X
22101154148
THE LIFE OF
ISABELLA BIRD
(mrs. bishop)
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Wellcome Library
https://archive.org/details/b31358962
THE LIFE OF
ISABELLA BIRD
(MRS. BISHOP)
\
BY ANNA M. STODDART
AUTHOR OF tcTHE LIFE OF PROFESSOR J. S. RLACKIE”
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1 906
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PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
PREFACE
Four Englishwomen have, during the last thirty years, established for themselves a well-grounded fame as travellers — Mrs. Bishop, Miss North, Miss Kingsley, and Miss Gordon Cumming. Lady Baker and Lady Burton were as brave and as resourceful as any of the four ; but it must be remembered that each of them was protected by the presence of her husband against the most powerful of terrorising influences, namely, the solitude which magnifies peril and weakens resistance.
Each of these four ladies has her own special characteristic, literary and artistic ; each in her own way has shown what English ladies can do, and with pen and pencil has aroused the interest and admiration of the reading public. Two generations of readers have been strongly attracted by Mrs. Bishop’s books of travel, and her capacity for accurate observa¬ tion, her retentive memory, and her power of vivid portrayal, have enabled multitudes to share her experiences and adventures in those lands beyond the pale which drew her ever with magnetic force.
To this widespread circle, which learnt to admire her resourceful self-reliance, is due some account of the circumstances which moulded her character, and of the work which she accomplished for her fellows.
VI
PREFACE
As a traveller Mrs. Bishop’s outstanding merit is, that she nearly always conquered her territories alone; that she faced the wilderness almost single- handed ; that she observed and recorded without companionship. She suffered no toil to impede her, no study to repel her. She triumphed over her own limitations of health and strength as over the dangers of the road. Nor did she ever lose, in numberless rough vicissitudes, in intercourse with untutored peoples, or in the strenuous dominance which she was repeatedly compelled to exercise, her womanly graces of tranquil manner, gentle voice, reasonable persuasiveness. Wherever she found her servants — whether coolies, mule-drivers, soldiers, or personal attendants — she secured their devotion. The exceptions were very rare, and prove the rule.
Wherever she went, she gave freely the skilled help with which her training had furnished her, and her journeys were as much opportunities for healing, nursing, and teaching, as for incident and adventure. She longed to serve every human being with whom she came in contact.
I have sought to present her as I knew her. She so kept the balance of her gifts that it is difficult to indicate one quality as more characteristic than another. A woman of deep religious conviction and practice, she felt that true religion was the direct outcome of the working of the Spirit, and not de¬ pendent on the influence of this or that church or chapel. She ardently desired the spread of the king¬ dom of Christ Jesus in the world, but was not herself concerned to advocate any special rites or dogmas. She loved humanity, and eagerly welcomed and in¬ vestigated all evidences of its wonderful and splendid possibilities, and she was inimical to any systems
PREFACE
Vll
which restricted the free entrance and expansion of the Eternal Spirit of Life.
In writing Mrs. Bishop’s biography, I have been greatly indebted for information to her relatives and friends. Among the former I should like especially to name Miss Merttins Bird.
■N
The friends who have helped me are too many for detailed mention, but Lady Middleton, Mrs. Blackie, Miss Cullen (who so soon followed her friend and whose welcome of this volume I sadly miss), Mrs. Bickersteth, Mrs. Allan, Mrs. Macdonald, the Bishop of London, Sir Walter Hillier, Mr. Dunlop, Dr. Neve, the Rev. W. G. Walshe, and the Rev. L. B. Cholmondeley, have all contributed so greatly to the contents of this book that I cannot refrain from recording my sincere acknowledgment of their assistance.
To Miss E. M. C. Ker very special thanks are due for constant help, explanation, correction, ma¬ terials, and for the originals of a large number of the illustrations.
And it is difficult to express adequately my great indebtedness to Mr. Murray and Mr. Haliam Murray for their deep interest in the book, for their en¬ couraging and scrutinising criticism, for their personal help in revision and reconstruction, and for the use of many letters which have been the basis, not only of nearly all that is said about Mrs. Bishop’s published books, but of many most interesting passages in this record of her life.
Anna M. Stoddart.
August , 1906.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE i
II. FIRST TRAVELS AND PUBLICATIONS . . 27
III. EDINBURGH AND WORK . 47
IV. IN JOURNEYINGS OFT . 70
V. THE WIDE EAST . 100
VI. “AN TAON BHEANNICHT ” (“THE BLESSED
ONE”) . 122
VII. MARRIAGE . 143
VIII. LOSS . 167
IX. “THROUGH MANY LANDS” . 193
X. NATIONS THAT SIT IN DARKNESS . . 217
XI. PUBLIC WORK . 244
XII. THE FAR EAST . 270
XIII. THE CHANGING EAST . 303
XIV. LAST JOURNEYS . 344
XV. “I AM GOING HOME” . 369
APPENDIX . 394
INDEX . 398
ix
LIST
OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. Bishop . Frontispiece
From, a photograph take?i by Messrs. Elliott & Fry ( Photogravure ).
Robert Bird of Barton House, Warwick, ob. 1842,
Grandfather of Mrs. Bishop . . . Facing p. 2
From a miniature.
Boroughbridge Hall, where Isabella Lucy Bird
was born . 8
From a photograph.
Tap low Hill, taken before 1869 . . . „ 14
St. Margaret’s Church, Wyton . ,,24
From a photograph.
Wyton Rectory . ,,34
From a photograph.
Lady Olivia Sparrow . ,,36
From a picture by Richard Buckner , engraved by William Walker , 1854.
The Rev. Edward Bird, Mrs. Bishop’s Father . „ 44
From a miniature.
Mrs. Edward Bird, Mrs. Bishop’s Mother . „ 64
From a photograph.
Dr. Bishop . „ 118
From a photograph by J. Moffat, Edinburgh.
Henrietta Amelia Bird . „ 122
From a photograph.
View from The Cottage, Tobermory „ 128
From a photograph by Miss Alison Barbour,
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
Isabella Lucy Bird just before her Marriage Facing ft. 138
From a photograph by J. Moffat (. Photogravure ).
Barton House . . . ,,142
St. Lawrence’s Church, Barton-on-the-Moor,
where Mrs. Bishop was married. „ 146
From a sketch by herself.
The Cottage, Tobermory . ,,156
From a photograph by Miss Alison Barbour.
Mrs. Bishop’s Tent on her Ride amongst the
Bakhtiari Lurs . . 228
Mrs. Bishop in her Travelling Dress at
Erzeroum . „ 242
Mrs. Bishop in Tangier . . 260
Mrs. Bishop at Newcastle . 270
From a photograph by Lyd Sawyer.
Mrs. Bishop’s Sampan , Han River, Korea. . . „ 276
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Canyon in the Diamond Mountains „ 280
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Gate of Victory, MUkden ...... „ 288
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
South Gate, Seoul . „ 294
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Snapshot taken of Mrs, Bishop at Swatow by
Mr. Mackenzie . 298
Preparing to meet Mrs. Bishop at a Chinese Inn „ 302
Fran a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Mrs. Bishop’s Travelling Party . . . . „ 306
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Mrs. Bishop’s Boat ........ 310
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Xll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Mitan Gorge ....
From a photograph, by Mrs. Bishop.
The Talu .
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Poppy Field at Cheng-tu .
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
A Man-tze Rock Temple
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Bridge and Mountain Inn .
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
Facing p. 312
„ 3*6
320
„ 322
» 326
Harbour of Chemulpo .
From a photograph by Mrs . Bishop.
Mrs. Bishop in Manchu Dress .... West Gate at Chia-ling Fu
Specimen of one of Mrs. Bishop' s Chinese photographs.
Covered Bridge .
From a photograph by Mrs. Bishop.
The “ Henrietta Amelia Bird ” Memorial Clock, Tobermory .
„ 332
» 350
•n j6°
» 370
» 394
North America . Asia
MAPS
At the End
LIFE OF ISABELLA L. BIRD
[mrs. bishop]
CHAPTER I
PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE
The Birds, a widespread clan of the upper middle class, almost defy tabulation into branches and families : their genealogists are so embarrassed by the results of constant intermarriage, amongst cousins of far and near degree, that the most valiant efforts are marred by confusion and blunders. It must suffice, therefore, to supply some simple details of Mrs. Bishop’s immediate descent and relationships. These relationships have so direct a bearing upon her own great inheritance of character — mental, moral, and spiritual — that we may be pardoned for making a short digression into the maze of collateral families doubly and trebly allied to each other.
Of the clan generally little need be told, except its descent from William Bird, who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century. He died in 1731, bequeath¬ ing Barton, in Warwickshire, to his eldest son, Thomas Bird. His second son, John, was for a time in London, where he became an alderman, and, after marrying Judith Wilberforce, retired to Kenilworth, where he died and was buried in 1 772. His wife, who survived him many years, was in due time laid by his side.
1
2 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [CHAP. I
Of these Kenilworth Birds, two daughters, Hannah and Lucy, especially claim our attention. Hannah, the elder, married, in 1779, the Rev. Robert Sumner, Vicar of Kenilworth, whom she survived forty- four years, living to see her eldest son, John Bird Sumner, made Bishop of Chester, a see from which he rose to the Primacy of the Church of England ; while her second son, Charles Richard Sumner, was first made Bishop of Llandaff, and was then transferred to the see of Winchester.
Hannah Bird’s sister Lucy married her cousin, Robert Bird, of Barton, and was Mrs. Bishop’s grandmother.
This Robert Bird was Thomas Bird’s grandson, a second son, and obliged to make his way in the world without expectation of inheriting Barton House. In this he prospered, seeking and finding fortune in India first, and then in America, for he had both spirit and ability, inherited perhaps from his maternal grandfather, Sir George Merttins, sometime Lord Mayor of London, whose memorial slab, with his shield as governor and treasurer of Christ’s Hospital, has quite recently been removed to Horsham.
When Robert’s elder brother, Henry, died without children, he succeeded to the property in Warwick¬ shire. But by this time he was married and the father of ten children — four sons and six daughters. Barton was remote, and Mr. Bird felt disinclined to live out of touch with the world, so he let the place for a long term of years, and rented Taplow Hill, in Berkshire, where he and his family became so thoroughly at home that the county claimed them as Birds of Taplow, ignoring the fact that they were merely its tenants.
Robert Bird of Barton House, Warwick, ob. 1842, Grandfather of Mrs. Bishop.
■
.
*
-
ROBERT BIRD OF BARTON
3
i
He was properly Robert Bird of Barton, in War¬ wickshire, and the old gabled manor-house was worthy of greater attachment from its owner, though we can understand his seeking a more advantageous centre as home for his sons and daughters. Later on in our story Barton will interest us as the house from which Isabella Bird was married, and we linger a moment ere we follow her grandfather to Berkshire. It. is greatly altered now to suit modern requirements, but in 1881 it remained much as it had ever been, and, with the village on the heath and its ancient church, looked more like a bit of Queen Elizabeth’s than of Queen Victoria’s England. The little church of St. Lawrence, with Norman tower and antique inconvenience, takes us farther back still, to days when the broad lands of War¬ wickshire harboured only churls enough to serve their lord’s manor, and parish laws took no account of the future and increasing rural congregations.
But the squire of Barton on his final return from America settled at Taplow Hill. His wife was a daughter of Judith Wilberforce, and brought her mother’s strenuous racial strain into the home atmosphere and into her children’s character and rearing. She was doubly connected with the Wilber- forces, for her aunt, Elizabeth Bird, of Kenilworth, married Judith’s uncle, Robert Wilberforce, of Hull : these two were parents of the great liberator, William Wilberforce. The young people at Taplow Hill were twice over Wilberforce’s cousins, and in his youth and middle-age he was a constant guest there, honoured by all, and especially after his death by the lingering maiden ladies, who treasured as mementoes of their great kinsman lines inscribed by him on the blank leaves of their Bibles.
4 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
How forcibly this impassioned strain was to direct and govern Edward Bird, the third son of Robert and Lucy Bird, remains to be told ; but it is im¬ possible to overestimate its influence both in his and his daughter’s character. From her great-grand¬ mother, grandmother, and father Isabella received the priceless inheritance of a soul-hunger and thirst for righteousness, which in her later years was to dominate all that she observed, to vitalise all her convictions, and to culminate in her memorable appeals to Christian England to send out into all the Christless world and bring its unhappy millions to the Saviour.
The Taplow sons and daughters were Robert Merttins Bird, sent early to India, a happy-hunting- ground for lads in the days of the East India Company; Henry, who went into the navy; Lucy, who married the Rev. Marmaduke Thompson ; Mary, who followed her eldest brother to India, and when he married devoted herself to missionary work and died in harness there ; Edward, who was first a barrister and then a clergyman ; Elizabeth, who married Mr. Harrington Evans ; Henrietta, who had strong views on infant baptism and renounced on their behalf her clerical lover, at the sacrifice of her life ; Rebecca and Catherine, who never married ; and George Merttins the youngest, born in America, who followed his eldest brother to India, where both married daughters of the Rev. David Brown, one of the “ five great chaplains,” and a colleague of Henry Martyn.
These two Taplow sons entered the service of the East India Company, but the younger died in early manhood, his widow bringing two little ones to Taplow Hill, and living there till old Mr. Bird’s death.
1792-1812]
EDWARD BIRD
5
It is with the third son, Edward Bird, that we have especially to do, and of his career we have clear although scanty information in a memorial sketch written by his daughter in 1858, immediately after his death, and printed for private circulation. It contains only thirty-five short pages, and deals almost wholly with his clerical and public rather than with his private life. But a few facts may be gathered from it and interwoven with reminiscences supplied by his niece, Miss Merttins Bird.
He was born in 1792, and must have been a lad with two brothers and three sisters older than himself when the family roof-tree was set up at Taplow early in the last century. His father destined him, like his elder sons, for India, and sent him to Cambridge for thorough equipment. He was entered at Magdalene, where he graduated. In the meantime, his sister Elizabeth married the Rev. J. Harrington Evans, a young clergyman of the strongest evangelical type. Edward Bird was about twenty years old when it was proposed that he should read the Bible with his brother-in-law during vacation time. He did so in a perfunctory manner, indifferent at that time to its message. Mr. Evans was discouraged and suggested that readings so little valued should cease. This startled his pupil and brought him to anxious self-questioning. He became conscious of his own levity, went home in distress and prayed that God would pardon him and vouchsafe to him every blessing which the Bible can confer. From that day he read anxiously and earnestly, but it was not until he heard Mr. Evans preach on the text “ Without Me ye can do nothing,” that he fully understood his deep need of Christ Himself. It was a new man in Christ that returned
6 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
to Magdalene, eager to serve Him whom now he loved.
When he had graduated he went to London, studied law with Sir George Stephen, and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. This was in pursuance of his father’s plan for him, as a legal training led to judicial appointments and promotion in India. Thither therefore he sailed with his young wife, Emma Burt, in 1825, and settled down to practise as a barrister of the Supreme Court in Calcutta. But a great sorrow befell him the following year, when his wife died of cholera and left him comfort¬ less but for her babe, a boy called Edward after himself, who was stricken with fatal fever three years later. This double blow shattered his health, and he was compelled to relinquish his practice and return to England in 1829.
The home nursing gradually restored his natural vigour, but he found himself averse to resuming his life at the point of rupture. Calcutta’s worldli¬ ness, rapacity, and vice had appalled him, and during his brief stay he had maintained an attitude of uncompromising opposition to its callous un¬ righteousness. To return was very distasteful to him. Besides, grief, loss, and illness had weakened his anxiety about preferment and distinction. Within his heart had awakened a new yearning, a new necessity, and it had matured in the darkness of his night of sorrow. He longed to preach the gospel, and to gather in souls for Christ — souls for whom the world was ever on the watch to tarnish them and set its mark upon them.
He was thirty-eight years old when he took Holy Orders — set upon doing in half a lifetime a whole span of work in God’s vineyard. His first curacy
1830]
THE LAWSONS
7
was at Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. At Borough- bridge Hall lived the widow and family of the Rev. Marmaduke Lawson. Mrs. Lawson had inherited the house and grounds at her uncle's death in 1805. The Hall is mainly a fine old Elizabethan structure, gabled and pointed, to which a pillared porch and large bay-windows were added in 1836. Mr. Lawson had been a prebendary of Ripon Cathedral, an able but exceedingly reserved man. His children inherited both characteristics. In the year before his father’s death, the eldest, also Marmaduke, won the first Pitt scholarship at Cambridge ; and when news of this success reached the old gentleman he said drily, “ Barbara would have done better.” But Marmaduke took the Chancellor’s medal also, and both he and his brother Andrew proved themselves to be honour¬ able and useful men, members too of the House of Commons, for which the more brilliant Barbara was unhappily disqualified. Mr. Andrew Lawson lived in the neighbouring manor of Aldborough, and possessed a most interesting collection of pre-Roman and Roman antiquities, for Aldborough was the ancient capital of the Brigantes, and became a favourite Brito-Roman residence with its captors. He built and endowed a district parish church. He also had distinguished himself both at Shrewsbury, under Dr. Butler, and at Merton College, Oxford, and was twice returned to Parliament as Conservative member for Knaresborough. He outlived his brother Marmaduke thirty years.
Their sisters were highly educated up to the measure of that day ; and when Mr. Bird arrived as curate at Boroughbridge, he found at once congenial friends in Mrs. Lawson and her family. This friend¬ ship ripened to affection in the case of Dora Lawson,
8 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [CHAP. I
the second daughter, and they were married in 1830. Dora Lawson’s favourite occupation for some years had been Sunday-school work. There was none at Boroughbridge, so she paid for a room in the village out of her own pocket-money, and taught five classes there every Sunday, from young women down to little children. She was a fitting companion in all respects — a woman whose tact, dignity, and kindness never failed, although great reserve of manner some¬ times hid the true warmth of her nature.
Isabella Lucy, called after her two grandmothers, was born at Boroughbridge Hall on October 15, 1831.
