovered Lake Ngami, inSouthern Africa, and the interesting region to the north, towards theequator—the reflection how successfully she had travelled amongsavage tribes, where armed men hesitated to penetrate, how well shehad borne alike the cold of Iceland and the heat of Babylonia—andlastly, the suggestion that she might be destined to raise the veilfrom some of the totally unknown portions of the interior of Africa—madeher determine on stopping at the Cape, and trying to proceed thence,if possible, northwards into the equatorial regions of the African Continent.
“Madame Pfeiffer left for the Cape, on the 22nd of May last,in a sailing vessel—her usual mode of travelling by sea, steamboatsbeing too expensive. She arrived safely at Cape T