Isabella L. Bird

“So genial is its spirit, so enticing its narrative.”—New Englander and Yale Review (1881). The first recorded account of Japan by a Westerner, this 1878 book captures a lifestyle that has nearly vanished. The author traveled 1,400 miles by horse, ferry, foot, and jinrikisha.

This account by an English lady traveling in America in 1854 with relatives was written for her friends rather than for publication. At nearly 500 pages, her narrative is very rich in detail. Probably because of the intended audience, it is light, amusing, frank and opinionated. Her route included substantial travel in the east as well as a western itinerary that included stays in Cincinnati and Chicago.

"There never was anybody," wrote the Spectator, "who had adventures as well as Miss Bird." In Among the Tibetans you can see why, as Isabella Lucy Bird writes of her journey through the Himalayas on horseback and of her four months of living with "the pleasantest of people." She offers evocative and colourful descriptions of Tibetan rituals and culture, along with vivid descriptions of its villages, monasteries, temples and palaces."Up to Kargil the scenery, though growing more Tibetan with every march, had exhibited at intervals some traces of natural verdure; but beyond, after leaving the Suru, there is not a green thing, and on the next march the road crosses a lofty, sandy plateau, on which the heat was terrible - blazing gravel and a blazing heaven, then fiery cliffs and scorched hillsides, then a deep ravine and the large village of Paskim (dominated by a fort-crowned rock), and some planted and irrigated acres; then a narrow ravine and magnificent scenery flaming with colour, which opens out after some miles on a burning chaos of rocks and sand, mountain-girdled, and on some remarkable dwellings on a steep slope, with religious buildings singularly painted. This is Shergol, the first village of Buddhists, and there I was 'among the Tibetans.'"

"Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman whose extensive travels and writings earned her the first female membership of the Royal Geographical Society, visited Malaya, Singapore, Indo-China and Hong Kong in 1879. She wrote 23 letters describing her adventures to her sister Hennie in Scotland, and named the collection The Golden Chersonese after the ancient name given to the Malay Peninsula by the Greek scholar, Ptolemy. Her detailed descriptions of the Malay Peninsula in the 1870s are in startling contrast to present-day Malaysia and Singapore, and provide a fascinating account of many aspects of the region, including the people, culture, landscapes, and wildlife, all described with the Victorian stiff upper lip typical of her time."--Publisher's description.