Early next year Mr. Bird went as curate to Maiden¬ head in Berkshire, where two years of extraordinary activity awaited him. The spirit which animated him was felt from the beginning, and he not only filled the church at all ordinary services, but was obliged to hold many extra meetings and to receive in his study, daity, many anxious inquirers of every class. A troop of the Life Guards stationed at Maidenhead came under his influence, and some of the men came to him for spiritual help and guidance. It was a time of rapid sowing, reaping, and harvesting, very rare in one man’s experience, and he was filled with joy and gratitude. But his physical strength was not equal to the strain, and, although he recognised that God had set His seal upon the life dedicated to Him, his enfeebled constitution compelled him to abandon his work at Maidenhead, and his cousin, Dr. Bird Sumner, Bishop of Chester, presented him with the quiet living of Tattenhall, in Cheshire.
Thither he removed with his wife and little girl in 1834, and in this restful sphere he remained for eight years. A baby boy, called Edward, had been born, and died at Maidenhead in 1833. Soon after
Boroughbridge Hall, where Isabella Lucy Bird was born.
■
1834]
TATTENHALL
9
his arrival his third child was born, a little girl, to whom was given her aunt Henrietta’s name. Here, in the midst of beautiful scenery, amongst the sweet influences of garden and pasture, these little ones spent their early childhood. The country round consisted of large tracts of grazing-lands where the farmers were engaged in cheese-making.
Chester was seven miles distant, but three miles of the road were paved, and it was not pleasant for either walking, driving, or riding. Nevertheless, Isabella was both walking and riding upon it when she was little more than four years old. Her tiny body was fragile, her face white, and on her lips was the constant cry, “ I very tired.” Her parents kept her out of doors as much as possible, and the doctor suggested that Mr. Bird should take her on a cushion before him when he rode round his parish. So she learned to ride almost in infancy, and was promoted a year or two later to her own horse, for her father rode one and she the other of the carriage-pair.
To those outings she owed far more than her life-long familiarity with the art of riding, although that was no small gain for one who was afterwards to mount, as necessity urged, ox, horse, mule, or yak in distant lands. As a child her riding- habit was her usual dress — a smocked frock, little finer than a carter’s. As they rode, Mr. Bird would draw her attention to every feature of the wayside — to the fields far and near, in grass, or crops, or fallow, to the farm-houses, their dairies and press-houses, telling her the uses of all and each, questioning her minutely as to what she saw. Long after, a friend asked her to what she traced her habit of accurate observation. “ To my father’s conversational questioning upon everything,” she
io PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
answered. “ If we rode, he made me tell him about the crops in such-and-such fields — whether a water¬ wheel were under-shot, or over-shot, how each gate we passed through was hung, about animals seen and parishioners met.” And so she learned to measure distance and space with her eye, to note each season’s signs and labours, to look for changes in the crops and to know their purpose.
And as her father knew every wayside and meadow flower, she learned their names, habits, and uses, and felt for them an almost passionate love, which she retained to the end of her life. Even when human sympathy hardly consoled her, flowers would reach her sorrow and their sweet solace would recall her to fortitude.
An incident out of the meagre annals of those years at Tattenhall recurs to the memory as it was told in after years by herself. One Sunday morning she was left alone in the house and in bed. Her mother, thinking her scarcely well enough to go to church, had wrapped her up and bidden her rest till she returned. Isabella was not more than five years old, but a little scheme had been forming in her active mind for some days, and she felt this solitude to be her opportunity. Out on the lawn was a round bed of ranunculuses, crimson and golden and glorious, which she longed to visit. It was forbidden, for the weather had been rainy and the grass was damp. But she stole out of her wrappings and pattered downstairs with shoeless feet to the drawing-room window, which opened down to the ground. Out she darted straight to the flower-bed, and walking round and round, counting the bright blossoms, touching them and kissing them, she filled her whole being with the joy of them, and flitted
1836]
CHILDHOOD
1 1
back to bed. She said no word about her escapade, but cherished its memory awhile and then forgot it for a score of years.
To this time too belongs one of those thrilling episodes which give to children their first awe¬ stricken but rapt experience of the mystery of iniquity.
Near Tattenhall rises a hill known as Rawhead, a name of itself sufficient to fill a child’s imagination with strange terrors. This hill was full of caves, in which dwelt a gang of outcasts whose doings grew notorious. Robbery followed robbery in the neigh¬ bourhood, The caves were searched on suspicion, but nothing was found to warrant arrest. The burglaries continued and the matter grew serious. At length one midnight some one passing the churchyard saw lights and heard voices, and forth¬ with proclaimed that it was haunted. No one would go near it, until the magistrates decided to make a midnight raid with armed constables, and to see what manner of ghosts disturbed its peace. They found the Rawhead gang busy hiding booty in a grave, the slab of which they had raised. An old woman whose cottage was close to the churchyard proved to be in collusion with the burglars and had assisted them to choose their storehouse. All were arrested and transported. But Isabella never forgot how her nurse took her to see the unearthing of silver- plate and jewellery from that grim hiding-place, and how, trembling, rather with eagerness than fear, she and a little playfellow watched the whole process hand-in-hand, from the lifting of the slab to the recovery of the last teaspoon.
Fear, indeed, she hardly knew, and her fearlessness was disconcerting at times, when she played the
12 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
r6le of enfant terrible , flashing out the pithy sarcasm which in youth came so readily to her lips.
She was not more than six years old when — as Miss Grainger Stewart told us in Blackwood' s Magazine , a few weeks after her death — she sat listening to a gentleman who was canvassing Tattenhall in his own interest, and who excited her distrust by his too obviously expressed admiration of the lovely little Henrietta. She marched up to him and asked in clear incisive tones : “ Sir Malpas de Grey Tatton Egerton, did you tell my father my sister was so pretty because you wanted his vote ? ”
This power of expressing herself was remarkable from her earliest years. Her parents treated her with wise observation and noted her quick mental growth, indicating rich and varied endowment. Her brain was never stunted by rebuff, nor stultified by baby language. They took ample care that her lessons should not be overstimulating; and as Mrs. Bird taught her children herself, her judgment meted out the length and quality of what they learned. To be in the open air, to be with her parents, to understand therefore almost unconsciously the con¬ ditions of life and human intercourse, the arts too of speaking, reading, and writing; to absorb from father and mother opinions, standards, tastes, and distastes — these were her early education in the truest sense. Recalling that time, she once said : “No one can teach now as my mother taught; it was all so wonderfully interesting that we sat spell¬ bound when she explained things to us. We should never have liked an ordinary teacher.”
It was not possible, however, to stay her from reading when she had once found the key to all knowledge stored in books. One day she was lost,
1 838]
EDUCATION
13
and the mid-day meal was cooling on the table while mother and maids sought her high and low. At last, in order that no possible hiding-place might be overlooked, they looked into the stable, and there in the manger they found her poring over a heavy volume,
which proved to be Alison’s French Revolution , more
>
fascinating to the seven-year-old student than all the moral tales of Maria Edgeworth and her like. Isabella Bird wanted no books for children ; from the beginning her mind fastened on the actual and grew robust on the strongest food, her vigorous imagination finding scope, and to spare, in real events, whether past or present, and preferring the miracles of Moses, and the wilderness-march of his people, to all the sentimental and educational feigning of that day.
Then there was one delightful annual visit which made a deep impression upon her character and multiplied her standards. This was the holiday at Taplow Hill with the grandparents and maiden aunts. They all went together and spent about a month, in the summer-time, when the gardens looked their best.
The old people were still alive, although the Squire was nearing eighty, and Mrs. Robert Bird was but four years younger. Their long life together was approaching its end, for the grandfather died in 1842, when Isabella was eleven years old, and the grandmother was solitary for six surviving years. But while Mr. Bird was Rector of Tattenhall both were alive, dignified and hospitable. Taplow not only sheltered all the Indian grandchildren, but the bereaved children of the house as well. It is from Miss Merttins Bird, “ the last Taplow grandchild,” that we gather details of her childhood’s home, and are therefore enabled to realise the happy summer
i4 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
days which helped to mould Isabella’s manners, her sense of the fitting, perhaps to accentuate her reserve and to develop her individuality. The house is now altered out of knowledge, but it was always large and roomy, with stables, paddocks, gardens, and ample space attached. Long walks, planted with shrubs and fruit-trees, ran on either side of a great field, and these began and ended in summer-houses. Beyond the field were palings which separated the grounds of Taplow Hill from the adjoining Rectory gardens. Two generations of Birds have played as children beneath the old mulberry-tree, on the lawn or round about the borders, full of all old- fashioned garden glories, every one of which Isabella remembered all her life. A sunk fence separated garden from paddocks, and along it thyme, yarrow, and bedstraw made a bank of purple and gold in July.
Within, the drawing-room was wide-bayed and furnished with satin-wood, inlaid with borders of white roses on tables and chairs, whose spindle-legs vouched for their period. There, in the evenings, old and young would assemble to listen to reading aloud or unite in singing “The Pilgrim Fathers,” “The Curfew Bell,” “ The Captive Knight,” or some sweet melody by Balfe or Bishop.
Now and again some guest would engross his hearers by tales in condemnation of slavery or on behalf of missions.
The Taplow grandchildren breathed the atmo¬ sphere of “ Causes,” and were in contact with their leaders during all the second quarter of last century. What used to be called the “ Clapham Sect ” knew Taplow Hill well. Old Mrs. Bird’s close kinship with William Wilberforce, a kinship moral as well as
i84o] TAPLOW HILL 15
racial, determined the strictly evangelical tone of her household.
Family prayers began the morning. All servants, outdoor as well as indoor, were summoned, and sat in line to hear the Squire read the lessons and a prayer for the day out of Thornton’s Family Prayers . Then the old gentleman rose up and bowed to men and maids, as they filed out past him with curtseys and salutes. Breakfast followed, when letters were read aloud, for postage was a consideration then, and letters were framed with decorum for general reading — those from India exciting special interest. The ladies of the family took no sugar in their tea, and felt the sacrifice to be a sacred protest against slave-grown products. Oddly enough, although they daily mourned its absence, they took sugarless tea long after the emancipation in the West Indies.
The maiden aunts were short-sighted, and wore spectacles, which gave them an expression of stern¬ ness quite foreign to their natures. Still, on certain points they were stern enough, and the only drawback to Isabella’s perfect enjoyment of Taplow Hill was that she was never allowed to sit down during the long Sunday services, but in pain and weariness had to endure, standing to the end. This was especially irksome to her, as it was in her early childhood that the trouble which dogged her whole suffering life was developed ; and had her courage not risen above it she might have delivered herself over to confirmed ill-health and adorned a sofa all her days. But, even as a child, her brave spirit scorned prolonged concession to this delicacy. Every one rode at Taplow, and Isabella bettered her home lessons upon Shag and Camilla. She raced and rode with her cousins, and, though younger than
16 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
some of them, was recognised amongst them all as a superior, whose opinions on religious, social, and even political subjects were to be courted and quoted.
Her little sister Henrietta was shyer and less spirited, although her health was more equable and her mental advance almost as rapid as Isabella’s. She was very winning and gentle; always happy with a book and with her mother; a little reserved, and less inclined for boisterous comradeship. But she, too, could ride and run and read and dream. More drawn by the spiritual world than was Isabella then, her thoughts were wont to dwell there in a kind of rapt reverie. A cousin, Henrietta Bird, from whom we have quoted largely in these details about Taplow, lived there ; and to distinguish one from the other, Isabella’s sister was called Hennie, and was always known by that abbreviation.
The little girls were respectively eleven and eight when they were taken away from Tattenhall and set down in Birmingham. More than one reason made this change advisable. Isabella was stronger, Mr. Bird was anxious for a more arduous sphere of labour, and some discontent had arisen at his warm championship of Sabbath observance in the cheese-making districts round Tattenhall.
A great sorrow fell upon them all in 1842, in the death of their beloved father and grandfather. He had lived eighty-two years, and had received the last desire of his heart in the return of his eldest son Robert Merttins Bird. When the successful Anglo- Indian stood by his bedside, his father looked at him and whispered : 11 What was it the old man Simeon said? Nunc dimittis , was it not?” And soon after he passed away.
1842]
BIRMINGHAM
17
The church at Tattenhall had grown discouragingly empty, in consequence of Mr. Bird’s fearless protests against Sunday labour. Nearly as much work was done on Sundays as on week-days — not in the open fields, but in the dairies and presses. It is difficult to understand the question in all its bearings, for it is obvious that cows must be milked on Sundays. Doubtless Mr. Bird did not oppose the necessary work, but only the increase of unnecessary work in the manufacture of dairy produce on Sundays which had crept in, and which to him was a manifest breach of a divine law, declared by God Himself to be the test of national righteousness and the condition of national prosperity. Mr. Bird’s point of view was the law of the living God ; but he was powerless against the bidding of Mammon, and the convicted farmers left a church where there was no comfortable doctrine for their case.
How sad a leave-taking it must have been is borne in upon us when we note the beauty and peace of Tattenhall, and then visit the parish of St. Thomas’s in Birmingham. The Bishop, too, disapproved of his transfer; and had Mr. Bird not found absolute trust in his decision within his own family, the step might have been still harder to take. Those faithful to him at Tattenhall felt the parting bitterly, and for many years there lived in the parish godly men and women whom he had brought to Christ, and who were known as “Bird’s saints.”
St. Thomas’s in Birmingham is a large, gloomy church, built in the worst possible taste, that pseudo- classical style, pretentious and dismal, which Georgian architects affected. It contrasted painfully with sunny St. Alban’s at Tattenhall, where the light fell through ancient stained glass, and five cheerful bells called the
2
18 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
parishioners to worship. St. Thomas’s had been planned to seat over two thousand people, but a few hundred formed the congregation in 1843, and these were always shifting.
The city was then heaving with the last throes of Chartism, and four years earlier the rioters had made a pause at St. Thomas’s to pull up the railing and arm themselves with its iron spikes, on their march to wreck Lucy’s Mills. The hands were still sullen, the employers were hard. Sunday labour was more than permitted. Success was the one standard in Birmingham. It mattered little of what intrinsic quality of righteousness, or the reverse, a man’s aims might be — public opinion applauded, or blamed their issue according to their success or failure.
The Birds found a house in Frederick’s Road, with a garden attached, which employed the old Tattenhall gardener, who came with them. It had some apple- trees big enough to give seats and shelter to the little girls, who used to climb into them and con their lessons hidden amongst the leaves.
Mr. Bird began eagerly to organise his work — the parish visiting, the Sunday school, the preaching. It was a heavy task. The parish contained a popu¬ lation of 16,000, and the church was almost empty. Then, stronger in Birmingham than in the grazing- lands of Cheshire, Mammon swayed men’s souls. His parish was given over to Sunday trading, and the fight he had to wage on the Lord’s side was with a very Apollyon.
At first his preaching produced the strong, arresting, and attracting influence which it had done at Maidenhead. Men came from all parts of the city to hear the new Rector, amongst them many working¬ men, who, of all others there, needed most the help of
1843]
“ST. THOMAS DAYS”
19
God and of His servants, since help from Mammon there was none. These he received on Sunday after¬ noons, visiting their wives and homes through the week, spending and being spent for the poor. He had fellow-workers amongst the Nonconformists, with some of whom, and notably with Mr. Angell James, he formed cherished friendships. Indeed, Mr. Angell James and he together organised the midland division of the Evangelical Alliance.
For the Sunday-school staff he selected his best and most willing members, one of whom is still alive in Birmingham. It is to Miss Sanders, a sweet old lady, whose joy it is to recall those happy years of service for Christ, that we are indebted for most of these recollections of St. Thomas’s. Only she and another are alive now to remember Mr. Bird. Young as Isabella was, she was pressed into the service. Miss Sanders remembers her teaching a class of girls as old as herself, and not only winning their attention, but their devotion. It did not occur to them that their teacher was too young, for her self- possession, mastery of language, and clear exposition gave her the needed command. It is most interesting, in this connection, to quote from a letter written by Mrs. Bishop to Miss Sanders at Christmas, 1903, less than a year before she died.
You are one of the very few survivals of the vividly remembered St. Thomas days. How well I remem¬ ber you and your adult class in the corner below the desk and the high opinion which papa and mama had of you. Now, of my family, I, a widow, alone am left.
But she rendered the church a further service. Her ear was not musical, nor did she greatly care for music, but she was being taught to sing
20 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
and play, and she passed on her lessons to the young people, forming and training the choir, and going through the practising with them every week, with unfailing punctuality. She suffered at this time from abscesses in the feet and had often to walk to and from the church in great pain, but she rarely failed either her Sunday-school pupils or the choir. Henrietta was not yet enrolled on the teaching staff, but after a couple of years she was entrusted with some of the little ones, whom she taught with great seriousnsss and sweetness.
Miss Sanders remembers Isabella's calling on her in the midst of a terrific thunder-storm, on some Sunday-school business, not to take shelter, as she at first supposed. Often the elder girl spent a day and sometimes several days with the Birds, and she retains the sunniest impression of their kindness, gentleness, and courtesy towards her and each other.
For some time Mr. Bird had visions of success in his struggle against Sunday trading. By preaching, by personal visiting, by gentle and constant per¬ suasion, he got so far as to secure the promises of all his parishioners but two to give it up. The promises were conditional on the surrender of the two exceptions. It was evident to all that his own character and conduct were not only blameless, but absolutely disinterested, for it was well known that he had requested to be transferred to St. Thomas’s where the annual stipend amounted to £6o} from Tattenhall where he received £300. Indeed, had he and Mrs. Bird not both inherited money from their parents, the transfer would have been impossible. But the two remaining Sunday traders refused to close their shops, and the law was brought to bear
1 848]
FIRST PAMPHLET
21
upon them through one of the Churchwardens, who took out summonses and served them himself. This roused fierce wrath in the parish. A crowd waylaid Mr. Bird and pelted him with stones, mud, and insults. The worst was still to come. Not only did he lose hold of those who had been almost won, but many of the members whom he counted as on the side of righteousness, at the bidding of Mammon, forsook their Rector and left the church. The bitterness of the repulse lay in the fact that the very men and women whom he had led to his Master forsook him at the crisis.
Some time before this great trial, he caught scarlet fever, while visiting, and brought home its infection, for Hennie took it too ; and while Mrs. Bird nursed her husband in one room, Isabella nursed her sister in another and yet escaped the fever. So, already weakened by illness, the pain of these desertions broke down his brave resolution and he was laid again on a bed of sickness. This illness lasted so long that the doctor urged him at last to take some months of complete rest, and Mrs. Bird succeeded in inducing him to resign his charge at St. Thomas’s.
