‘I pictured her sitting astride a wide yak’
To mark tomorrow’s International Women’s Day, Jacki Hill-Murphy reveals the daring deeds of Victorian explorer Isabella Bird – and her own recreation of one of her journeys
America was no place for tourists in the years surrounding the American Civil War. It was a lawless, dangerous country, certainly not the place for a young English girl to be riding thousands of miles in crammed “stages” (stagecoaches) or “cars” (trains). But Isabella Bird was fearless and, in 1854, wrote about being stuck on a train with prairie men telling stories, hunters with rifles, Mexicans singing Spanish songs and New Englanders belting out Yankee Doodle. She dodged outbreaks of cholera, took steamers (which promptly sank, see panel, far right) on the Great Lakes, befriended freed slaves and smoked a peace pipe in a wigwam with “MicMac Indians”, all during the Victorian age when women had few freedoms.
With tomorrow’s International Women’s Day set to focus minds on women’s rights, it seems fitting to remember this 4ft 11in “pocket rocket” of an explorer, whose stout and regal appearance reminded some people of Queen Victoria. During her second visit to America in 1873, she fell for an impecunious trapper – “Wild” Jim Nugent – in Estes Park, Colorado, describing him as wonderfully handsome on one side of his face only, as the other half had been savaged by a grizzly bear. They spent 75 days together and climbed the challenging Longs
Peak. It would have been unthinkable for Bird to marry such a desperado – and she didn’t even tell her prudish biographer, Anna Stoddart, referring to the episode as a stay in a sanatorium.
On reaching Hawaii in 1872, Bird thought she had found paradise, and spent seven months there, riding fearlessly into the heart of Mauna Loa volcano, crossing flooded ravines in the dark and being saved from a fierce torrent at Scotchman’s Gulch by a naked and tattooed islander who lassoed her horse. Rather shockingly, she sneaked sherry from her luggage into a trifle she made for King Lunalilo of Hawaii, who subsequently wrote her a poem.
Bird’s own writing certainly sang. Her first book, The Englishwoman in America, was a bestseller, and subsequent titles were filled with details about the flora and fauna, people and customs she encountered on her travels. Her adventures were all the more remarkable because she suffered from “spinal contraction” all her life. When not travelling, she spent most of her time in bed, mostly at her cottage in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull.
Believing that activity improved her debilitating back pain, Bird set off to Japan in 1878 at the age of 47 and travelled on pack ponies to Aino country, staying in dismally grotesque rooms where black clouds of mosquitoes swarmed from stagnant pools. Hong Kong was next, followed by Singapore and Malaysia, where she visited Sultan Raja Samad, took a 10-hour elephant ride to Kuala Kangsar and explored the jungles of Seremban.
Back in Britain, her life took a turn for the worse after the death of her sister, Henrietta. Overcome with grief, she feared for her mental health, but accepted the marriage proposal of Dr John Bishop, an Edinburgh surgeon. Within five years, he too had died, and Bird became concerned she would be institutionalised. In 1889, at the age of 57, she sailed to Pakistan and travelled through India and back through Persia. The land she described in Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan were as alien as the moon to her fascinated readers, and on her return to England in 1891, she found herself something of a celebrity. She met Queen Victoria, was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (a rare honour for a woman) and learnt the new art of photography in readiness for her next trip.
It was to be her last. In 1894, aged 63, Bird set off in extremely bad health on a three-year exploration of the Koreas, China and Russia. She became seriously ill on a pea boat on the River Lian in China, broke her arm at Mukden (now Shenyang) while avoiding a braying mob, and was later knocked out when a stone was thrown at her near Pao-ningfu. Her trip down the Yangtze river was her last, but she recorded her observations brilliantly in The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. She died in Edinburgh in 1904 at the age of 73.
Fascinated by Bird’s story, I felt I needed to understand her motivation for undertaking such extreme journeys. As an explorer myself, I had spent a decade researching female adventurers of the 18th and 19th centuries and recreating their expeditions as faithfully as possible, albeit with modern, hi-tech gear. My first trip (in 2008) was to Ecuador, where I began my journey along the length of the Amazon River in the wake of Isabel Godin – the first known woman to have travelled down it, in 1769. My first book, Adventuresses: Rediscovering Daring Voyages into the Unknown, tells her sad story and those of other Victorian explorers whose journeys had captured my imagination.
After crossing Africa in a Land Rover in 1988, I became a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was inspired by the many tales of intrepid adventurers invited to speak there. Next I took buses and trains from Moscow to eastern Siberia, recreating Kate Marsden’s 1891 journey in search of a cure for leprosy – described in my book, The Extraordinary Tale of Kate Marsden and My Journey Across Siberia in Her Footsteps. I also led a team of women into the wild Llanganates national park in the Ecuadorean Andes, to find a lost Inca trail and pay tribute to Isabella Brookes who died there in 1920.
In 2012, I followed Isabella Bird’s trek north through the Nubra Valley of Ladakh, where the unchanged landscapes conjured images of the dangers she must have faced. I could picture her sitting astride a wide yak, possibly in a corset, buffeted by icy winds. Having walked over the high passes and glaciers she once knew, I followed the raging Shyock River which pulled her under as she tried to cross, leaving her with broken ribs.
Ironically, Bird must have felt relatively safe in these mountains, where no one could question her sanity or threaten her with life in an asylum; there was no gossip to endure, or any expectation of domestic servitude. In the wild, men listened to her – and respected her. Despite the obvious deprivations, Bird was free and no one could change that. On those wild trails, I felt I had cracked it: she was embracing a liberty she would never see at home, even in old age. Her books, documenting her journeys, make the adversity she faced seem very real.
When the time is right and we can travel again, think big and get a taste of what it is like to be a woman explorer. Several tour operators offer treks in the countries and regions explored by the heroines of my books (see panel, left) and venturing far off the beaten track is just what we need after a long and challenging lockdown. Perhaps, like Isabella Bird, we just need to escape and be free, challenging ourselves physically to feel the positive effects on our mental well-being.