The completion of their education and the establishment of each in his vocation gave Ida Pfeiffer leisure to mature her plans of travel. The old project of seeing the world arose anew, and now no obstacle existed in the calls of duty and common sense. She began to mature a plan for a long journey, to be undertaken alone; for she must journey by herself, as her husband’s advanced age prevented him from participating in the toil and fatigue of such an undertaking, and her sons could not be spared from their professional duties. The financial aspect of the question required much consideration. In the countries she wished to visit railways and hotels were unknown institutions, and travelers in those regions would be necessarily subjected to the expense of carrying with them all they required during the journey; and after she had devoted part of her maternal inheritance to the education of her sons, the funds at Ida Pfeiffer’s disposal were limited indeed.
“But I soon settled these weighty points to my satisfaction,” she writes in her diary. “Respecting the first, namely, the design that I, a woman, should venture into the world alone, I trusted to my years (I was already forty-five), to my courage, and to the habit of self-reliance I had acquired in the hard school of life, during the time when I was obliged to provide, not only for my children, but sometimes for my husband also. As regarded money, I was determined to practice the most rigid economy. Privation and discomfort had no terrors for me. I had endured them long enough by compulsion, and considered that they would be much easier to bear if I encountered them voluntarily with a fixed object in view.”
Another question, namely, whither she should bend her steps, was quickly answered. Two projects had occupied her mind for many years—a voyage to the North, and a journey to the Holy Land. When, however, she imparted to her friends her intention of visiting Jerusalem, she was looked upon simply as a crazy, enthusiastic person, and nobody thought her in earnest in the matter.
Nevertheless, she kept to her resolution, but concealed the real goal of her journey, declaring that her intention was to visit a friend at Constantinople, with whom she had for a long time kept up an active correspondence. She kept her passport concealed, and no one of those from whom she parted had any idea of her destination. Very painful was the parting from her sons, to whom she was tenderly attached; but she fought bravely against her softer emotions, consoled her friends with the prospect of soon meeting them again, and on the 22d of March, 1842, embarked on the steamer that was to convey her down the Danube to the Black Sea and the City of the Crescent. She visited Brussa, Beyrout, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo, and traveled across the Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. From Egypt she returned by way of Sicily and the whole of Italy to her home, arriving in Vienna in December, 1842.
As she had carefully kept a diary of her journey, from which she frequently read extracts to friends and acquaintances, she was often requested to print her experiences. The thought of becoming an authoress was repugnant to her modesty, and it was only when a publisher made her a direct offer that she consented to trust her first book to the press. It bore the title, “Journey of a Viennese Lady to the Holy Land.” The first edition appeared in two volumes in 1843, the fourth in 1856; and though the authoress neither had much that was new to tell, nor rode her Pegasus in the approved style of the traveled ladies of the period, her little book was still successful, as the four editions sufficiently prove. The very simplicity of the narration, and its appearance of unvarnished truth, at once gained numerous readers for the book.
The good result of this first journey, which gave the pilgrim fresh funds in the form of copyright money, awakened within her fresh plans; and this time she felt impelled toward the far north, where she expected to see majestic sights, and to behold nature exhibited in new and startling forms.
After various preparations, among which may be mentioned the study of the English and Danish languages, and of the art of taking Daguerreotypes, and after obtaining accurate information concerning the countries she purposed visiting, she began her journey to the north on the 10th of April, 1845. On the 16th of May she landed on the coast of Iceland, and proceeded to traverse that interesting island in every direction, visiting the Geysers and other hot springs, and ascending Hecla, which shortly after her departure began to vomit flame, after remaining for seventy years in a quiescent state. At the end of June she sailed back to Copenhagen, and from thence journeyed to Christiania, Thelemark, across the Swedish lakes to Stockholm, and over Upsala to the iron mines of Danemora. She returned to her native city by way of Travemûnde, Hamburg, and Berlin, arriving in Vienna on the 4th of October, 1845, after an absence of six months.
The journal of this second voyage appeared under the title, “Voyage to the Scandinavian North and the Island of Iceland,” in two volumes, at Pesth, and was much read. The money realized by a sale of the geological and botanical specimens collected during this tour, together with the sum paid for the copyright of her book, were put aside by Ida Pfeiffer as the nucleus of a fund for a new undertaking, and one of a more ambitious character. A voyage round the world now occupied the thoughts of this brave woman; and when once she had conceived the idea, she could not rest until it was put in execution.
“Greater privations and fatigue than I had endured in Syria and Iceland,” she writes, “I could scarcely have to encounter. The expense did not frighten me, for I knew by experience how little is required if the traveler will but practice the strictest economy, and be content to forego all comforts and superfluities. My savings accumulated to a sum barely sufficient perhaps to serve such travelers as Prince Pückler-Muskau, Chateaubriand, or Lamartine for a fortnight’s excursion, but which seemed enough for me during a journey of two or three years, and the event proved that I had calculated rightly.”
Again concealing the whole extent of her undertaking from her relations, and especially from her sons, and naming Brazil as her destination, our traveler bade adieu to Vienna on the 1st of May, 1846, and betook herself to Hamburg, where she was compelled to wait till the 28th of June before a suitable opportunity for proceeding to the Brazils offered itself in the shape of a little Danish brig.