Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century

Towards four o'clock in the afternoon Madame Pfeiffer was conveyed to the palace, over the door of which a great gilded eagle expands its wings. According to rule, in stepping across the threshold the visitor put her right foot foremost; and this formula she also observed on entering, through a second gateway, the spacious courtyard in front of the palace. Here the Queen was visible, having her seat in a balcony on the first story, and Madame Pfeiffer and her attendants stood in a row in the courtyard opposite to her. Under the balcony some soldiers were going through various evolutions, which terminated, comically enough, in a sudden lifting up of the right foot as if it had been stung by a wasp.

The Queen was attired in a wide silk simboo, and wore on her head a large golden crown. She sat in the shade, but, nevertheless, an ample umbrella of crimson silk – throughout the East a sign of royal dignity – was held over her head. She was of rather dark complexion, strongly and even sturdily built, and, though seventy-five years of age, remarkably hale and active. On her right stood her son, Prince Rakoto; on her left, her adopted son, Prince Ramboasalama. Behind her were gathered nephews, nieces, and other relatives, and the dignitaries and grandees of the kingdom.

The minister who introduced Madame Pfeiffer and her companion – M. Lambret, a French adventurer, who at one time played a prominent part in the affairs of Madagascar – addressed a short speech to the Queen; after which the visitors had to bow thrice, and to repeat the words "Esaratsara tombokoe" (We salute you cordially), the Queen replying, "Esaratsara" (We salute you). They then turned to the left to salute King Radama's tomb, which was close at hand, with three similar bows, afterwards taking up their former position in front of the balcony, and making three additional obeisances. M. Lambret next held up a gold piece of eighty francs value, and placed it in the hands of the minister who had introduced them. This gift, which is presented by every stranger, is called "Monosina." The Queen then asked M. Lambret if he wished to put any question to her, or if he needed anything, and also addressed a few words to Madame Pfeiffer. The obeisances and greetings were then resumed, due reverence was paid to King Radama's monument, and the visitors, as they retired, were again cautioned not to put the left foot first over the threshold.

Soon afterwards, Queen Ranavala gave a banquet in honour of her visitor, and invited – or, perhaps, we should say commanded – her to give a musical performance before all her court.

"To-day," she writes in her journal, "I have had the great honour to show my talent, or rather my ignorance, on the piano before the Queen. In my youth I had been a tolerable musician, but, alas, that was long ago. For thirty years I had forgotten the instrument. Who would ever have thought that I should one day be summoned to perform before a queen and her court, and at the age of sixty, when I fumbled more atrociously than do children who have had a few months' lessons?.. With great difficulty I forced my old stiff fingers to run through some scales and exercises. I learned a few waltzes, and some other dance airs, and thus prepared, ventured to challenge the judgment of the severe Aristarchuses of Madagascar.

"I sat down at the piano, and began to play; but what were my feelings at finding it so out of order that not one note was in tune, and that several of the keys responded to the strongest pressure with an obstinate silence? And it was upon such an instrument I was to perform! But the true artist-genius rises above all such difficulties, and electrified by the thought of displaying my talent before a public of such enlightened amateurs, I set to work to accomplish the most unpolished roulades imaginable, to stamp my best on the rebellious keys, and to play sans suite et sans raison… As a reward, I had the satisfaction of perceiving that my talent was generally appreciated, and of obtaining her Majesty's thanks. The same day, as a signal mark of her gracious favour, I received a number of fowls and a large basketful of eggs."

Unfortunately, during Madame Pfeiffer's sojourn at Antananarivo, a conspiracy was formed for the purpose of dethroning the tyrant queen Ranavala in favour of the next heir, Radama. It failed, however, and those concerned in it were ruthlessly punished. The Christians, who were supposed to have encouraged and abetted it, were now exposed to Queen Ranavala's tempestuous wrath, and Madame Pfeiffer and her companions found themselves in a position of exceeding peril. She was thrown into prison, and it seemed impossible that she should escape with her life. She writes: – "To-day was held in the Queen's palace a great kabar, which lasted six hours and was very stormy. The kabar concerned us Europeans, and met to decide our fate. According to the ordinary way of the world, nearly all our friends, from the moment that they saw our cause lost, abandoned us, and the majority, to avoid all suspicion of having had a share in the conspiracy, insisted on our condemnation with even more bitterness than our enemies themselves. That we deserved the penalty of death was a point on which the agreement was soon very general; only the mode in which we were to be dispatched furnished the matter for prolonged discussion. Some voted for our public execution in the market-place; others for an attack by night on our house; others, again, that we should be invited to a banquet, at which we might either be poisoned, or, on a given signal, massacred.