In 1848 they left for Eastbourne, then a village about a mile inland. But close to the sea there were a few houses, in one of which they lodged for a time.
Isabella was sixteen years old at this time, and so matured was her mind already that she took a deep interest in the questions of Free Trade versus Protection, which at that time, as in a minor degree now, agitated the country, and before leaving Birmingham she committed to writing her arguments in favour of Protection. Next year this essay was printed for private circulation in Huntingdon, and a
22 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
copy of the little pamphlet has come into my hands. It is a quaint invective against Cobden and Bright, and is remarkable as coming from the pen of a child : it takes the allegorical form of a trial before “ Chief Justice Common Sense, Baron Public Opinion, and a special jury,” in which the prisoners Weather¬ cock and Parvenu were defended by Mr. Humbug and Mr. Mock-Philanthropist, while Messrs. Upright and Eloquence appeared for the prosecution. The charges were on four counts — agitation, dissemination of poison, uttering lies and false promises, and
destroying the agricultural interest and with it the national prosperity of England ; and the prisoners, being eventually found guilty, were condemned to be removed to the penal settlement of Public Detesta¬ tion for fifteen years, and afterwards to be transported to the uninhabited island of Oblivion for the term of their natural lives! “And,” concluded the Judge, “I earnestly hope that in the solitude which
will be afforded you, you may learn to repent of your crimes, though you cannot repair the
consequences which they have entailed upon your
country.”
After two months at Eastbourne, the Birds settled for a further term of rest in the country north of London and close to Epping Forest. Here Miss Sanders paid them a visit, which she still vividly remembers. They were mourning the death of their grandmother at Taplow Hill, an event which practi¬ cally ended their connection with that beloved home. For Mr. Merttins Bird, of Barton, whose first wife died in India, and whose second wife, Jane Wilber- force Bird, passed away shortly after marriage, took as his third wife Henrietta Grenfell, a daughter of his neighbour Mr. Pascoe Grenfell of Taplow House.
1848]
WYTON
23
She not only survived him, but lived on till 1897, a shrewd and witty old lady, interested in the gener¬ ations of Birds, to whom she was step-mother, step- grandmother and step-greatgrandmother. From the time of his third marriage, Mr. Merttins Bird gave up Taplow Hill, and the family removed to Torquay. It is interesting to note that amongst her brothers-in-law Mrs. Merttins Bird counted Charles Kingsley, J. Anthony Froude, and Lord Wolverton, and that one of her nieces married Professor Max Muller.
While Miss Sanders was with Mr. and Mrs. Bird at Epping Forest, Mr. Merttins Bird came to pay them a visit, and she records her own shyness of the “ big Bird,” who proved to be both kind and peaceable, distinguished nabob though he was.
In the autumn of 1848 Lady Olivia Sparrow presented Mr. Bird to the living of Wyton in Huntingdonshire.
This was a small parish, less than two thousand acres in extent, with a population of scarcely three hundred souls. The village is on the Ouse, and to the west some three miles off is the town of Huntingdon. South-east lies St. Ives, two miles away. Not very far off is Olney, the poet Cowper’s home. There were rides and drives for Mr. Bird and his daughters, and the river on which to boat, and there Mrs. Bishop acquired her skill in rowing. The cure included Houghton, and the stipend was good. Wyton itself had its literary and political associations. Horne Tooke lived there for years, and towards the close of the foregoing century Charles James Fox had been married at St. Margaret’s Church, which now became the centre of Mr. Bird’s duties for the remaining decade of his life.
24 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap.,
These years were to be eventful for Isabella, in many ways. It was at Wyton that a new influence roused her to the sense that she was growing old enough to be morally responsible for what use she made of her time, her powers, her character. This was her friendship with a girl of her own age, Lady Jane Hay, now Lady Jane Taylor, a daughter of the Marquess of Tweeddale and a niece of Lady Olivia Sparrow.
Isabella’s duties had hitherto been based on the exigencies of home and parochial life, and in spite of her great delicacy she had risen to their fulfilment. She had not yet realised that even a girl may so sway circumstances as to improve them, may garner her observations as seed to be sown in the good ground of effort to help the destinies of a larger humanity than that within the parish.
This friendship aroused that part of her higher nature which had slumbered in inexperience. It called into being the enthusiasm for others latent in her Wilberforce blood. This never afterwards failed her in dealing with the men and women she met, whether they were friends, or merely the casual acquaintances of a journey by land or water, whether they were her own people among whom she dwelt, or the peoples, civilised and savage, amongst whom she sojourned for a day or a week, ere she left their cities or their tents for ever. On her death¬ bed she cried aloud, “ If I could only do something more for them ! ”
But in 1850, when she was eighteen years old, her malady had become so serious that an opera¬ tion was necessary. Just before this took place, her parents took her and Henrietta to visit the Rev. John Lawson, Mrs. Bird’s brother, at Seaton
St. Margaret’s Church, Wyton.
1850]
THE WEST HIGHLANDS
25
Carew, and her cousins still remember how ill she looked. Of the operation itself no record remains, beyond the fact that a fibrous tumour was removed from the neighbourhood of the spine. In after years she was subject to long periods of suffering in that region of her back.
It is possible that the low grounds of Wyton, and the river with its overflows and mists, may have accelerated the crisis. It is certain that after this she was ordered to leave home for lengthened periods, and that her father began in the summer of 1850 a practice which lasted for years, and intro¬ duced her to a part of Scotland that charmed her from the beginning, and for which she maintained a loyal affection to the end.
During six successive summers the Birds spent a number of weeks in the Scottish Highlands, in Inver¬ ness-shire, Ross-shire, and, ever more attracted to the west, in Skye, Raasay, Harris, and Mull. Isabella was with her family on all but one of these occasions, the exception being the summer of 1854, when she had her first opportunity of going to America.
To Mr. Bird the strict Sunday observance in Scotland, and especially in Free Church Scotland, immediately after the Disruption, was most sym¬ pathetic, “ He loved Scotland,” says his daughter, “ not more for its beauty than for its hallowed Sabbaths and Christian zeal and for the love with which he was ever welcomed by his Presbyterian brethren.” The “ larger mind ” which had made him draw close the bonds of Christian union between himself and his Nonconformist fellow-workers in Birmingham brought him into like relationships and communion with the first Free Church pastors — that band of men nerved and inspired by the Holy
26 PARENTAGE AND INHERITANCE [chap, i
Spirit, taught and empowered of God. They opened their pulpit doors to the faithful servant of their own Master, and he preached in many of their churches, in Inverness and Ross-shire, in Skye, in Renfrew, and elsewhere. Wherever he went he found Sunday a hallowed day. He fought in England thirty years for its consecration. He was an active member of the Metropolitan Commission, and attended its meetings in London twice weekly. He had suffered persecution and desertion for its sake ; his health had been broken and two livings had been resigned in his conflict with Sunday trading. It is no wonder that his attachment to the Scotland of 1850 was very strong.
CHAPTER II
FIRST TRAVELS AND PUBLICATIONS
From time to time Isabella Bird stayed with both the Bishop of Chester and the Bishop of Winchester, who, when in London, lived in Winchester House, St. James’s Square. In 1852, probably in late autumn, she paid her cousins there a visit, and on her way met with an adventure, her action in which illustrates the rapidity and courage with which she faced the unforeseen.
She had taken a cab from the railway station, and while driving out of the gate received on her lap a small parcel of advertisements, which, as was usual then, was thrown in at the open window. Putting it on the seat in front of her, she noticed another parcel lying, evidently left by the former “ fare.” She opened it, and found papers inside giving details of a plot to assassinate a member of the Cabinet at the approaching funeral of the Duke of Wellington. She had scarcely put them into her pocket, when she heard a voice stopping the cab, and a dark, foreign-looking man addressed her at the window. He asked if a parcel had been found in the cab. At once she handed to him the little bundle of advertisements, and after a minute’s progress bade the driver hasten to the Home Office, where she insisted upon seeing the minister, in
whose hands she placed the papers. So serious did
27
28
FIRST TRAVELS
[chap. II
the matter appear to the Home Office that, while she remained in Winchester House, a detective was posted there to guard her against the vengeance of those whose plans she had frustrated.
Some sorrow, over which she brooded in the early fifties, was sapping her nervous strength, already impaired by the operation. Her health was far from satisfactory. It seemed as if quiescence so depressed her vitality that even the delightful months in Skye and Ross-shire failed to replenish its exhausted stores. Ever as spring returned, the old lassitude came with it, and in the relaxing air of Wyton she was able for little beyond her literary work, her chemical studies, and needle-work, all of which were possible in a semi-recumbent position. One effect, as well as cause, of this condition was sleeplessness, and no means taken to overcome it proved successful. A brief stay at Portsmouth hardly broke the habit of insomnia. But it supplied material for two papers in The Leisure Hour, as well as for lively letters home, which were afterwards printed in pamphlet form and sold to help her fund for aiding the West Highlanders. This pamphlet is forgotten now, but it described Portsmouth in March, 1854, when the sad Crimean War had become inevit¬ able, and when Sir Charles Napier was starting on his fruitless cruise to the Baltic. Miss Bird saw Queen Victoria receive him on board the Fairy and bid him and the fleet God-speed.
The doctor urged a sea-voyage, and in the early summer of 1854 an opportunity occurred for carrying out his prescription. One of Mr. Bird’s numerous cousins had married Captain Swabey, a veteran of the Peninsular War, who, after Waterloo, had been sent to Prince Edward’s Island to superintend the
IN AMERICA
29
1854]
defences there. His daughters were in England and were about to return to their parents, and it was arranged that Isabella should accompany them, and make use of the occasion to extend her travels to Canada and as much of America as was possible. Mr. Bird gave her £100 and leave to stay away as long as it lasted. At his request, Mr. McFie saw her off on a Saturday morning in June.
Her cabin had been taken in the Canada , a royal mail steamer of the Cunard line. Its destination was first Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and then Boston. As the steamer left the Mersey she passed close to the troopship Himalaya , in which the Scots Greys were embarking for the Crimea — “ the lions led by asses,” who were to be shot down at Balaklava.
The voyage to Halifax was uneventful, through a succesion of calms, with neither icebergs nor fogs to lend it a tremor. Miss Bird proved to be an excellent sailor, enjoyed her meals, and observed her fellow passengers. Only twenty of these were English ; the others, numbering a hundred and fifty, came from almost every European country. She and her cousins landed at Halifax, and spent two days there. Then, taking the stage-coach, they were jolted over corduroy roads to Truro and Pictou. At Truro Miss Bird found a delightful old Highland woman, Nancy Stewart of the mountain, who gave the stage-passengers tea, and who responded joyfully to Isabella’s greeting in Gaelic. Then they passed through a forest belonging to the Indians, where silence reigned and expectant thrills died away ungratified by adventures.
When they reached Charlotte Town they were met by Captain Swabey, who insisted on Isabella’s staying six weeks at his house, as Canada and the
30
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
States were in the grip of cholera. Her report of Prince Edward’s Island is not attractive : quarrels, gossip, and mutual detraction characterised its social life. Still she found congenial friends, with whom she made a tour of the island, its pleasantest incident being the discovery of a Skye man called Donnuil Dhu, with whom she had comforting talk of the Cuchullins and Loch Coruisk.
It must have been August when she left for Boston by steamer and coach, succeeded by steamer and train, a comfortless, solitary journey, only re¬ deemed by the great kindness shown to her by her American fellow passengers. She saw nothing of Boston at this time, leaving after two days’ rest for Cincinnati, where she was Bishop Mcllvaine’s guest, and where she learned much of the working of slavery in the Southern States from her host, and of the anxiety caused by Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tonis Cabin} just published, which it was feared by the friends of emancipation would retard rather than advance their cause.
From Cincinnati she crossed the prairies to Chicago, refreshed by the beauty of those “gardens of God,” where great bands of colour marked the various prairie-flowers — lilies, helianthus, cineraria, lupin, and euphorbia. The train, heedless of time-tables, came to an abrupt pause in their midst, and she had five hours of rest ; then it went on to Rock Island, where she embarked on board a Mississippi steamer for the mere sensation of a three miles’ cruise and back on the great river. It was in the train between Rock Island and Chicago that the famous pick-pocket incident took place, one in which her self-possession matched the courage with which she had thwarted a cowardly political assassination. A most unpre-
1854]
CANADA
3i
possessing man sat next to her in the car. She felt his hand in her pocket abstracting her purse, in which there was only enough money for petty travelling needs, but which contained her luggage checks. She sat passive, giving no indication of her loss till the luggage checks were being collected. When the official reached her, she bowed politely towards her neighbour and said, “ This gentleman has my checks ! ” and he was startled into giving them up.
Chicago interested her deeply. Her description is a striking picture of the great western capital in making fifty years ago. But she could not complete her observations, as friends were to meet her at Toronto, and she had to travel by rail and steamer twice over to keep her appointment. On the way she halted at Detroit, which pleased her. Her friends duly met, she settled down to a thorough explora¬ tion of Toronto, noting the difference between the method of its growth and the sudden upheaval of big American cities, where recently was prairie, or forest, or mighty lake, and where a short time ago only the red hunter crossed the solitude to set his traps or launch his canoe. Stable progress marked the Canadian, as sudden growth and expansion marked the newer American cities ; and while in Canada, streets, buildings, and institutions were not only completed but had acquired a settled and harmonious dignity — in the others, roads, streets, buildings, and undertakings were all unfinished, and the founders seemed callous to their disorderly surroundings.
Two excursions from Toronto varied her study of its civic conditions. One was a visit to the pleasant city of Hamilton, built on Burlington Bay. Her
32
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
voyage thither, short as it was, included a sudden storm ; the side of the saloon was struck and shat¬ tered by a colossal wave, and she was thrown down into the water, a man near her having seized a life¬ buoy out of her hands. For a few seconds she was in the first stage of drowning, and her thoughts flashed back to the dear ones at home with a pang for their grief when they heard the news. But, happily, another wave floated her back and into a state¬ room, and soon the steamer righted itself. It was a dread experience, and prompted her to vow that she would never again venture on Lake Ontario — a melancholy expanse of water at the best, and subject to accesses of fury.
However, a few days later she took the s.s. Arabian back, and was met on Toronto Pier by Mr. Forrest, who had invited her to pay his family a visit in the backwoods, where her imagination had been busy with visions of a clearing, a lumber-waggon, a log-hut, and all the primitive contrivances due to such a home so carefully provided in fiction. So, when a smart mail-phaeton painted scarlet and black and drawn by a pair of perfectly groomed horses awaited her host and herself at the hotel, she was taken aback and had to control her surprise. There were twenty-two miles to drive, some of them bad, but much of the way excellent plank road, easier for draught than a high road. It was now the Canadian autumn, and the tints were glorious — scarlet, crimson, orange, and purple. They drove through forest, scrub, and cedar-swamp, then past a little whitewashed English church, into a field and along an apple-tree approach, up to a beautiful brick house surrounded by a green verandah and embowered in richly laden fruit-trees and flaming sumachs. When Mrs. Forrest appeared
THE BACKWOODS
33
1854]
to welcome her, clad in pink and white muslin, and took her through a hall floored with polished oak into a large and beautiful drawing-room, Miss Bird cast her preconceptions of backwoods life away, and com¬ posed a new theory of the lumber-man who drove a mail-phaeton, listened to Beethoven well played on the piano evfery evening, and slept on a feather-bed !
Her visit to the Forrests was altogether delightful, and she shared the whole round of Canadian country- life, including the neighbourly “ bee,” which at that season was a “ thrashing-bee.” Mr. Forrest took her for long and adventurous rides, roadless scrambles through the bush, and gallops along the shore of Lake Ontario.
Quite a month was spent after this pleasant fashion, and in its course several Sundays at both Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches. “ Are ye frae the braes o’ Gleneffer?” said an old Scotchwoman to her one day; “were ye at oor kirk o’ Sabbath last, ye wadna’ ken the differ.”
But the time came for her return to Toronto, and then further east, taking Niagara on the way. She devoted many pages of her letters home to this last experience, which she “ did ” to the bitter end, to Termination Rock, “230 ft. behind the Great Horse¬ shoe Fall,” as was stated on her certificate, although a fellow traveller damped her elation by calling the document “ an almighty, all-fired big flam.”
The Arabian took her down the St. Lawrence as far as the Thousand Islands, where, at five in the morning, she had to change into the New Era. In this steamer she cruised amongst the islands. They anchored before La Chine and shot the rapids at a rate of twenty-five miles an hour next morning when it was daylight, and so reached Montreal.
3
34
FIRST TRAVELS
[chap. II
Here Miss Bird stayed a few days with the Bishop, before she resumed her voyage down the great river to Quebec. She had only two letters of introduction to residents in the capital, one of them to Lord Elgin, the Governor-General, whose secretary was Lawrence Oliphant.
Cholera had quitted the city less than two months before she entered it ; but many desolated homes indicated its ravages. It was strange that, while still agitated and tremulous, society in Quebec whirled in a round of balls, receptions, sleigh-drives, and toboggan-parties. To most of these Miss Bird was invited along with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Alderson, and up to a certain point she enjoyed the experience. But her sense that a gaunt spectre still hovered near, and the contrast between the awful poverty of St. Roch, where lived the lapsed thousands in squalor and vice — almost more brutal than the dwellers in a London slum — and this brilliant circle of pleasure-seekers, indelibly impressed her sensitive mind.
A visit to Spencer Wood, Lord Elgin’s headquarters, was much spoilt by an attack of something very like cholera, probably contracted at St. Roch. It was called ague, but its effects lasted several weeks. Her second introduction was to the Honorable John Ross and his wife, who not only made her stay socially pleasant, but most profitable, on account of the useful and precise information of which she was in search and with which they were able to provide her. Mr. Ross was President of the Legislative Council, and knew all that her thirst for general and particular statistics desired, and she made notes of political, ecclesiastical, educational, industrial, and economic matters in most favourable circumstances while in his house.
Wyton Rectory.
1854]
RETURN TO WYTON
35
One of her most interesting new acquaintances was Dr. Mountain, the Protestant Bishop of Quebec ; famous for his arduous journeys to the Red River Settlements in a canoe, for the purpose of confirming 846 Indian converts, and ordaining two of their missionaries.
The year was growing late when Miss Bird returned to Montreal, where she stayed again with the Bishop, quitting the See House regretfully for New York, which she reached in a series of tedious stages.
There, and in Boston, she lingered until the waning of her travelling finances suggested home. Intro¬ ductions from her Canadian friends procured her influential social privileges, and she recorded with warm appreciation all that she enjoyed and gained in the two great American cities.
It was arranged that she should return to Halifax in the Cunard steamer America to join seven of her relatives, the Swabeys, bent on going back to England, so that her homeward voyage was in pleasant company and was uneventful. She reached her home after seven months’ absence, with £\o of the original £100 in her pocket — better in health, full of animation, and devoutly thankful to be once more with her parents and sister in the peaceful rectory of Wyton.
In 1854, during her absence, the parish of Houghton-cum-Wyton received a new resident, who became an intimate friend of the family at Wyton Rectory. This was Mrs. George Brown, of The Elms, and to her we owe the following reminiscences of Isabella Bird’s home and occupations during the remaining years of the fifties.
Mrs. Brown writes :
36
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
Wyton Rectory, a roomy, gabled house of grey brick, was pleasantly situated amongst fine old trees, in which the rooks built year after year, and surrounded by green pastures bordering the broad River Ouse, which flows quietly in its fulness within a short distance of the house. A piece of water fed by the river formed a tiny lake close to the rectory. At that time Henrietta was mv friend, but I became acquainted with Isabella soon after her return from America. I remember her favourite outdoor occupations then were riding and rowing* and we used often to meet along the roads and on the river. The roads had broad margins of grass, which favoured a pleasant gallop, and the waters of moat and river made boating especially delightful. Isabella was a fearless horsewoman, and would mount any horse, however spirited. In later years, when visiting at our house, she more than once rode a horse which no lady had mounted before, and she seemed to enjoy it all the more.
When she came home from America, she occu¬ pied herself on the book, afterwards published by Mr. Murray. It was her wont to write by night, which occasioned encroachment on the hours of the next day for needed rest and sleep ; and this habit, so early formed, lasted throughout her subsequent literary undertakings. Many friendships were made with families in neighbouring rectories, and the coachman, who is still alive, remembers the rides he took with his young mistress to visit them.
The ride most frequently taken was to Brampton Park, where Lady Olivia Sparrow lived, a warm, kind friend of Isabella’s. This venerable lady took a motherly interest in her young neighbour, whose courage, energy, and studiousness were in harmony with her own active nature. They were fast friends. Isabella had long periods of spinal suffering, after which she would brace herself to exercise. Reso¬ lution, courage, endurance, the love of adventure,
Lady Olivia Sparrow.
From a picture by Richard Buckner , engraved by William Walker , 1854.
FIRST BOOK
3 7
1855]
the power of overcoming difficulties, all characterised her in those young days, as they did to the end. Her friends realised that she would always carry through her own ideas of what was best, and embody them in action when and how she deemed suitable.
Her family had carefully preserved all her letters ; and in her note-books were statistics and deductions most studiously collected and recorded. Her father urged her to revise these ample materials and give them literary form. With this task she was occupied during five months of 1855. It was not difficult; for the letters narrated every day’s doings and impres¬ sions, and were full of vivacious description. Besides, she loved writing for its own sake, and use and study had developed her natural facility of expression. Even in ordinary conversation her sentences came so finely constructed that each might have been com¬ mitted to print as it fell; and the habit of business correspondence, begun in her work for the West Highlanders, her early papers for magazines, and her full diaries and notes on the summer visits to Scotland, were in her case training sufficient for the author’s craft. Indeed, the articles already referred to were noticeable in respect of style and language.
In June, 1855, she met at Winchester House Mr. John Milford, the author of travels in Norway and Spain, whose books were published by Mr. John Murray. He was attracted by her vivacious account of her recent adventures, and she confided to him her desire to find a publisher for the now completed manuscript, part of which had been sent to a Canadian man of letters for corroboration and correction.
Mr. Milford read some of its chapters, and offered to introduce her to Mr. John Murray, of Albemarle
38
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
Street. This was done at once, but it was not till October i that she ventured to send her work to the famous publisher, and to write to him herself. Her letter illustrates the modesty which distinguished her literary career from first to last, an integral element of her character.
She wrote :
I have prepared for the press some travels in the United States, Canada, and the Eastern Colonies in North America, taken in the summer, autumn, and winter of last year. The title is, The Car and the Steamboat , and I, or rather some literary friends whom I have consulted, think that there is sufficient of novelty in them to justify their publication.
This was the beginning of a correspondence and a friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Murray, and with their son, which lasted almost half a century.
Mr. Murray accepted the manuscript, but objected to its title, and suggested in preference The English¬ woman in America; and although Miss Bird scarcely liked the change, considering it too pretentious for a young authoress, she deferred to his judgment in the matter, for her own “ inventive genius failed.”
By November, the printing of her book had well begun, and she was correcting proofs most of that and of the following month. The Englishwoman in America appeared in January, 1856, and the edition was very soon exhausted. She ordered forty-five copies for herself at trade prices, and this led to a correspondence upon booksellers’ rights.
No [she wrote], I certainly will not undersell the booksellers. These forty-five copies have been ordered from me by friends in Ross-shire and Skye, who are two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest bookseller, and whose means of communication with the civilised world are very few and far between.
i856]
LITERARY SUCCESS
39
A yacht belonging to a friend is shortly going to those northern regions, which will convey all the copies.
Her book was shortly followed by one written by a Miss Murray, in no way related to her friend and pub¬ lisher, who was one of her fellow passengers on the Canada. This lady went to America with the avowed intention of writing a book. She took so perverted a view of the slavery question that a Virginian slave¬ owner said it would be quite worth while to pension her, for the principal anti-slavery pressure was pro¬ duced by the state of public feeling in England on the subject. He did not, however, put his passing reflection into substantial practice, and Miss Murray’s views lost her the appointment held prior to her voyage.
Very soon both daily and weekly journals were busy with Miss Bird’s book. She was in London when the Times eulogy appeared, and on her return to Wyton she received four Canadian papers all containing favourable reviews of The Englishwoman in America and quoting from her account of Canada. On the day that these were issued in Toronto, a bookseller there received over fifty applications for copies, and arrangements were made with Mr. Murray to supply this demand. Even in America, where her strictures on slavery could not be entirely welcome, the book found many appreciative readers, one of whom sent her a beautiful carbuncle bracelet as a tribute of his admiration for the justice which she had done to his country.
“ I am vain enough,” she wrote to Mr. Murray, “to think that I have every reason to be satisfied with its success and with the favourable general criticism it has met with.”
40
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
Substantial cheques from her publisher endorsed the literary verdict, and these helped her to carry out a scheme for the benefit of West Highland fisher- folk which had occupied her thoughts for some years and towards which some of her friends con¬ tributed. This was the provision of deep-sea fishing- boats for the men in Skye, Ross-shire, Iona, and Mull, districts where poverty had stultified enterprise.
Her affection for the Highlanders and Islanders, whose kindliness and deep religious convictions half a century ago won the sympathetic regard of their visitors from the south, prompted these efforts on their behalf. She was in the Highlands during three summer months of 1855 engaged in this phil¬ anthropic experiment, and spent September at Balma- carra House, whence she went to Broadford in Skye, remote and desolate, for the route had not yet been fully opened by Messrs. Hutcheson, whose Clansman and Clydesdale alone ploughed the stormy northern waves. When the steamer brought Mr. and Mrs. Bird and their daughters and lowered them into the boat, the shore would be lined with men and women who rushed into the sea to drag their boat up on the beach and to shake their hands again and again with warm Gaelic greetings and inquiries. Long afterwards Miss Bird talked of those heart-stirring welcomes with tender retrospection as of golden moments in the past, for she felt the pathos of that dear Celtic remnant, unspoilt then by the vulgar south — in touch with a mystical world, where past and future reached out into the unseen ; where the present was toil and sorrow, brief rapture and long pain, but all beneath the Father’s guiding eye — not soiled with materialism and made sordid by unbelief, but in both gloom and gleam spiritualised by the
1856]
THE WEST HIGHLANDS
41
presence at all points of God — in the wind and in the wave, on the mountain-top and on the moor. For even their crimes were the outcome of a sort of loftiness, the daring treachery, the fierce revenge, the insult, the swelling boast, the wrath and its swift violence. Children were they and lovable as children :
N
in their fantastic terrors and superstitions pagan as children ; in their affection and loyalty spontaneous as children; in their faith simple as children. No wonder that this gifted and understanding woman was drawn to the unspoilt Gaels, any one of whom would have given his life to save or prosper hers.
“ You should visit these wild West Highlands,” she wrote to Mr. Murray : “ the air is so pure, the scenery so magnificent, the enjoyment so keen and fresh."
Towards the end of 1856 her correspondent sug¬ gested that she should co-operate in the preparation of his series of guide-books and compile one upon the West Highlands.
When you develop your idea [she wrote] I daresay that I shall like to undertake it, if I am not stinted in time, as I am not at all anxious for the termination of our connection as author and publisher. My pen has been idle, except that I have been fabri¬ cating twelve papers on popular chemistry, a subject in which I am deeply interested. We have spent three months in Scotland each year for six years past, and until this last summer I have always taken copious notes on the various places which we have visited, but I do not know how far these would be serviceable in the compilation of a guide-book, I should be glad if you would enlighten me as to the kind of work you propose, and then we can discuss the subject on my next visit to London, which will be early in the season.
But the project fell through, because her health declined with the spring of 1857, and before the
42 FIRST TRAVELS [chap, n
season was far advanced the doctor urged her to leave again for America. She intended to take a six months’ tour, but her numerous invitations and introductions extended this term into almost a whole year. It was deemed inexpedient to publish a second volume of American travels so soon after the first, and we are dependent on her own brief summary contained in a letter written on April 26, 1858, for a precis of her movements.
I remained a fortnight at New York, which I had visited before — from which point my route was new — and three weeks in Philadelphia ; two months in the slave states, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia ; a fortnight at Washington during the session of Con¬ gress ; a month in the neighbourhood of Boston ; a week at Longfellow’s ; two months in a beautiful village in Western Massachusetts; two weeks at Albany; a week at Niagara; two weeks at Toronto; one month in the bush ; two weeks at Detroit ; six weeks in making a tour in the far, far west — over the prairies of Illinois and Wisconsin, forty miles beyond railroads, up the Upper Mississippi, into the Minnesota Territory, to the Falls of Minnehaha, up Lake Huron and to the extreme end of Lake Superior, and into the Hudson’s Bay Territory among the wild Indians — a journey altogether of 2,000 miles, during which I did not remain stationary for four weeks, as it was con¬ sidered that frequent change was the most likely to benefit my health.
It is a tantalising catalogue of journeys and stages unrelieved by her bright comments, and but little can now be retrieved of the incidents which enlivened it. But the “ week at Longfellow’s ” recalls a fading reminiscence of her meeting many of the Concord group of intellectuals in his house, a large country house near Boston, where George Washington lived for some years from 1775, while the War of Inde¬ pendence was being waged. Here she saw the
iB57] RELIGION IN UNITED STATES
43
sacred room in which he wrote his despatches. It was either during this week, or when she stayed at Concord, that she spent a memorable evening round the great fireplace of the “ Wayside Inn,” with Longfellow, Dana, Lowell, Emerson, and other members of the fraternity. And in Concord she
N
became well acquainted with both Emerson and his eccentric but interesting neighbour Thoreau, who lived there with two kind, quaint sisters, during intervals between his .experiments in solitude. The American literary mind, so near to nature, so charged with primal enthusiasm for truth and goodness, and so optimistic, impressed her as peculiarly suited to national needs.
In a little book, written in 1859, she describes what was her main subject of inquiry throughout this tour in the United States. A great revival was in progress, in which her father was deeply interested, and to supply him with full information she thoroughly investigated religious developments in America, whether external as evidenced in the different Churches, or internal as indicated by national characteristics and education.
To secure an impartial and unprejudiced estimate, she went to all the religious meetings, of whatever creed professed, and listened to no fewer than one hundred and thirty sermons, some of them preached to Indians, to trappers, to negroes and by negroes. Perhaps' the service which moved her most was one in the African Baptist Church in Richmond, held on the last Sunday of 1857. An aged negro, called upon to pray, did so in such a manner, reverent, apt, and eloquent, with such perfect diction and accent and with such a fulness of thoughtful petition, that she burst into tears and declared afterwards
44
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
that her religious life was quickened and strengthened for ever by this beautiful prayer uttered by a slave.
Another remembered fragment belongs to her travels in the wild west. Standing on a little pier by Lake Huron, waiting for the gangway to be lowered from a steamer on which she was about to embark, she was jostled off into deep water between pier and steamer. A tall Red Indian leapt down and seized her, saving her life, but not before she had experienced, as on Lake Ontario, that sudden reversion of memory to the past which is one of the mental phenomena of drowning. No long pano¬ rama of events appeared to her, however — only one scene — her childish disobedience in slipping out of bed to look at the ranunculuses, a scene forgotten a few days after its occurrence.
Her return to Wyton Rectory was on April 3, 1858.
Her father, who— as she wrote that year — was the “ mainspring and object of her life,” had been strenuously at work in the cause of Sabbath ob¬ servance and in that of temperance. He found amongst the agricultural labourers of his parish too many instances of ruined and debased lives due to drinking, and in order to reach their consciences he began to leave off the glass of wine with dinner so usual then, and by autumn, 1857, was able to do without it. Early next year he took the pledge publicly, and declared that he had never been in better health than during that winter. His daughter’s letters about the American revival had roused a great desire that the awakening spirit might come to England, and his daily prayer was, “ Lord, revive Thou Thy work in the midst of the years.”
He had, indeed, begun a pamphlet on the subject, and hoped to finish it soon after Isabella’s return.
The Rev. Edward Bird, Mrs. Bishop’s Father
■
'
1858]
MR. BIRD’S DEATH
45
On that April evening the little family group was radiant with the joy of reunion, and without forebodings of the heavy loss which was about to fall upon it. A parting, longer far and more agonising than any which they could have foreseen, was at hand.
That very night Mr. Bird was attacked by influenza, and a fortnight later a deep-seated abscess began to form. He refused to forego his duty, and preached in his own pulpit on April 18 for the last time. On the 2 1 st his sufferings were so great that the doctor forbade his rising, and a week later a surgical operation took place. But he was too weak to revive. On May io he asked them to kneel where he could see them, and commended them in prayer to God and to the hope of reunion in that inherit¬ ance that fadeth not away, and on May 14 he died.
Towards the end he spoke almost constantly of his flock. “Tell them,” he said, “that my sole desire has been to bring them to Jesus.” During his last night he was too feeble to do more than whisper, but his whispers were ever of “ the Friend that sticketh closer than any brother”; and as he spoke he smiled radiantly, as one comforted by the presence of Him he loved.
In June Miss Bird wrote the short memorial sketch already alluded to, from which these details have been chosen. Her health, impaired by this blow, and never strong at Wyton, drooped in the summer, and in July she went with her mother and sister to Scotland, and passed some months in the High¬ lands, where she occupied herself in putting into form her notes upon Aspects of Religion in the United States . This was in response to her father’s dying wishes. She wrote in all nine papers, published in
4 6
FIRST TRAVELS
[CHAP. II
The Patriot newspaper, and so much appreciated by its readers that their republication in a separate form was called for in the spring of 1859.
She had seen to the printing and publication of her father’s manuscript, Some Account of the Great Religious Awakening now going on in the United States , for which she had supplied him with statistics. It was published by Messrs. Seeley in the very month of his decease.
CHAPTER III
EDINBURGH AND WORK
Wyton was left behind, and for some time Mrs. Bird and her daughters were without a settled home. When the demand for a book on “ Religion in America” reached Miss Bird, she was visiting rela¬ tives near Tunbridge Wells. She proposed to revise her papers, and to make such alterations as would suit them for readers not exclusively of the religious world, but for those who were less likely to be acquainted with their subject.
The book was published by Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., in the summer of 1859, and gave a remarkable summary both of the sectional charac¬ teristics of American creeds and churches, and of their practical influence on the various divisions of the nation. Thus, she pointed out that in the north, Congregationalism and Puritan forms of worship resulted from the stern virtue of the Puritan Fathers ; that in the south, Episcopalianism was established by the immigrant merchants and gentlemen ; and that in the West, where were collected the restless and enterprising elements of European and American society, “ every creed had its adherents and every church its ministers, from Mormonism upwards.” It abounds in graphic description and illustration, and ends with the declaration of her steady faith in the growth of Christianity throughout America and
47
48 EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, hi
the great country’s destiny in carrying out God’s purposes towards the human race.
Just before Aspects of Religion in America was pub¬ lished, Miss Bird spent three weeks in Ireland inves¬ tigating what was known as the “ Ulster Revival,” a movement which had spread from America, and which showed some of the undesirable features of an excitement communicated rather than inspired. She says, in a letter to Mr. Murray : “ We saw the movement in every denomination and in all its phases, sober and extravagant. I never witnessed anything more frightful than some scenes at Armagh.”
That autumn, too, was spent in the Highlands, and most of the winter in Edinburgh, where she had begun to make many friends. Perhaps the earliest of these were the Rev. George D. Cullen and his daughter. Mr. Cullen had been much interested in her articles on the American revival, and had corresponded with her when they first appeared. So it was to Miss Cullen that Miss Bird wrote, when her mother decided to winter in Edin¬ burgh, asking her to find them rooms, and to these two friends they owed their first welcome to the northern capital. They were subsequently led to make their home there, partly because they loved Scotland and because it was more convenient for the West Highlands than the South of England, and partly because in working for the fisher-folk and crofters Miss Bird found helpers and sympathisers in Edinburgh. She soon became acquainted with Dr. Guthrie, Dr. Hanna, Dr. John Brown, and Dr. Macdonald, of North Leith, all keenly interested in the fragile little lady, whose spirited mind and sympathetic insight gave her an exceptional power of attracting and retaining friends.
i860] RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH
49
In i860 Mrs. Bird took a comfortable flat at No. 3 Castle Terrace, where they lived for many years. It must have been in that year that I first met Miss Bird. She had an introduction to Professor and Mrs. Blackie, then resident at 24 Hill Street, where she called one afternoon when I was present. The memory of a small, slight figure dressed in mourning is still vivid — of her white face shining between the black meshes of a knitted Shetland veil ; of her great, observant eyes, flashing and smiling, but melancholy when she was silent; of her gentle¬ ness and the exquisite modesty of her manner; and, above all, of her soft and perfectly modulated voice, never betrayed into harshness or loudness, or even excitement, but so magnetic that all in the room were soon absorbed in listening to her. The incident which she narrated has long been forgotten, but the manner of it lives to this day — the skill of her delicately woven sentences, her perfect choice of words, the value of what she told, the point and vivacity of it all. Longing to know her better, my aunt (Miss Frances Stoddart) and I called on Mrs. Bird, and so began a friendship which endured for my aunt whilst she lived, and for myself whilst the life I am now recording lasted.