"The Queen hesitated between these different proposals; but she would certainly have adopted and carried out one of them, if the Prince Rakoto had not come forward as our tutelary genius. He protested strongly against a sentence of death. He implored the Queen not to yield to her impulse of anger, and laid special stress on the fact that the European Powers would assuredly not allow the murder of persons so considerable as we were to pass unpunished. Never, I am told, has the Prince expressed his opinion before the Queen in so lively and firm a manner. The news reached us through a few rare friends, who, contrary to our expectation, had remained faithful to us.

"Our captivity had lasted nearly a fortnight: we had passed thirteen long days in the most painful uncertainty as to our fate, expecting every moment a fatal decision, and trembling day and night at the slightest sound. It was a frightful, a terrible time.

"This morning I was seated at my desk. I had just laid aside my pen, and was meditating whether, after the last kabar, the Queen would not have come to a decision. All at once I heard an extraordinary noise in the court. I was about to leave my room, the windows of which looked in an opposite direction, to see what was the matter, when Mons. Laborde, one of the conspirators, came to inform me that another great kabar was to be held in the court, and that we were summoned to be present.

"We went, and found upwards of a hundred persons, judges and nobles and officers, seated in a large semi-circle upon chairs and benches, and some upon the ground. Behind them was drawn up a detachment of soldiers. One of the officers received us, and assigned us places in front of the judges. The latter were attired in long white simboos; their eyes were fixed upon us with a sombre and ferocious glare, and for awhile the silence of death prevailed. I confess that at first I felt somewhat afraid, and I whispered to M. Laborde, 'I think our last hour has arrived.' He replied, 'I am prepared for everything.'"

Happily, the balance went down in favour of mercy. Madame Pfeiffer, and the other six Europeans then in Antananarivo, were ordered to quit the capital immediately. They were only too thankful to obey the order, and within an hour were on their way to Tamatavé, escorted by seventy Malagasy soldiers. They had good reason to congratulate themselves on their escape, for on the very morning of their departure, two Christians had been put to death with the most horrible tortures.

The journey to Tamatavé was not unattended by dangers and difficulties; and Madame Pfeiffer, who had been attacked with fever, underwent much suffering. No doubt the recent mental strain had enfeebled her nervous system, and rendered her more liable to disease. The escort purposely delayed them on their journey; so that, instead of reaching the coast, as they should have done, in eight days, the time actually occupied was three-and-fifty. As the road traversed a low-lying and malarious country, the consequences of such a delay were as serious as they were probably meant to be. In the unhealthiest spots, moreover, the travellers were forced to linger for a week or even a fortnight; and frequently when Madame Pfeiffer was in agony from a violent access of fever, the brutal soldiers would drag her from her wretched couch, and compel her to continue the journey.

At length, on the 12th of September, she arrived at Tamatavé; broken down, and unutterably weary and worn, but still alive. Ill as she was, she hastened to embark on board a ship that was on the point of sailing for the Mauritius; and reaching that pleasant island on the 22nd, met with a warm welcome from her friends – to whom, indeed, she was as one who had been dead and was alive again.

The suspense, the long journey, the combined mental and physical sufferings which she had undergone, and the ravages of fever, reduced her to a condition of such weakness that, at one time, her recovery seemed impossible. But careful watching and nursing warded off the enemy; and on her sixtieth birthday, October 14th, the doctors pronounced her out of danger. But a fatal blow had been given to her constitution; the fever became less frequent and less violent in its attacks, but never wholly left her. Her mind, however, recovered its elasticity, and with its elasticity, its old restlessness; and she once more began to project fresh schemes of travel. All her preparations were complete for a voyage to Australia, when a return of her disease, in February, 1858, compelled her to give up the idea and to direct her steps homeward.