Miss Bird was in those years often suffering from spinal prostration, and could seldom rise before noon ; but all her correspondence was done in the morning, as well as many of her numerous articles for The Leisure Hour , The Family Treasury , Good Words , and Sunday at Home. She wrote propped up by pillows, a flat writing-board upon her knees, and letters or sheets of manuscript scattered around her. Often she laid down her pen to greet some privileged visitor, and sometimes sacrificed an hour or more
4
50 EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, m
to advise, suggest, console, and stimulate. Dr. Moir attended her then, but after a few years he brought Dr. Grainger Stewart to take his place.
She was able to make calls, attend committee meetings and do business in the afternoons, and occasionally to dine out, although she was chary of too frequent social fatigues. Wherever she went she became without effort the most absorbing person present, and an hour spent with her was worth many dinner-parties, even in those brilliant Edinburgh days. It was her power of forgetting herself entirely in the person whose character, mind, or mood she was seeking to help that made her so effective a friend. She was never blind to defects in her acquaint¬ ances ; indeed, she noted them keenly, but she did not visit them with the appalling self-righteousness of commoner natures. It is difficult now to feel that she disliked defects so much as one’s friends usually do ; perhaps they lent piquancy to the worthier qualities, and she preferred the complex to the obvious. But her eyes searched out all qualities, and brought them, if not to judgment, cer¬ tainly to comment. She was sometimes accounted insincere, as she was accounted inaccurate ; no more unjust criticism was ever passed. The keen¬ ness and thoroughness of her penetration made her sincere, tolerant, and all-forgiving. She allowed her¬ self to comment on all qualities alike, but those comments of a more critical character were not offered spontaneously, they were drawn from her by others, whilst her expressions of warm appreciation came unsuggested and unstinted. Frail, dependent on the love of mother and sister, timid, often disinclined to make a stand for her own opinions, she was none the less an absolutely independent observer, and
1 861-2] HELP FOR WEST HIGHLANDERS 51
used, in order to complete her own judgment, not the idle words of others, but the deep, pardoning, understanding love of the Christ who lived in her.
One influential element of her life, from its earliest years till she was left solitary, was her deep home affection. Mere acquaintances scarcely noticed it, for it was never paraded, but each member of her family was wrapped up in devotion for the other, and each armed the others for happiness. Natural and acquired reserve concealed this mutual affection from the out¬ side world, and even their dearest friends saw but a gleam of it now and then. It was enough that it was realised and understood amongst themselves, and its satisfying presence filled their hearts with courage in all their undertakings.
To help their beloved Highlanders was one of the undertakings which lay nearest to the hearts of Miss Bird and her mother and sister. Summer by summer they continued to make Oban their head¬ quarters. Mr. Hutcheson gave all brothers of the pen and pencil free passes on his steamers, and included Miss Bird in his generous franchise. She used his passes freely, and made many voyages amongst the islands. Everywhere there was dis¬ tress — blighted potato crops, poor harvests, acute poverty. Captain Otter, of the Government Naval Survey Service, lived just outside Oban, in the Manor House, where great fuchsias clambered up the white walls, loving the wet western wind. His wife knew the islands well, and in relieving their starving people joined with Miss Bird in organising plans for the emigration of some, and for the industrial employment of others. Miss Bird originated the Harris cloth manufacture, the success of which was mainly due to
52 EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, m
Mrs. Otter, Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Clifton, and other ladies who were drawn into co-operation with her.
Lady Gordon Cathcart, whose crofters in the Outer Hebrides were in desperate need, welcomed the emigration scheme to which Miss Bird was devoting herself, and assisted in the transport of the Islanders to Canada, where they were to find land, labour, fellow countrymen, and encouragement. Miss Bird took upon herself the correspondence required to carry out this enterprise. Her acquaintance with Canada and her influential friends there were her capital, and she wrote to them with such fulness of detail and with such admirable suggestions that they were prompted to give willing assistance in just the manner desired. There remained the passages to secure and the outfits to provide. Concerning the passages she sought advice from Messrs. Allan, and induced Mrs. Otter to accompany her on her visit to their office in Glasgow.
This brought about her introduction to Mr. Nathaniel Dunlop, who remembers the occasion well, and writes :
It was during the early sixties that Mrs. Otter called upon me, accompanied by a bright young lady, who I learned was Miss Bird, to arrange for the passages to Canada of crofters and their families from the Western Highlands. The impression left by our inter¬ view is of my great desire to serve the singularly gifted young lady well. She astonished me by her energy and her capacity in making arrangements for the conveyance of the emigrants. She paid me several visits in respect to these, and took a personal interest in the minutest details. When all was settled and her people were about to embark, she was amongst them, seeing to their every want. The embarkation took place the day before their departure. Miss Bird remained with them all night, and when the official visit prior to their departure took place she had them
1 862-6]
EMIGRATION SCHEME
53
marshalled in order, tidy and cheerful. The sadness at leaving their native shore had given place to cheer¬ fulness — due to Miss Bird’s presence amongst them, to the completeness of the arrangements for their comfort which she had secured, and to the bright hopes for their future well-being which she had inspired.
This was the first of a succession of such embarka¬ tions in the years between 1862 and 1866. Mr. Dunlop goes on to say :
Several scenes of this kind, in which Miss Bird was the chief actor, come to my memory, and the impres¬ sions that remain of those early emigrant times are the pleasantest and most vivid of all my experiences. There was something in Miss Bird that filled every one with whom she came in contact with a desire to serve her. She never complained of inattention to her people, nor asked for special consideration for them or for herself. She was personally self-denying, her only wish being to make others happy. There was a fascination in all her ways. She was small of stature, simple and neat in her attire, and was full of a refined humour that brightened her conversation. There was always a grace in what she said, and an ever-present evidence of latent intellectual power ; and presiding over all there was a dignity that forbade the slightest approach to familiarity.
Of the outfits supplied to her emigrants I have personal recollections. Miss Bird provided new gar¬ ments for them all. Her mother and sister helped her energetically, and friends who knew what was required gladly brought her cloth for gowns, coats, and kilts, calico and flannel, and such necessaries as brushes, combs, shawls, bags, and hold-alls. The chief difficulty lay in getting the materials made up in time, but that was overcome by a series of sewing- bees, managed by Miss Phoebe Blyth. Miss Bird was herself an excellent needle-woman, had sewed smocks at the age of six, and was prouder of her
54
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, iii
dressmaking than of her bookmaking. The measur¬ ing, folding, unfolding and refolding, the despair of completing twelve kilts in time, the many regretful visions of twelve unhappy Highland laddies strug¬ gling with those twisted and uneasy skirts have never been forgotten.
The emigrants were not only sent out with a respectable “ plenishing,” not only sped on their way by Miss Bird, but were committed to the care of friends in the States and in Canada, who saw to their settlement and favourable start on grants of lands and in the backwoods. And she visited them after their first difficulties were surmounted. Mr. Dunlop continues :
One man alone of those who shared with myself in the shipping part of the work remains, and when I asked him if he recollected Isabella Bird and her Highlanders, — “Yes,” he cried, “ I mind her well, and a grand woman she was. She went out with us in the St. David in 1866, to Portland, Maine, when I was an officer in the ship. She went out to visit the people she had helped to settle in Canada.” I have every reason to believe that she was instrumental in founding a prosperous settlement.
The crofters sent out were from the Hebrides only : Miss Bird had no power to help emigrants from the mainland.
Her social life expanded during the years that she was thus engaged. She was, while her mother lived, less tempted to wander afar than in later years, because the long summer drew them all northwards, and her constant voyages and the arrangements which she had to make supplied occupation, fresh air, and change sufficient to maintain her in a measure of health. Iona had grown especially dear to her. The Birds were in the habit of living in
IONA
55
1864]
the fisher-huts, where they acquainted themselves with simple fare, long before the St. Columba Inn was built. The Duke of Argyll, the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, and Mr. Skene were Isabellas guides and instructors, and there was nothing connected with the archaeology and sacred history of the island which she did not know, while its shores and rocks and flowery knolls were all familiar and dear to her, as truly as its Street of the Dead and tombs of kings, its Runic crosses and pillow of St. Columba. Sometimes Professor and Mrs. Blackie would come over to Iona and live on fish and girdle cakes, eggs and butter, and she would act as guide to both. This friendship had grown very important to her, and Mrs. Blackie had gladly welcomed into her inner circle of friends one so devoted to well-doing, so exceptional in mind and character, so understanding, so unassuming and yet so instinct with power. Edin¬ burgh knew nothing about Miss Bird’s early literary success, but was beginning to read her articles in The Leisure Hour and The Sunday Magazine , although it was rather her personality than her writings which gave her the passport to all that was intellectually and therefore socially best in the city.
To Mrs. Blackie she turned with the same at¬ traction which she herself inspired, and we owe most of our acquaintance with this period of her life to their correspondence. A letter from Miss Bird written in the autumn of 1864 — after Professor and Mrs. Blackie had left Oban, about the time that their thoughts were dwelling on a possible home above Kerrera and its Sound — gives a vivid account of one of Miss Bird’s island tours.
I must sketch our ongoings since we left Oban for “parts unknown.” I had a very rainy voyage to
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, m
56
Skye, and reached Kyleakin at 3.30 on a gloomy morning. The Saturday was tolerable, and we went to Castle Bay, but the weather changed and I caught a bad cold and all my strength went. That terrible gale was very grand there, and on Tuesday, in coming round Ardnamurchan, the waves were as grim and resistless as human destiny. It was a miserable voyage of fourteen hours’ storm and hail and sorrow. Near Tobermory, a passenger fell from the bridge and was drowned. Ana the gaze of the dead looking its last upon the familiar sky has haunted me ever since. Then a gentleman had an apoplectic fit in the saloon. Then we swamped a boat and saved the lives with difficulty, ending by running into the Pioneer at Oban Pier. The next day I joined mama and Hennie at Ardgour, and on the Friday came down to Oban for a hamper of food, leaving them on Appin Pier, but the Charon would not take them to Lismore till the next day, when I rejoined them and we remained there six days. I never before realised my ideal of quiet and pure primitive life. It was delicious. It seemed as if a heavenly balm stole in at every mental pore, and as if the invisible, usually shut out by the material, came very near. We never saw a creature excepting the interesting and patriarchal family where we lodged, and the perpetual gale prevented communication with the mainland. Our sounds were barkings, cacklings, lowings, bleatings, with the endless harmonies and discords of winds and waves. On Friday I went to Ballachulish and Corpach in the Pioneer, and we met at Appin and all came home in the evening to Oban, but we intend to return to our solitude to-morrow and to remain till Friday. I have been going about in the Pioneer in a tarpaulin coat and sou’-wester hat ! I have observed that Scotch characteristic of “ roaring out ” confidences on board, the voice rising as the revelations deepen in interest, and have learned most singular bits of history owing to this national peculiarity.
It was Mrs. Blackie’s habit to visit her in Edinburgh every Thursday morning when it was possible, and these visits were cherished and guarded by both, only illness or absence from home being permitted to hinder them. Their talks were of deep things, spiritual,
SELF-REPROACH
57
1864]
emotional, intellectual, revelations each to each of aspiration and failure. So much we may gather from their letters to each other, which often refer to subjects touched upon in their weekly converse.
Miss Bird’s frail health had induced habits which at this time disturbed her conscience — late rising, frequent meals, careful protection of her time and strength against intrusion, perhaps too marked an avoidance of tedious persons and engagements. These were Dr. Moir’s orders, and were sound sense when she was prostrated with recurrent spinal attacks ; but she was conscious that they encroached upon her higher nature and hindered its growth.
I feel [she wrote in 1864] as if my life were spent in the very ignoble occupation of taking care of myself, and that unless some disturbing influences arise I am in great danger of becoming perfectly encrusted with selfishness, and, like the hero of Romola , of living to makb life agreeable and its path smooth to myself alone. Indeed, this summer I have made very painful discoveries on this subject and long for a cneerful intellect and self-denying spirit, which seeketh not its own and pleaseth not itself.
It was at this time that she was straining mind and hand to provide passages, outfits, and settlement for her emigrant crofters. But there was some reason for her plaint against herself — in that she was not able “ to suffer fools gladly,” and refused them admis¬ sion. Poverty was never repulsed ; she was as courteous to a maid-servant as to a countess ; but those who were permitted to visit her required some qualification, either of usefulness to her work, or of affinity. She was inclined at that time to elect and select, and to discourage general advances.
I remember many a bright gathering at No. 3, Castle Terrace, when artists, professors, poets, and
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, hi
58
publishers were present. One occasion is specially Vivid, when Dr. John Brown came, after taking precautions against “being mixed up with strong- minded women,” and when he bandied genial quips with Professor Blackie, Dr. Hanna, Mr. Constable, Sir No£l Paton, Mr. Fraser Tytler, and Alexander Smith.
Miss Bird was interested in the Scottish churches and their assemblies* Her father’s example inclined her from the first to large-minded intercourse with Presbyterians and Episcopalians alike. As a rule, the Birds attended St. Thomas’s Church, but they were enthusiastic for Dr. Candlish, whose church was near ; and Isabella was often to be found in Free St. John’s, either listening to Dr. Hanna’s lectures on the life of our Lord, or to Dr. Guthrie’s impassioned oratory in the afternoon. To Dr. Hanna she owed much, and warmly acknowledged his help in the things of the Spirit. He could divine her perplexities almost before she admitted them, and his courageous treatment, so far in advance of that age, of the Life of lives, with its reverent devotion to our divine Lord, made his faith a fortification to her own. She saw much of him during the sixties and seventies, and deplored his retirement when health failed him.
We find her catching the Assembly epidemic and attending without prejudice the most interesting debates in all three, enjoying especially, in 1865, the Innovation Debate in the Established Assembly.
In the summer of that year Professor Blackie was disappointed by the unwillingness of London pub¬ lishers to accept his Homer , issued afterwards by Messrs. Edmonstone & Douglas, and her sympathy for Mrs. Blackie was warm and spontaneous:
If am able to comfort you at all, it is that my own connection with literary life enables me to enter into
1865-7]
PAPERS ON HYMNS
59
your sorrow, the keenest element of which is dis¬ appointment for one so truly loved and worthy of love. That his book may bring him in the fame wherewith you long to see him crowned I earnestly desire, and I by no means despair of this, although I am aware that it will have to fight its way to the vantage ground from which it could have started if it had been undertaken by Mr. Murray. The beautiful way in which the Professor has taken it greatly ennobles him, and this and many other such conquests and unworldly deeds will ever form his most durable and blessed fame.
She was busy with literary work herself during that spring and summer. “ I have earned ^30 this month, and the ‘accumulative passion’ is wakening. I have to complete another paper on hymns by June 5.”
These papers were published in The Sunday Maga¬ zine during parts of 1865, 1866, and 1867. They were eight in number, and involved minute research. It was after a conversation with Dr. Hanna that, astonished at the fulness of her acquaintance with the beautiful old hymns of the Church, he suggested the papers.
The first deals with the “ Early Hymns,” and begins with an allusion to the praises of God sung at the world’s birth by the morning stars, who heralded the hour “when angels bent over the plain of Judea to sing the sweetest song that ever pealed over our sin-smitten earth when the Babe was born in Bethlehem.” It speaks of the Gospel hymns (the Magnificat, the Benedidus, and the Nunc Dimittis), then of the simple lauds of the post-Apostolic Church, and of Syriac and Greek hymns. She gives in great part her own translations of those quoted, and the paper ends with the hymn sung at the lighting of the evening lamp perhaps as early as the first century, and preserved by St. Basil,
6o
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, hi
Three papers succeed each other in the May, June, and July numbers of The Sunday Magazine for 1865, and are devoted to 11 The Latin Hymns of the Church,” covering the period between St. Jerome in the fourth and the decadence after the thirteenth century, and indicating the hold which hymns acquired and retained in Western Europe.
Christian poetry became popular [she wrote], and wherever Latin Christianity penetrated, hymns were the expression of the new thoughts, fears, and hopes which were stirring to their depths the souls of men ; and in accent and rhyme essentially popular, appeal¬ ing to the ears of all; in their simple rise ana fall appreciable by all — the immortal longings of the new Christian life were breathed forth.
She indicates the stage at which the decaying and undevout Church destroyed this form and in Leo X.’s time classicised the Latin hymns after the model of Horace, and so robbed the people of their heritage; and she warns us against accepting as veritable productions of the true Church of Christ all the quaint and often farcical conceits of monkish hymn- writers.
In the second paper Miss Bird deals more par¬ ticularly with the exquisite hymns of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bernard of Clugny, of Robert II. and other great writers of the twelfth century, and amongst them she interpolates one with the more personal and subjective character which marks it as of later, probably Renaissance, date. This is given in her own translation, and may be quoted.
IN THE FIELD
Fighting the battle of life With a weary heart and head ;
Far in the midst of the strife The banners of joy are fled ;
1865-7]
PAPERS ON HYMNS
6 1
Fled and gone out of sight,
When I thought they were so near ;
And the music of hope this night Is dying away on my ear.
Fighting alone to-night —
With not even a stander-by
To cheer me on in the fight,
Or to hear me when I cry.
Only the Lord can hear,
Only the Lord can see
The struggle within how dark and drear,
Though quiet the outside be.
Lord, I would fain be still And quiet behind my shield ;
But make me to love Thy will,
For fear I should ever yield.
Even as now my hands,
So doth my folded will
Lie waiting Thy commands Without one anxious thrill.
But as with sudden pain My hands unfold and clasp,
So doth my will start up again And taketh its old firm grasp.
Nothing but perfect trust,
And love of Thy perfect will,
Can raise me out of the dust,
And bid my fears lie still.
O Lord, Thou hidest Thy face,
And the battle-clouds prevail ;
O grant me Thy most sweet grace,
That I may not utterly fail !
Fighting alone to-night,
With what a sickening heart 1 —
Lord Jesus, in the fight,
O stand not Thou apart !
The author is unknown, and we can imagine this to be the outpouring of some anxious heart awaiting trial, for loving Christ better than His perverted Church, in Reformation times. The article ends with the Hymns of Judgment.
The concluding paper goes over the ground of
62
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, m
the whole Latin hymnology, with definite classi¬ fication into Ambrosian, Mediaeval, and Transition periods, and concludes with an exquisite reflection upon the last :
For several centuries the Latin Hymns were em¬ phatically “ songs of the night,” and when the day at last dawned it was upon men sitting in the region and shadow of death, with death’s heavy atmosphere all around them. It is not wonderful that the poetry should reflect the autumn-time, and that the plaintive cry of distress should overpower the murmur of thanksgiving, for the spirit of bondage unto fear had returned, the “ lame hands of faith ” which grasped the Cross were paralysed by doubt, and the misgivings of the fearful were never set at rest, until the river was crossed, and the Master’s voice of welcome fell upon the ears of His trembling servants.
As we already know, Miss Bird crossed the Atlantic in the early spring of 1866 to visit her settlement in Canada, so that it was not till May of that year that she was able to resume her papers. It is, however, advisable to review the series without biographical interruption. In that month she con¬ tributed an article on the development of German Hymnology and the Reformation and the Revival of praise. “ It was on the wings of hymns,” she wrote, “ which embodied and popularised the new doctrines, that the Reformation flew through Germany. The Latin sacred poetry was speedily lost in the German Christian lyric.”
She draws attention to the richness of Danish and German Protestant Hymnologies two centuries before England and Scotland found the “ new song.”
In the two succeeding articles she sketched the meagre hymnology of the time of Queen Elizabeth, whose writers she illustrated with careful quotation. She recognised its rare praise, its melancholy, its
MRS. BIRD’S LAST ILLNESS
63
1866]
tendency to trivial conceits, its formality, its want of spontaneity, its occasional homeliness almost verging upon coarseness.
Miss Bird contributed “ The Emblematists ” to The Sunday Magazine for September, 1867. In this paper she deals with Donne, Quarles, and Herbert, preferring Dr. John Donne and quoting his “ Hymn to God the Father,” which was “ set to a solemn and stately tune, and was regularly sung at the con¬ clusion of public worship in St. Paul’s.” But her account of Herbert is naturally more attractive than those of Donne and Quarles, and she reminds us that his Temple is the prayer-book in poetry. This literary work of Miss Bird’s, executed at 3 Castle Terrace, is characteristic : it was so good, so instructive, so well handled and so well written.
Again a great sorrow awaited her. Mrs. Bird had been tempted south the previous autumn, but returned from a round of visits greatly exhausted, and her daughters were anxious about her all winter. In April Dr. Moir suggested a change, and she had gone to Bridge of Allan with Henrietta during Isabella’s brief absence : at first she rallied and enjoyed walking and driving. Then a spell of bitter east wind undid all the benefit received and bronchitis kept her a prisoner till May, when they went to Gourock, where a milder climate revived her wonderfully. They stayed there till Isabella’s return, and she joined them for a day or two, driving with them to Greenock to see Henrietta on board the Clansman , bound for Tobermory, after which Isabella took her mother home to 3 Castle Terrace. But the east wind was again in full force, and for weeks she was very poorly. It was some time before she could be persuaded to give up her habit
64
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, m
of rising at six o’clock, that she might have a long time for her morning devotions, but soon there was no question of her rising at all. Jn her last days she was much soothed by her daughters singing to her her favourite hymns, and on August 14 the end came.
She was laid in her grave in the Dean Cemetery, and Mr. Bird’s coffin was brought from Houghton and lowered beside hers. On her headstone were engraved her own chosen words : “ With Christ, which is far better.”
“ She has been my one object for the eight years of her widowhood,” Miss Bird wrote, “ and her stimu¬ lating presence has been ever beside me.”
To both sisters her death was a crushing blow, and they left Edinburgh for nearly six months, Henrietta to Tobermory, Isabella to London, Tun¬ bridge Wells, and Farnham.
They returned in February, 1867. Mrs. Blackie, with tender thoughts for their feelings, went early, on the day of their home-coming, to 3 Castle Terrace, and with deft touches altered the arrangement of their sitting-room, filled vases with flowers and saw to the setting of their dinner-table, so that the first sight of the vacant place might be tempered with just enough of change to spare them too poignant pain.
Your kindness [wrote Miss Bird] gave us both such a singular feeling. Nothing makes a place so like home as the presence of those who love us, and in returning to Edinburgh I do feel it more homey than any other place can be, even apart from its sacred memories. We very much like the alterations, but we have replaced the sideboard, for its removal made the room look too unlike the one in which my treasure lived and died.
While at Farnham Castle with the Bishop of
Mrs. Edward Bird, Mrs. Bishop’s Mother
V
THE OUTER HEBRIDES
65
1866]
Winchester, Miss Bird put into literary shape her notes of the tour made in i860 to the Outer Hebrides, for which she had taken sketches on the spot. Both she and her sister were artists, Henrietta the finer of the two. Her journal made five papers for The Leisure Hour of September and October, 1867, which record her voyage to North Uist and her visits in H.M.S. Shamrock and H.M.S. Rose to South Bernera, Barra, Vallay, Baleshere, Benbecula, Grimasay, and South Uist, and end sadly: “ The islands are but ‘ a fisherman’s walk, two steps and overboard,’ hummocks of rock rising out of desolate, rainy seas, deserts without an oasis, the sport of winds and waves.”
Henrietta Bird devoted herself to study more than ever. She worked at Hebrew, Greek, and Latin and lived her own gentle life, shrinking from Edinburgh dinners and parties, but cultivating some quiet friendships and giving a radiant welcome to all Isabella’s visitors. Her artistic power had grown with constant practice in the Highlands, and many a lovely scene in sunset light or morning glory was caught and kept by her skilled hand. There was an inspiration in Henrietta as true and almost as powerful as in Isabella, but it expressed itself in beautiful thoughts and reveries ; in loving deeds that her own left hand was not permitted to know ; in extraordinary acquaintance with the Scriptures, for whose sake she studied both Hebrew and Greek ; in poetry and in painting, both arts delicately used to utter the expression of her own soul, pure, gentle, tender, and self-suppressing.
Professor and Mrs. Blackie had realised by the autumn of 1866 their dream of a Highland home, and Altnacraig stood complete on a little plateau above the Sound of Kerrera, a place to be remembered
5
66 EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, hi
by all who were honoured with the freedom of its gracious hospitality. One of its earliest invited guests was Miss Bird, but she could not go that sad autumn, and it was wiser for her to refrain from scenes which acutely reminded her of the beloved dead.
Both sisters went to Oban in the summer of 1867 and visited many old haunts, but Isabella still shrank from Altnacraig, for the Professor’s house was full of guests, and she preferred quiet weeks with Miss Clayton, who let her occupy herself exactly as she wished to do. She wrote towards the close of summer :
I should not like to be the skeleton at the feast. Instead I hope to go with you to Ardrishaig on Monday, when I may have a chance of a quiet talk with you. Hennie and I have been spending a very interesting day at Lismore. No place in the Highlands has equally happy associations to me.
But next year she made out the visit to Altnacraig, and a letter written on July 20 suggests how it had charmed her :
Altnacraig is constantly before me in its perfect beauty ; it spoils one for everything else. I only feel that if I lived there as long as you do I should be in danger of practising Edgar Poe’s heartless maxim — “ Forget the painful, suppress the disagree¬ able, banish the ugly.” My visit was delicious at the time and is delicious in memory, as a brief, bright episode of peace. Vainly I waved from the deck of the Chevalier ! The blue smoke, as from a newly lighted fire, curled lazily up from your kitchen chimney, your blinds were all drawn, and I mentally ejaculated, “Go to the ant, you sluggards!” It looked so lovely, I wished I had just begun my visit.
During the winter and spring of 1868 Miss Bird was occupied with the appalling conditions of the Old Town of Edinburgh. The subject came to
i868] NOTES ON OLD EDINBURGH 67
her notice through the work done by Dr. Guthrie’s Ragged Schools, upon which she had written an article for The Leisure Hour in 1861, and her interest was quickened by acquaintance with the Pleasance Mission and the efforts being made in the Cowgate, Cannongate, and Vennel.
Now that her emigration work was over, she turned her special attention to the perplexing problem of helping the unhappy denizens of these slums. She visited the tenements where they congregated in squalor and filth, making little effort at cleanliness, since it was hopeless to keep clean what in weariness they scrubbed ; for added to the foulness of their rooms was a most inadequate water service, and they could count on its supply for only three hours in each day. Whisky was unlimited, and its taps flowed at every corner. It cost money, indeed, but then it gave respite in drunken dreams from the hideousness of waking life ; it meant ruin of body and soul, torture of children, hatred of one another, brawling and murder, but it also meant excitement, that dreadful drama, ever in action on street and stair¬ case, which is so often an absorbing tragedy. And all because for generations the poor had been penned into what was deemed their proper place, and they had matriculated there in vice and misery, making perpetual riot, because they had never known what cleanliness and peace of soul and body meant. Early in 1869 Miss Bird wrote her Notes on Old Edinburgh , and spared no detail of the civic shame.
She put her name as the writer of The English¬ woman in America upon its title-page, and attributed to that its great success ; but, indeed, men’s minds, hearts, and eyes were opening to look upon the distressful existence of the masses, and to haste to
68
EDINBURGH AND WORK [chap, hi
their rescue, and since that time the cause of the poor has been the war-cry of an army of God’s servants. But then philanthropy was only rubbing its eyes awake from slumber. It seemed to be exclusively the role of great men and women — John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Wilberforce, Thomas Guthrie — and their helpers ; it had not then become a prin¬ ciple in each individual life, as it is growing to be. Miss Bird’s brain was busy with the problem, and schemes for a measure of cleanliness occurred to her as possible in the meantime, until town councillors and landlords should be coerced into action. So she spent five weeks of the winter in London to inform herself thoroughly in the details of a practic¬ able project, and visited several wash-houses estab¬ lished in the East End for the convenience of its overcrowded population.
Admiral and Mrs. Otter lent her and her sister the manor-house at Oban for a month of the early summer of 1869, induced by Dr. Moir’s verdict that Miss Bird must go to the sea, sleep on the ground floor, and be out in a boat most of the day. This hospitable offer was accepted from the middle of May, and was extended to nearly the end of June, as the Otters remained absent from home till then. On June 2 she was so much better that Henrietta left her to pay some visits in England, and had hardly gone when her sister was seized with inflam¬ mation of the throat, and was “ as ill as could be with choking, aching, leeches, poultices, doctors twice a day, etc.”
Fortunately Miss Clayton was able to hasten northwards to nurse her, but much of June was wasted in illness and spent in her bedroom, which happily had a lovely view and received the westering
1869]
MISS CLAYTON
69
sunshine. Before June ended she was able to be out again, and row gently about the coast and across to Kerrera.
Before the publication of her Notes on Old Edinburgh, by Messrs. Edmonstone & Douglas, much of her time was spent with Miss Clayton and the Miss Kers, who lived at 28 Rutland Square. Miss Clayton had helped to nurse Mrs. Bird in 1866, and was dear to Isabella as a sister. Although the flat at 3 Castle Terrace was retained till the spring of 1872, her great spinal weakness made the stair an obstacle at times of greater suffering than usual, and it was Miss Clayton’s pleasure to have her as a guest, and to nurse her. She was a woman of exceptionally bright intelligence, always entering fully into Miss Bird’s interests, and they enjoyed each other’s society. When she stayed at 28 Rutland Square, Miss Clayton went to her room immediately after break¬ fast, and they had an hour of talk before the busy day began. Isabella’s energy was a constant source of anxiety to Miss Clayton, who used vainly to remonstrate with her when she attempted ex¬ peditions for which she seemed bodily unfit, and from which she always returned in a state of collapse ; and at these vain entreaties Isabella would compare her to a mother-hen distracted with the doings of her duckling brood, and would call her “ Hen ” in affectionate raillery.
CHAPTER IV
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT
Of the early summer of 1870 we have but scanty record. Henrietta Bird spent July in lodgings at Tobermory, but in that month Isabella was at home, frail and in pain. Dr. Moir suggested a steel net to support her head at the back when she required to sit up, her suffering being caused by the weight of her head on a diseased spine. During the last week of July she was sufficiently relieved by this contrivance to take great pleasure in an unexpected visit from her cousins Professor Lawson 1 and his elder brother, whom she had not seen for fifteen years.
I enjoyed their coming [she wrote to Mrs. Blackie], they were so lively and so affectionate and enthusiastic * about Edinburgh and Scotland. It was so funny, sud¬ denly to find myself playing hostess to two charming young men. Plennie has only come home to renew her clothes and go back to Tobermory. I spent one evening with Lady Emma Campbell, and on Friday she brought Sir John McNeill to afternoon tea with me. She says that “ with her infinite happiness an infinite terror is linked ! ” She is indescribably happy and so fascinating — all tenderness, womanliness, and brightness. Read Studious Women , by Bishop Dupan- loup. I like it better than any of the contributions to the literature of the women question. Oh, how I hate this war — all wars ! Do not you long for a King
1 Professor of Botany and Rural Economy at Oxford.
70
1870]
APPLECROSS
7i
to come whose title to universal dominion shall be Righteousness , and in whose beneficent reign men shall learn war no more ?
During her long days of prostration she read incessantly. She had the freedom of Professor Blackie’s library, and ends this letter with : “ Lend me the Seven Lamps of Architecture and Matthew Arnold’s Poems) the volume which contains ‘ Em¬ pedocles on Etna.’ ” Later she went first to London, and then north, as we learn from Lady Middleton, who writes :
I first knew Isabella Bird in 1870. Travelling up to Applecross in the same boat as her sister Henrietta, we fraternised, and she told me Miss Bird was coming up to visit a “ ladies’ school ” on the Applecross estate. I told my mother-in-law, who invited her to make Applecross House her hotel for the two or three days she required to be on the place. From that time began a friendship that lasted — notwithstanding gaps sometimes of years in contact of communication — till her death.
Mrs. Bishop’s first letter to Lady Middleton — then the Hon. Mrs. Willoughby — supplements this earliest of many recollections and gives a detailed account of her project for helping the Edinburgh poor. It is also interesting for its allusion to Miss Gordon Cumming, whom she met for the first time at Applecross, and with whom she maintained a warm and admiring friendship in after years.
The letter is dated September 29, 1870, from
Balmacarra House, Ross-shire :
I received your very welcome note on my arrival here from Loch Hourn, but a wretched cold which continues to stultify my intellect has prevented me from answering it. I wished to say, in answer to your generous thought, that since my “ wicked book ” \_Notes on Old Edinburgh Q was written, several taps or spigots have been placed in closes, which formerly
7 2
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
depended on that one well ; also that in the present state of things, with six reservoirs out of seven abso¬ lutely dry, and rich as well as poor dependent on a supply during only three hours of the day, the new water-trust is unable to sanction even the erection of a drinking-fountain, much less such a well as you so kindly propose. So the poor must continue to suffer and to slake their thirst with the whisky which stimu¬ lated it, till true notions of love and justice control the wretched landlords, who are making wealth out of the dismal dens which they call “ house property.” In the meantime, owing to the “ city improvements,” which consist in pulling down the old houses and building handsome, high-rented streets on their sites, the overcrowding is worse even than it was when I described it. Several thousand pounds are forthcoming for the purpose of either rendering habit¬ able the substantial stone carcases of these old houses, or of building new ones, as may seem most feasible — the rents of rooms fit to be human abodes not to exceed the rent demanded for these dark and airless lairs. But renovating and building alike take time. I am anxious to set a-going some means of temporary relief of two kinds. First, to hire rooms in several of the lowest quarters of the town, and fit each room with a portable boiler, a mangle, an ironing-stove, and ironing-boards. This can be done, I learned in London, for £50 a room. These wash-houses should be open to twelve or more women every day on paying for their soap and a trifle for fuel, thus enabling our very poorest to have clean clothes without the difficulty of getting water and without the misery and unwhole¬ someness of the steam of half-washed clothes in their dark and crowded rooms. If I can get £100 I shall lose no time in trying to start a wash-house in the Grass Market. The other plan (which I saw being successfully worked in the East of London) is to open a wash-house with the necessary appliances for taking in washing for the poor at sixpence a dozen. This furnishes a labour test also, as no women who are not industrious as well as poor will wash such clothes at is. 3 d. per day. ... 1 wonder whether your aunt knows ladies of devotion and administrative ability, who would learn to organise and work the last scheme. When I went five weeks ago to investigate
NEW FRIENDS
73
1870]
it in London, I was proud of our Church for being able to produce ladies who undertook such odious details. . . . How delightful it is that I have been able to interest you ! I got to Broadford by the railroad steamer, and fraternised with Mr. Tosh and two ladies at the inn there. The next day was the communion, and I greatly enjoyed the sight ; three thousand people were present. On Monday I went to Glenelg, and had a splendid drive of thirteen miles along an awful road to Arnisdale, far up Loch Hourn. I longed for your aunt [Miss Gordon Cumming], for the scenery was grand beyond all description, such richness and depth as well as brilliancy both of local and atmospheric colouring. My sister joined me at Glenelg, and we came on here on the 20th. ... I cannot tell how happily those two days passed at Applecross, or how grateful I feel to you for making me acquainted with yourself and Lady Middleton and her family. It is indeed a delight, not to be forgotten, the seeing such a happy and beautiful family life. Among the enjoyments of those two days I do not forget my acquaintance with your aunt, which is to be renewed, I hope, in the winter. As I saw you all grouped at the door, I wondered how it was that I felt so much regret at parting with people whose acquaintance I had only made three days previously.