In the month of June she reached London. After a few weeks' stay she proceeded to Berlin.

Her strength, formerly exceptional, was now rapidly declining; though at first she seemed unconscious of the change, or regarded it as only temporary, and displayed her characteristic impatience of repose. But about September she evinced a keen anxiety to return home; and her friends perceived that the conviction of approaching death was at the bottom of this anxiety. Growing rapidly feeble, she was conveyed to Vienna, to the house of her brother, Charles Reyer; and, for a few days, it seemed as if the influence of her native air would act as a restorative. The improvement, however, did not last, and her malady (cancer of the liver) returned with increased violence. During the last days of her life, opiates were administered to relieve her physical pain; and in the night between the 27th and the 28th of October, she passed away peacefully, almost as one who sleeps.

MADAME DE BOURBOULON

We must not omit from our chronicle of female travellers the name of Madame Catherine de Bourboulon. Of her biography we know no more than that, a Scotchwoman by birth, she married a French diplomatist, who, in 1860, was serving the State as French ambassador to the Court of Pekin.

In the month of August, 1860, she was temporarily residing at Shanghai. It would be interesting to know what the Chinese people thought of this handsome and self-possessed lady; unaccustomed as they were and are to visits from European women, and unfamiliar as they were and are with the idea that a person of the grand monde in nowise compromises her dignity by travelling about as freely and walking as readily as servants and females of the lower classes. "To see ourselves as others see us" is always instructive and interesting; and a sketch of Madame de Bourboulon by the Chinese would not be less valuable than a sketch of the Chinese by Madame de Bourboulon.

Fortune had not been kind to Madame de Bourboulon in throwing her into Shanghai during the great Taïping conspiracy, and compelling her to be an eye-witness of the crimes which sullied it. Beneath her windows were carried every day the dead bodies of the poor creatures massacred by the Taïpings, and she followed with reluctant gaze these sad "waifs and strays" as the river conveyed them seawards.

Though her health was not good, she hastened, on the conclusion of peace, to follow her husband to Pekin. From Shanghai to the Gulf of Petchi-li, into which the Peiho empties its waters, the distance is two hundred leagues. Our traveller embarked on board the steam despatch-boat Fi-lung, which was escorted by a man-of-war brig. On crossing the river-bar, she saw before her the celebrated Taku forts, and higher up the river the town of Pehtang, with immense plains of sorghum, maize, and millet spreading as far as the eye could see.

On the 12th of November she arrived at Tien-tsin. The French legation was established in a rich yamoun, which, under the presiding genius of Madame de Bourboulon, soon become the highly recherché centre of European society. There, Chinese art displayed all its marvels of design and workmanship; the colours of the rainbow glittered everywhere; the walls were emblazoned with pleasant landscapes, azure seas, transparent lakes, shadowy forests, an imperial hunting party, with antelopes and roebucks flying before the loud-mouthed hounds; in a word, with all the delights of a Chinese earthly paradise. But Madame de Bourboulon did not confine herself to social pleasures; her heart and hand were ever ready for charitable labours, and the Chinese poor had ample occasion to acknowledge her beneficence. Among other works of mercy, she adopted a young orphan girl, of whom she says: – "My little companion eats well and sleeps well. She is full of mirth, and seems neither to remember nor to care for the terrible catastrophe which separated her from her parents, massacred at the capture of Pehtang. Her feet are not yet completely deformed; however, when we remove the bandages which compress them, she does not forget to replace them at night. It is not only in China that coquetry or fashion stimulates its victims to torture and disfigure God's handiwork: the unnaturally small feet of the Chinese women are at least not more injurious or unsightly than the unnaturally small waists of the ladies of Europe!"

What the Chinese think of their women may be inferred from a characteristic incident, of which Madame de Bourboulon is the narrator.

The cook of the embassy, Ky-tsin, was a man with more years than gallantry. One day he went to see his wives and children, who resided at some distance; on his return, Madame de Bourboulon put some questions to him respecting his family. "The wives," he replied, in his bad French, and with an air of sovereign contempt, "pas bon, pas bon, bambou, bambou!" The stick seems to be the only, or at least the favourite, argument of the Chinese in their dealings with the other sex; and in this contempt for women we shall probably find the cause of the moral rottenness of the Celestial Empire.

The winter of 1860-61 Madame de Bourboulon spent quietly at Tien-tsin, her health not permitting her, in such rigorous weather, to make the journey to Pekin; but on the 22nd of March the whole legation set out for the Chinese capital, Madame de Bourboulon travelling in a litter, attended by her physician. Fortunately, the change of air and scene, and the easy movement gradually restored her physical energies. From Tien-tsin to Pekin the distance is about thirty leagues. On the road lies Tchang-kia-wang, the scene of the treacherous outrage in 1858 on the French and English bearers of truce; and almost at the gates of Pekin, the great town of Tung-tcheou and the famous bridge of Palikao, where, on the 21st of September, 1860, the Anglo-French army defeated 25,000 Tartar horsemen. This bridge, a curious work of art, measures one hundred and fifty yards in length and thirty in breadth; the marble balustrades are skilfully carved, and surmounted by marble lions in the Chinese taste.

On arriving at Pekin the French embassy was installed in the Tartar quarter. Five months later the revolution broke out which placed Prince Kung in power. The prince was well-disposed towards Europeans, and under his rule Madame de Bourboulon was able to traverse Pekin without fear. We subjoin some extracts from her journals: —

"I set out on horseback this morning," she says, "accompanied by Sir Frederick Bruce and my husband, to make a tour of the Chinese town; our escort consisted only of four European horsemen and two Ting-tchaï. We arrived at a populous carrefour, which derived a peculiar character from the large numbers of country people who flock there to dispose of all kinds of provisions, but particularly, game and vegetables; heaps of cabbages and onions rise almost to the height of the doors of the houses.

"The peasants, seated on the ground, smoke their pipes in peace, while the aged mules and bare-skinned asses, which have conveyed their wares, wander about the market-place, gleaning here and there some vegetable refuse. At every step the townsfolk, with indifferent bearing, and armed with a fan to protect their wan and powdered complexion, jostle against the robust copper-coloured country people, whose feet are thrust into sandals, and their heads covered with large straw hats. Not knowing how to guide our horses through the midst of this confused mob, we gained the precincts of the police pavilion in the hope of enjoying a little more tranquillity.

"We had been there a few moments only, when my horse showed a determined unwillingness to remain. Evidently something had frightened him. I raised my head mechanically, and thought I should have fainted before the horrible spectacle which struck my eyes. Behind us, close at hand, was a row of posts to which were fixed cross-beams of wood, and in each cage were death's heads, which stared at me with fixed, wide-open eyes, their jaws dislocated with frightful grimaces, their teeth set convulsively by the agony of the last moment, and the blood rolling drop by drop from their freshly severed necks!

"In a second we had spurred our horses to the gallop to get out of sight of this hideous charnel-house, of which I long continued to think in my sleepless nights.

"Turning to the left, we entered a street which I will call, in allusion to the trade of its inhabitants, the Toymen's… But what means this noisy music, this charivari of flutes and trumpets, drums, and stringed instruments? It is a funeral ceremony, and yonder is the door of the defunct, and in front of it the Society of Funerals (there is such an one at Pekin) has raised a triumphal arch, consisting of a wooden framework, covered with old mats and pieces of stuffs. The family has stationed a band at the door to proclaim its grief by rending the ears of the passers-by.

"We quicken our steps in order to avoid being delayed in the middle of the interminable procession. The gala-day in a Chinaman's life is the day of his death. He economizes, he deprives himself of all the comforts of life, he labours without rest or intermission, that he may have a fine funeral!

"We do not get out of this accursed street! Here another large crowd bars our passage; some proclamations and notices have just been placarded on the door of the chief of the district police; people are reading them aloud; some declaim them in a tone of bombast; while a thousand commentaries, more satirical than the text, are uttered amidst loud bursts of laughter.