Miss Gordon Cumming had just returned from India, Egypt, and Malta, as she tells us in her recently published Memories , and was staying at Applecross. She remembers how —
One morning Lady Middleton announced that she had to take a somewhat distant expedition by boat to fetch a lady who was doing a tour of inspection of schools in the Highlands and Islands, which she was accomplishing in the simplest manner, walking or boating from point to point, and having sometimes to make the best of very rough quarters. In the evening Lady Middleton returned accompanied by a tiny and very quiet little lady, and we all wondered at her pluck in undertaking such arduous journeying all alone. I was at that time writing my very big book, From the Hebrides to the Himalayas, being keenly
74
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
interested in various points of resemblance between the old customs of both races, and my large portfolio of Indian sketches gave daily amusement to all visitors. Naturally, Miss Bird was interested in these subjects, but she had to hurry away to inspect more schools.
Lady Middleton goes on to say :
When I first knew her, she was a very extraordinary woman. Her quiet, slow, deliberate manner of speech might have been a little tedious in one less gifted ; but when the measured sentences at last came forth, you felt they had been worth waiting for. She had very projecting upper teeth then, and they may have affected her utterance, but she had the pluck to have them replaced.
This tour in the Highlands included the examination of eleven schools altogether, and she was surprised to find how efficiently the children were taught in those remote and often lonely places.
Next winter, Henrietta was busy with Greek, for Professor Blackie had begun his class for ladies, whilst Isabella was obliged to go to London to see a specialist, who sent her home “ to stay in bed and keep as quiet as if I had a fever,” — so for a time she saw no one, went nowhere, and rested the greater part of the twenty- four hours. Perhaps her autumn exertions brought on this collapse. The old insomnia returned, and her nervous system was affected. A constant distress assailed her spirits and kept her in mental as well as physical anguish. When sleep returned, and with it relief from this depression, she gave utterance to her experience in a beautiful poem, well known to her most intimate friends, and comforting to many.
THE DARKNESS IS PAST
Fevered by long unrest, of conflict weary,
Sickened by doubt, writhing with inward pain,
My spirit cries from out the midnight dreary For the old long-lost days of peace again.
87o]
“OUT OF THE DEPTHS ”
75
Gone is my early Heaven, with all its radiant story Of fiery throne and glassy sea, and sapphire blaze,
Its white-robed throng, palm-bearing, crowned with golden glory, Its ceaseless service of unhindered praise.
Vanished my early faith, with all its untold treasure Of steadfast calm and questionless repose
Bartered away — lost for a heaped-up measure Of strife and doubt and fears and mental woes.
No Light ! no Life ! no Truth ! now from my soul for ever The last dim star withdraws its glimmering ray ;
Lonely and hopeless, never on me, oh never,
Shall break the dawn of the long-looked-for day.
Rudder and anchor gone, on through the darkness lonely I drift o’er shoreless seas to deeper night,
Drifting, still drifting — oh, for one glimmer only,
One blessed ray of Truth’s unerring light !
Out of the depths I cry— my anguished soul revealing,
“ Light in the darkness shining ! shed Thy life-giving ray :
Low at Thy cross I fall, I plead for aid and healing,
O Christ ! reveal Thyself and turn my night to day ! ”
The prayer is heard, else why this strange returning To stranger peace, to calm unknown before?
The peace of doubt dispelled, the calm of vanquished yearning, A deeper, truer rest than that of yore.
O Saviour- Man ! Priest, but in garments royal !
Thyself the Truth ! Thyself the inner life !
While at Thy feet I kneel in homage loyal,
I hear unmoved the weary din of strife.
The din of impious men, for ever thronging The sacred threshold of the unrevealed —
Smitten with blindness, and the hopeless longing To force the door which Thou Thyself hast sealed.
Farewell, my early Heaven ! Brighter the life victorious Of which Thou art the joy, the breath, the light ;
While on Thy throne, the Church, Thy Bride most glorious Beside Thee sits, arrayed in mystic white.
Farewell, my early faith ! Better the trust unshaken
With which in child-like love I grasp Thy pierced hand,
Child-like to learn of Thee, until I waken
Blest with Thy likeness in Thine own bright land.
Content to wait, till days of darkened vision
And lisping speech and childish thought are done,
And knowledge vanishes in faith’s fruition As fading stars before the morning sun.
I. L. B.
;6
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
When spring came she was sufficiently restored to see friends and to write a little. It was early in 1871 that she began a series of papers on eighteenth- century hymn-writers, Wesley, Watts, Cowper, and others.
Miss Cullen was privileged to see her often, when her weakness forbade visits from others, and she and Miss Clayton were much with her during those months of retirement.
The Rev. George Cullen, too, was a welcome friend. He had co-operated with her in all her work for others, the emigration from Skye, the effort to do something to relieve the wretchedness of the poor. He was endeared to both sisters by his regard for their mother, and he had officiated at her funeral in the Dean Cemetery, reading a passage from Scripture which Henrietta pointed out — perhaps that from which was chosen the line upon her tomb¬ stone— Phil. i. 20-24. If so, it was Mrs. Bird’s own choice, for by her wish the words were engraved, “To be with Christ, which is far better.”
His early correspondence with Miss Bird has been mentioned, and his own account of it, written in 1880, explains it:
In 1858, when trying by the formation of the Union Prayer Meeting to carry out a resolution which I had formed in Malvern during the Mutiny in India, I had to collect and send out intelligence of the Revival in America and elsewhere. Among other sources of information I prized greatly the letters that appeared in The Patriot newspaper, from a lady. When after¬ wards I was asked to prepare a summary of this intel¬ ligence for very extensive circulation, I drew largely from these letters. On publication of the pamphlet,
I wished to send a copy to the writer, but not knowing her address I forwarded it to the editor of the news¬ paper. It reached the lady, and in a very short time
1872]
VOYAGE TO NEW YORK
77
I heard from her from a rectory in Huntingdonshire, and this led to a correspondence with Miss Bird and with her excellent father.
It seems to have been about autumn-time that Dr. Moir and Dr. Grainger Stewart urged her to take a sea-voyage. She chose a short one, for she felt unwilling to leave her sister and home for more than a few months. They decided to give up the flat at the May term of 1872, as the possibility of further absences and Henrietta’s growing attach¬ ment to Tobermory made its retention almost an encumbrance.
Miss Bird engaged a berth through Mr. Dunlop in a steamer bound for New York, and chartered to go up the Mediterranean on its return, in order to visit ports in Italy, Algeria, Spain, and Portugal before making for Liverpool. She was furnished with an introduction to Mr. James Robertson by Mr. Thomas Nelson, whose publishing firm Mr. Robertson represented in New York. When the steamer arrived he called on her, and finding her living on board, he invited her to stay at his house during the few weeks of detention. But she was too ill to make much use of her visit, and returned from the trip less benefited than her doctors had hoped.
Her sister had become much attached to Tobermory, where she stayed part of every summer with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Macfarlane, at the Baptist Manse. Mr. Macfarlane was, however, now “ trans¬ lated ” to Tiree, so she made arrangements with Mrs. Thomson, of Ulva Cottage, whither she trans¬ ferred her belongings, and there, in an upper room, she stayed as long as the summer permitted. It was not till 1874 that she found quarters in Strongarbh
78
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
Cottage, which two years later she rented from the Free Church of Tobermory. After giving up 3 Castle Terrace, and seeing her sister off to Mull, Miss Bird started again for a more prolonged cruise, under orders to shift the scene as much as possible, and to remain within the curative influences of sea and mountain air. Mr. Dunlop made her arrangements, and she left Edinburgh for Australia on July 11, 1872, for an absence prolonged to eighteen months — desolate at parting with Henrietta, and quoting in her diary the rebellious cry: “All his days he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.”
Early next morning the steamer left its anchorage, and she had to conquer a strong impulse to quit and go back before it was fairly under way. For weeks she was dejected, dull, and uncomfortable ; but when the line was crossed, and the weather grew cool with favouring winds, she began to take an interest in her fellow passengers and to bring her work upon deck. It was an elaborate piece of bead- work, which she found rather inconvenient, but pursued to the finish. Then in September she caught a chill, and was so prostrated that the captain thought she was dying. There were many disagreeables to add to her suffering — loud quarrels, noisy complaints, a dirty stewardess, and, above all, vile conversation only too audible. It was not till Saturday, October 5, that she reached Melbourne, where she was met and hospitably housed by friends to whom she bore an introduction. She stayed nearly two months in Australia, experiencing all its varieties of weather — dust-storms, drought, and rain ; and, except for much hospitality, not greatly appreciating its life, scenery, and sights. The bush interested
THE SEA
1873]
79
her most, and she notes its gum, acacia, bottlebrush, and blackwood trees.
On November 28 she left for Invercargill in a small crowded steamer, its decks loaded with a cargo of sheep and horses, and, what was worse, with a lunatic in the berth next to hers. But a week later she changed steamers at Port Chalmers and went on to Dunedin, where Mr. Blair met her and took her to an hotel. New Zealand must have been at its worst that summer at the Antipodes, for she has no good word to say of it, although she liked its people greatly and visited both the Otago and Canterbury settlements thoroughly. Heat and dust prevailed, and she was appalled by the drunkenness everywhere.
She left for the Sandwich Islands on January 1, 1873, and after an adventurous voyage in an unseaworthy vessel, described in her book Six Months in the Sandwich Islands , she reached Honolulu on January 25, and took up her quarters at the Hawaiian Hotel. That, by this time, she was in much better health is evidenced by her enjoyment of the voyage, one which at several stages threatened danger. When she was well she delighted in the sea, and a letter written to Mrs. Blackie about this time contains a rapturous passage on its attractions :
At last [she wrote] I am in love, and the old sea-god has so stolen my heart and penetrated my soul that I seriously feel that hereafter, though I must be else¬ where in body, I shall be with him in spirit ! My two friends on board this ship have several times told me that I have imbibed the very spirit of the sea. It is to me like living in a new world, so free, so fresh, so vital, so careless, so unfettered, so full of interest that one grudges being asleep; and, instead of carrying cares and worries and thoughts of the morrow to bed with one to keep one awake, one falls asleep at once to wake to another day in which one knows that there can be
80 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
nothing to annoy one — no door-bells, no “please mems,” no dirt, no bills, no demands of any kind, no vain attempts to overtake all one knows one should do. Above all, no nervousness, and no conventionalities, no dressing. It sounds a hideously selfish life, but in the inevitably intimate association of people in all cir¬ cumstances for months of almost entire isolation, human relations spring up and human interests and in some instances warm feelings of regard, which have a tendency to keep selfishness in a degree under.
All the world knows how this delight extended to her land adventures in the Sandwich Islands, whose marvels of scenery, volcanic mountains in action, valleys, forests, rivers and coasts, glorious vegetation, and political social and religious life fascinated her into a residence of seven months.
From the Sandwich Islands she sailed to America, spent some months at a Sanatorium in the Rocky Mountains, achieved her famous ride and then made her way to New York and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Robertson till her steamer sailed for Liverpool.
All her detailed letters were written to Henrietta, who kept them carefully. A small group of her most intimate friends had the privilege of reading them — Miss Clayton, Miss Cullen, Mrs. Blackie, sometimes Mrs. Smith, widow of the author of a book widely read in its day, The Conflict of Opinions} and a woman endowed herself with gifts of mind and heart, who could value those of Miss Bird.
She wrote to Mr. Murray from Black Canon, Colorado, on December 13, 1873, respecting these letters :
The seven months in the Sandwich Islands was a period of the most intense interest and fascination. . . . I wrote journal letters to my sister of a highly de¬ scriptive kind, and even with the disadvantage of laborious accuracy. They are enthusiastic enough to
1874]
THE SANDWICH ISLANDS
81
have awakened a great deal of enthusiasm amongst my friends at home, and they are very anxious that I should publish my experiences, on the ground that there is no modern book of travels in Hawaii-nei worth anything, and that my acquaintance with the islands is thorough enough to justify me in giving it to the world.
Dr. Blaikie had tried to secure the letters for Good Words, but Miss Bird felt them to be worthy of a less fragmentary mode of publication.
On her final return to Edinburgh the sisters took lodgings at 17 Melville Street, and there Mr. Murray’s answer reached her. He requested further details of her wishes as to the scheme of a book on the Sandwich Islands, and she replied at once giving her reasons for retaining the epistolary form, adding that she had made some sketches and collected photographs, plans, and maps sufficient for illustration, material enough altogether for an octavo volume. At this time she would have preferred her Rocky Mountains letters to be combined with those from the Sandwich Islands, but deferred to Mr. Murray’s opinion that they should be published separately.
Her immediate work therefore was the revision of her letters, the excision of a mass of personal details, the verification and correction of her statistics, and the copying of the whole into a form fitting for Mr. Murray’s perusal and verdict.
During this lengthy process she spent some time in Oban and in Tobermory, delighted with the cottage. Then, called south by her relatives and friends, she left for London about the middle of May. There she paid Mrs. Rundle Charles a visit in Hampstead, heard a debate in the House of Commons, and a fine sermon by Dr. McGee, Bishop of Peterborough, in Westminster Abbey, visited
6
82 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
Kew Gardens for the first time and to her great delight. “ They are truly stately,” she wrote to Mrs. Blackie, “and the tropical houses satisfied my soul with the beauty and redundancy of the tropical forms.”
From London she went to stay with Mrs. Brown at Houghton, and had a week’s boating on the Ouse, which proved “ even better than I anticipated, the restored old churches are ravishing, and all that Cowperian country was home to me ; its soft, dreamy beauty of great trees and green meadows, and a silvery, lilied river, was entirely perfect.”
When she wrote this letter she was staying at Knoyle Rectory, near Salisbury, with her cousin Mrs. Milford, the Bishop of Winchester’s daughter, and was resting with deep appreciation of the absolute peace of a sweet English home. It enabled her to complete about two-thirds of her manuscript, which she forwarded to Mr. Murray on June 17, 1874. He accepted it for publication, pending her completion of the work and the arrival of maps and illustrations, which at the time were rounding Cape Horn.
In July she returned to London and stayed with her aunt, Mrs. Harrington Evans. It was on this occasion that her teeth broken in the Rockies were replaced, an alteration for the better in many ways, although she declared that the absence of her natural front teeth detracted from the cheerfulness of her expression !
Plans for three weeks by the Ouse and for a pleasant family gathering at Seaton Carew were upset by Miss Clayton’s wishing Miss Bird to join her and other friends in Switzerland. So Henrietta, who had joined her in London, returned to Tober¬ mory, and Isabella started on July 29 for Hospenthal.
MR. NUGENT
83
1874]
On the evening before her journey she received from America news which made her indescribably sad. Her guide in the Rocky Mountains, known as “ Mountain Jim/’ was a Mr. Nugent, a man of good birth and university education, who had unhappily yielded to ruinous habits and had drifted down to the precarious freedom of a trapper’s life by 1873, when she met him. His intercourse with her during the weeks of her enterprise brought out all that was good and gracious in the man, and his care, forethought, and experience smoothed away difficulties which might otherwise have deterred even her extraordinary courage. Her influence over him was wonderful. He surrendered every evil habit, drinking, swearing, quarrelling, murderous fighting, and became what he was meant to be — a considerate gentleman, sympathetic and helpful in all her interests. When she had to bid him farewell at Namaqua, Mr. Nugent broke down com¬ pletely. “ I shall see you again,” he reiterated. “ I must see you again.” She spoke very gently to him about the one influence which redeems from sin and fortifies the repentant sinner, and repeated to him a text to keep ever in his remembrance, as a reminder to the unhappy man, whom her gentleness had restored to a measure of self-respect. Then they promised each other that after death, if it were permitted, the one taken would appear to the other. This parting gave her great pain, but she felt that Mr. Nugent had undertaken to live a new life and that she could help him by prayer and by her letters. Nearly a year had passed. Mr. Nugent’s letters gave evidence of continued steadiness. Then sud¬ denly, on July 25, came the distressing news that he was dead. Insulted by a man named Evans, he was overcome by rage, and the Welshman shot him
84 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
under the impression that “ Mountain Jim ” was about to murder him. He deeply regretted his tragic mistake and carried him into his own house, where, contrary to the first report that he had been killed outright, he lingered for ten days. Miss Bird went to Switzerland full of the distressing conviction that Jim had died unrepentant, and occupied with the remembrance of their mutual promise.
From Hospenthal an almost immediate move was made to Interlaken, and there one morning as she lay in bed, half unnerved by the shock of his death and half expectant, she saw “ Mountain Jim,” in his trapper’s dress just as she had seen him last, standing in the middle of her room. He bowed low to her and vanished. Then one of her friends came into the room and she told her what had just occurred. When exact news of his death arrived, its date coincided with that of the vision.
Torrents of rain made her stay at Interlaken very dreary, and she was not sorry to return to London by the middle of September, and thence to go to her sister at Tobermory till November, when they took up winter quarters at 7 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh. Mr. Murray decided to postpone the publication of Six Months in the Sandwich Islands till February, 1875, as several new books were to appear in November.
I thoroughly appreciate [she wrote] the reasons you give for delaying the publication of my book, and have pleasure in deferring to your experienced wisdom. I have seen small craft swamped in the swell of larger steamers before now.
When it came out it met with the most cordial reception ; men of science, as well as the reading public, thanked her for the valuable addition made
1875] the SANDWICH ISLANDS 85
by her to the sum of knowledge ; and appreciative reviews appeared in all the leading journals.
Indeed, her extraordinary power of observation had grasped so much of the natural history of the Hawaiian Archipelago, and particularly such an infinite number of details concerning its active vol¬ canoes, that the islands were for the first time made intelligible. It is not surprising, therefore, that Nature reviewed the book with warmth not unmingled with astonishment, and that members of the scientific societies wrote to her with admiring congratula¬ tions. But apart from its valuable contributions to the physical geography, the mineral products, the botanical redundancy of Hawaii-nei, Six Months in the Sandwich Islands has a charm of narrative very rare in books of travel, a charm doubtless due to the freshness of impressions committed to language before they had time to fade into an outline.
Perhaps the result is less artistic, as a whole, than a well-considered plan of record might have been. Details are scarcely less prominent than the main facts, and the reader becomes wearied at times of reiterated lists of forest trees and mountain scrub. But the facts are in themselves so important, and so graphically presented, that they take firm hold of the memory, whilst the repetitions lose themselves in a general haze of atmosphere, cliffs, forest, and ferns.