"This liberty of mockery, pasquinade, and caricature at the expense of the mandarins is one of the most original sides of Chinese manners.

"A band of blind beggars, in a costume more than light, pass along, hand in hand; then an itinerant smith, a barber al fresco, and a cheap restaurateur, simultaneously ply their different trades surrounded by their customers.

"We dismounted from our horses, and by a covered passage or arcade proceeded on foot to the legation. This passage, much favoured by vendors of bric-à-brac, is simply a dark lane, 550 to 600 feet long, where two people can hardly walk abreast. There are no proper shops here, but collections of old planks, united anyhow, and supported by piles of merchandise of all kinds, vases, porcelain, bronzes, arms, old clothes, pipes; from the whole proceeds a fœtid and insupportable odour, tempered by the thick pungent smoke of lamps fed with rice-oil.

"The reader may judge with what pleasure we regained the pure air, the blue sky, and all the comfortable appliances of our quarters at Tsing-kong-fou."

Having made the journey from China to Europe five times by sea, Madame de Bourboulon and her husband resolved that their sixth should be by land, being desirous of rendering some direct service to science by penetrating into regions of which little was known. This overland route, as they foresaw, would involve them in many difficulties, fatigues, and hardships. It would impose on them a journey of six thousand miles, in the midst of half-savage populations, and over steppes and deserts virtually pathless; they would have to climb steep mountain-sides, to ford broad rivers; and, finally, to sleep under no better roof than that of a tent, and to live on milk, butter, and sea-biscuit for several months. Madame de Baluseck, wife of the Russian minister at Pekin, had already accomplished this journey. Madame de Bourboulon felt capable of an equal amount of courage, and though accustomed to live amid all the luxuries and comforts of European civilization, desired to encounter these privations, and to brave these perils.

Prince Kung, regent of the Chinese Empire, promised the travellers full security as far as the borders. He did more; for he attached to their train some mandarins of high rank to ensure the execution of his orders. A fortnight before the day fixed for departure, a caravan of camels was despatched to Kiakhta, on the Russian frontier, with wine, rice, and all kinds of provisions, intended to replace the supplies which would necessarily be exhausted during the transit of Mongolia.

A captain of engineers, M. Bouvier, superintended the construction of some vehicles of transport, light enough to be drawn by the nomad horsemen, and yet solid enough to bear the accidents of travel in the desert. Bread, rice, biscuit, coffee, tea, wine, liqueurs, all kinds of clothing, preserved meats and vegetables, were carefully packed up and stowed away in these carts, which were sent forward, three days in advance, to Kalgan, a frontier town of Mongolia. And all these preparations being completed, and every precaution taken, the 17th of May was appointed as the day of departure.

Thenceforth, and throughout the journey, Madame de Bourboulon adopted a masculine costume – that is, a vest of grey cloth, with velvet trimmings, loose pantaloons of blue stuff, spurred boots, and at need a Mongolian cloak with a double hood of furs. She mounted her favourite horse, which she had taken with her to Pekin, and it had been her companion in all her excursions in the city and the surrounding country.

At six o'clock in the morning everybody was assembled in the court of the yamoun of the French legation. Sir Frederick Bruce, the English minister; Mr. Wade, the secretary to the English legation; M. Trèves, a French naval lieutenant, and some young French interpreters were present.

Two Chinese mandarins – one with the red button; the other, his inferior in rank, with the white – gravely awaited the moment of departure to escort the travellers as far as Kalgan, and to take care that, upon requisition being made, they were provided with everything necessary to their comfort. Numerous Tching-taï, the official messengers of the legations, and other indigenous domestics, crowded the court, gravely mounted upon foundered broken-down hacks, their knees raised up to their elbows, and their hands clutching at the mane of their Rosinante, like apes astride of dogs in the arena of the circus. A couple of litters, carried by mules, were also prepared; one was intended for Madame de Bourboulon, in case of need, the other for the conveyance of five charming little Chinese dogs which she hoped to transport to Europe. At length the mandarin of the red button came to take the ambassador's orders, and gave the signal of departure.