It would have been undesirable even for a traveller of a prosaic mind — who had seen all that Miss Bird had seen — to attempt to relate his experiences in cold¬ blooded literary form, with due regard for perspective, and balance of values ; but, for a person of her tem¬ perament and personality, such a course was im¬ possible. Not only are the records of her impressions of lighter things bright and sparkling, but even the
86 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
dry bones of her narrative are clothed in so attractive and picturesque a veil as to become interesting and engrossing.
The literary charm of every paragraph and sentence is obvious, and one reads the book to-day with the same eagerness with which one devoured it in 1875. The vividness of her style is shown in the following passage on p. 222, a description of the Iao valley in Mani :
The trail leads down a gorge dark with forest trees, and opens out into an amphitheatre, walled in by precipices from three to six thousand feet high, misty with a thousand waterfalls, planted with kukuis , and feathery with ferns. A green-clad needle of stone, one thousand feet in height, the last refuge of an army routed when the Wailuku ran red with blood, keeps guard over the valley. Other needles there are ; and mimic ruins of bastions, ramparts, and towers came and passed mysteriously ; and the shining fronts of turrets gleamed through trailing mists, changing into drifting visions of things that came and went in sun¬ shine and shadow — mountains raising battered peaks into a cloudless sky, green crags moist with ferns, and mists of water that could not fall, but frittered them¬ selves away on slopes of maidenhair, and depths of forest and ferns in which bright streams warble through the summer years. Clouds boiling up from below drifted at times across the mountain fronts, or lay like snow-masses in the unsunned chasms ; and over the grey crags and piled-up pinnacles and glorified green of the marvellous vision lay a veil of thin blue haze, steeping the whole in a serenity which seemed hardly to belong to earth.
Miss Bird had to pay the penalty of all popular authors. Letters from the dreary fellowship of bores assailed her. Of one she wrote:
He has laid before me, with the prolixity of a vale¬ tudinarian, a whole host of symptoms fitted for the consideration of a physician, given me a personal
i875] CABMEN’S REST 87
narrative of twelve years, and asks eventually if the climate of Honolulu would suit his case, and if I can supply him with a tabular view of the amount of damp in the atmosphere for any given six months.
In the same letter she mentions that an order for fifty copies had arrived from Honolulu, and that one of the Professors at Punshan was giving three readings daily from her book.
She was in wonderful health and spirits that spring; busied with histology lessons at the Botanical Gar¬ dens, which occupied six hours weekly, for a month ; entertaining Canadian and American friends ; correct¬ ing the proofs of Miss Gordon Cumming’s book ; attending the Assemblies in May, and giving three large “ Kettledrums” during the week of their session. She was full of new plans, too, for the help of others, and wrote letters to all the Town Councillors regarding a “ Cabmen’s Rest and Refreshment Room,” which Mrs. Willoughby and she desired to erect. The tenement scheme and the wash-houses had fallen through — the former for want of official support, the latter for lack of a lady qualified to manage them and willing to give up her time. As she wrote to Mrs. Willoughby :
The difficulty lies simply in the fact that no lady has come forward to take up and work the scheme. Every one approves it and thinks it would supply a great need ; and were any one found to work it, money would be at once forthcoming, but this initial difficulty remains in full force. It would take the whole time and energy of one lady, and apparently “ dirty clothes ” do not inspire enthusiasm.
There were many difficulties, too, in the way of the Cabmen’s Rest, and a labyrinth of committees to traverse before a site could be granted.
88 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
On June 7 Miss Bird and her sister left Edinburgh for Beauly, from which place they drove seventeen miles to Strathglass in a public conveyance crammed with fourteen country-people not altogether sober. They settled at Glen Affric Hotel for a month, a lonely spot in the midst of a Roman Catholic and Gaelic-speaking population. The fatiguing journey brought on pain and sleeplessness, and a whole week passed without an effort to walk or drive. But she had her microscope and its many adjuncts with her, and the friendly landlady gave her a small, empty room, which she arranged as a study, and there she rested and worked, much absorbed with microscopic research.
She was revising her notes on the Highlands as well, correcting the place-names with the aid of local gamekeepers, and sent Mr. Murray the results on July 7, to assist him in a new edition of his “ Handbook.”
A letter from him cordially congratulated her on the success of her book ; the large edition was nearly exhausted, and favourable reviews were still arriving. They went to Oban and Tobermory about July 8, and a few weeks later Miss Bird left her sister to pay visits in the south, her first stage being Knoyle Rectory, near Salisbury, from which address she wrote to Mrs. Willoughby, giving her some account of the Town Council’s delays :
I wrote to the Edinburgh Town Clerk proposing to meet the City Committee on Saturday, September 4, on my way through Edinburgh, and he replied that he feared it was impossible to collect a quorum at this season, and that it would be best to postpone the conference till November. In one respect I was not sorry, because, as the money is of your raising, I should not have liked to hand over the “ Rest ”
i»75]
MICROSCOPES
89
without your sanction; but in another I am much vexed, because the “ Rest ” ought to have been ready by November, and, even if everything goes as it ought, these vexatious delays will postpone its erection till January. In the meantime I shall see some of the Bristol and London Rests.
Mrs. Willoughby was at Franzensbad at the time, and when she returned to Yorkshire was in frequent correspondence with Miss Bird about the “Rest” and about the proofs of Miss Gordon Cumming’s book, which Isabella was still correcting and revising, as their author was in the Fijian Isles during the pro¬ cesses of publication. She carried the proofs with her to London and Tunbridge Wells, and back again to London, till the beginning of November, when they were transferred to Major Grant Stephen for the latest Indian orthography.
Her independent headquarters in town were at 1 6 Oakley Square, near her North London relatives and friends ; from which point she made excursions on foot and by train eastwards and westwards, chiefly to scientific haunts amongst microscopes, which “filled her brain,” spending hours daily in this pursuit. Twelve visits in all were accomplished before she returned to Edinburgh in November, and it is not surprising that she was at once invalided and condemned to bed and seclusion till New Year’s Day. Reviews of her book were continuous till the end of 1875, and her rank amongst the foremost writers of travel and adventure was conclusively established. It was to the point, too, considering the cheap incredulity of some of her more ignorant reviewers, that a number of letters came from Hono¬ lulu and other parts of Hawaii-nei, testifying most emphatically to the accuracy of her book, and
90
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
endorsing both her facts and her inductions. Her gratification is expressed in a letter to Mr. Murray :
I assure you I am beginning to think it rather a nice book! Seriously, there has been nothing but what is pleasant connected with it; and as it has been so very pleasant to me, I am glad that you are in a measure satisfied with its sale.
Her suffering from pleurodynia lasted most of January, 1876, but she was able to write and study soon after New Year’s Day.
The “ Cabmen’s Shelter,” as it was finally called, was in process of building in Princes Street, near Sir Walter Scott’s monument, and it was opened on the 31st, welcomed cordially by the Edinburgh press, and enthusiastically by the cabmen. But Miss Bird had to battle once more for her scheme, as the incredible Town Council wished to hand over the building to the men themselves, without an attendant to clean, cook meals, and keep it in order. She was forced to insist upon their keeping to the contract, which she had drawn up and to which they had agreed. In this conflict of wills hers triumphed, and she could write to Mrs. Willoughby on March 5th :
The Shelter and Coffee-room has now been opened for a month, and the cabmen seem as much at home in its use as if they had had it for ten years. About thirty-five take their meals there, and it does look so cheerful. So far , it has worked more smoothly than I expected. ... I wish much that the £17 which remains in the bank after paying for everything should go towards another shelter, and I doubt not you will wish the same.
And she added a graphic account of her victory :
I had been asked at the Town Council whether I was empowered to act for you, and replied that I was ; but when I got the Town Clerk’s letter, I wrote that I declined to act further and should refer to you.
1876]
THE TOWN COUNCIL
91
On hearing from you, I wrote a very strong letter to the Council, enclosing yours, and saying that if the magistrates now turned round against our plan of refreshments we should withdraw the Shelter and place it in Glasgow. The following morning, at the meeting of magistrates, our ultimatum was read, and the wretches were in such hot haste to undo their work that they did not even take time to send a written intimation, but sent down the same city official who had bullied me the week before to say that they had unanimously conceded all we asked. He was oily in his manners and profuse in his explanations, but I drew myself up to my full height of 4 ft. nj in. and told him politely that after the difficulties which had occurred it would be essential to have an official intimation in writing of the decision of the magistrates. This came in an hour.
Gog and Magog quailed before scarce five feet of superb will. She was most anxious that all the credit of this Cabmen’s Shelter should rest with Mrs. Willoughby, and even wrote to The Scotsman to explain for whom she was acting ; but Lady Middleton earnestly disclaims any share except that of finding funds. By the middle of March they were both delighted to get a financial report of its five weeks’ trial, which proved that it was self-supporting, a fact endorsing the cabmen’s appreciation. Miss Bird was a capital woman of business, and all her philanthropic work was based on minute calculations of its likelihood to secure, from those benefited, an honourable and self- respecting contribution towards its maintenance — surely the most vital form of philanthropy, since it breeds no race of torpid, expectant, mendicants. What modern charity lacks is intelligent financing; a lack which, happily, men are beginning to realise.
She cherished a fanciful mood at this time — wishing to give up literature for study, which meant micro¬ scopes. It seemed to her almost wrong to continue
92 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
a pursuit which delighted her in the doing and brought her praise and profit when done. Fortunately editors and publishers intervened. Early in April she was engaged in revising and correcting Six Months in the Sandwich Islands for Mr. Murray, who proposed to publish a cheaper edition, slightly abridged, and with its statistics brought up to date. She had, too, an accumulation of commissions for different magazines, and was anxious to redeem her engagements to their editors, delayed by her illness.
Henrietta came out third in Professor Blackie’s examination of his Greek class for ladies, and was worn out by her exertions. In April she went to Tobermory for three weeks, while Isabella stayed on, writing busily. She was in Edinburgh all June, although her toils were relaxed ; and various social doings are reported in her letters.
I only once dined at home the whole month of June. I went one Quaker picnic to the top of the Pentlands and another to Winton, descending at n at night, and also went up the highest Pentland on horseback ! I was for four days at Dreghorn and three with the Miss Mackenzies at Eastland Hill, near Inverkeithing. I saw dear Mrs. Nichol several times. I had some very pleasant microscopy with Dr. McKendrick, and also with Dr. Bishop, whose noble character compels one’s increasing and respectful admiration.
It was not till July n that she went south, beginning a round of visits at Settrington House, near York, where she stayed a week with Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby. Here she was very happy. Her hostess loved her and used to call her “ dear little soul.” “She was fond of the name,” writes Lady Middleton, “ but it was not apt, for it was her body that was little and her soul big ! ”
IONA
1876]
93
While at Settrington, Miss Bird wrote to Mrs. Blackie :
You have seen my hostess, and when I tell you that her soul is as noble and rich as her appearance and manner are bewitching, you can imagine how very pleasant it is. Her husband is a true, honourable English gentleman. There are no other guests but Lord Middleton and a gallant fox¬ hunting old parson like one of Richardson’s. Isaac Taylor is the rector.
A few short visits were paid, and then she went north to redeem a promise to her sister, that they should spend a month in Iona together. Tobermory was too relaxing for her, although admirably suited to Henrietta, and this was a compromise. They were settled in the little St. Coiumba Inn by the middle of August and stayed till the end of Sep¬ tember, very quiet and very happy in each other’s companionship. Isabella reverted to her arrears of articles, one of which was a paper on “ The Two Atlantics ” for The Leisure Hour . They had the drawing-room almost to themselves, as few of the visitors were ladies, and the artists and literary men such as Mr. Lorimer and Principal Tulloch, were there to explore the island, making use of the inn for meals and sleep. But the hostess of the St. Coiumba, one of three sisters whose father was captain of a small trading-vessel, was always ready to accompany Miss Bird upon her daily faring- forth, whether in storm or sunshine. They climbed Dun-Ee together, skirted the coast, lingered on the historic knolls and recited against each other, and against the wind, pages upon pages of Shakespeare, Milton, and Browning !
Two ladies arrived in early September, set down by the steamer to be picked up again a few days
94
[CHAP. IV
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT
later. They had heard much of Miss Bird, but did not venture to disturb her seclusion until the morning of the day on which they were to leave. Then they called on her, fortified by their acquaintance with her aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Stewart, and had “a few hours of delightful intercourse with the sisters, and we repented our modesty, for Miss Bird would have been a perfect guide over the island, which she loved.” Thus began her acquaintance with Miss Pipe, a woman whom to know was a liberal education, not only intellectually, but on account of the exquisite art of living to the glory of God in all things, in beauty of life, in temperance, truth, loyalty and peace of mind and manners. Miss Bird understood her at once, and the acquaintance ripened into friendship. With her, friendship included its endurance to the end. Acquaintances, made in the contact of daily circumstance, were not accounted friends, although some of these attained to the higher rank, and having attained were entitled to all its privileges. Loyalty was innate in her, and no mis¬ giving ever checked its flow, not even the deteriora¬ tion of a friend ; for in several instances, when the character of a friend became deteriorated by evil, Isabella’s affection showed itself in self-sacrifice for her good.
It is probable that she spent a few days at Altnacraig this summer, taking the steamer to and fro from Iona.
Their winter quarters in Edinburgh were again at 7 Atholl Crescent. Apparently Miss Bird began the season’s work by developing her scanty notes of the two months spent in Australia in 1872, for an article appeared later in The Leisure Hour entitled “ Australia Felix.”
i877] NATIONAL LIVINGSTONE MEMORIAL 95
But there is little record of the weeks which closed 1876. The next year found her taking an energetic interest in the proposed Bazaar for the erection of a “ National Livingstone Memorial,” in the form of a non-sectarian college for the training of medical missionaries and of lady nurses for Africa and India. Her friends Miss Cullen apd Dr. Bishop engaged her help and enthusiasm in this undertaking, and she secured the names of many influential men and women as patrons and patronesses of the Bazaar, amongst them being Lord and Lady Teignmouth, Mrs. Willoughby, Sir John and Lady Emma McNeill, Sir William and Lady Muir, Sir Noel and Lady Paton, Bishop Perry, and Mrs. Horace Waller, the wife of Livingstone’s friend. She took no interest in bazaars as a rule, but the object of this was so entirely in accordance with her own mind, on what was essential to the equipment of missionaries, that she became a member of its committee, and threw herself heart and soul into the preparations. For this memorial was to be no barren monument, but a living and life-giving source of help to the helpless.
Livingstone had been commemorated by Mrs. D. O. Hill’s vigorous and lifelike statue in bronze, which stands in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh’s Valhalla; but this College was to keep fresh and full that twofold outpouring of healing for soul and body, of which Livingstone was the pioneer in troubled" Africa. This combination of physical with spiritual healing he had warmly advocated as the very method of Christ Himself.
The Directors of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society had already collected £6,000, and the building was begun in the Cowgate, but it was estimated that £4,000 were still required to complete it. An
96 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
influential Edinburgh Committee was formed, con¬ sisting of eighteen ladies, who organised branches in all parts of Scotland, and in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, for the collecting and forwarding of work, while Dr. Lowe and the other directors under¬ took to receive donations in money.
The veteran African missionary, Dr. Robert Moffat, wrote :
I have no language to express my admiration of your undertaking. To what purpose do all the sculptured heroes of bygone ages serve, except to remind us that such once lived, and some of them to some purpose, but beyond that they are silent as the grave. The “ Livingstone Medical Missionary Me¬ morial ” will be a living one , diffusing influence and scattering blessings, not to Africa only, but to every quarter of the globe, where suffering humanity is crying for the sympathy of human aid.
The powerful patronage of H.R.H. the Princess Louise was secured, as well as that of forty-three Scottish notables, beginning with the Duke and Duchess of Argyll.
At committee work and bazaar correspondence Miss Bird laboured indefatigably all spring. Miss Cullen was one of the secretaries and they were in constant touch. Dr. Bishop, who was now a devoted friend of both sisters, was giving every spare moment to aid their preparations and plans. Henrietta was suffering from a severe chill, and as Dr. Moir had retired from practice, Dr. Bishop was her medical attendant, and his visits to 7 Atholl Crescent were frequent on both counts. Besides, he was an ardent microscopist, and Miss Bird and he were busy with the marvels of Atlantic oaze.
Her literary work was set aside for this absorbing study. Apparently even then it was Dr. Bishop’s
DR. BISHOP
97
1877]
earnest wish that she should marry him, but, in spite of deep admiration for his character, she was unable to grant his petition. In truth, she was so deeply attached to her sister, whom she called “ all my world” and “my pet, to be with whom is my joy,” that she shrank from admitting and returning another affection. In summer Henrietta went to Tobermory and Miss Bird to Braemar, where she spent some weeks, followed up by a short sequence of visits, before returning to Edinburgh for a few days. During these days of late August, Dr. Bishop renewed his suit, but she persuaded him to let their friendship abide undisturbed by considerations which she was unwilling to face, and “ he behaved beauti¬ fully, so that our intercourse will be quite free from embarrassment.”
She was at The Cottage in Mull early in September.
I am enjoying it very much [she wrote to Mrs. Blackie], though it is disagreeing with me as usual. Hennie is so happy and delightful in her own house. I cannot say how much I admire her. Her house is so warm and comfortable, and she manages so nicely. Dr. Bishop is here “ healing the sick.”
Henrietta urged Professor and Mrs. Blackie to pay them a visit, which took place successfully towards the end of September and so charmed the Professor that it inspired him to write his beautiful “ Lay of the Little Lady,” in which he portrayed his hostess with delicate, admiring touches.
Where a widow weeps,
She with her is weeping ;
Where a sorrow sleeps,
She doth watch it sleeping ;
Where the sky is bright,
With one sole taint of sadness,
Let her come in sight And all is turned to gladness.
7
98 IN JOURNEYINGS OFT [chap, iv
In October Miss Bird went to Altnacraig, after its summer visitors had taken leave, for she preferred to be with her friends when they were freed from hospitable cares, and she could have true converse with them. Both she and Mrs. Blackie were moved and even agitated by the flowing tide of materialism, infidelity, and its effect on the moral character of those whom it submerged. They conversed with that apprehensive sense of insecurity which beset even the faithful few in those days, half-stupefied, as if their creed must be false because there were a few verbal mistakes in much-translated and copied versions of God’s Word, and half-abashed as if the loud-voiced materialists knew all things because they had discovered another of God’s laws and a few new groups of facts all really redounding to His praise. But the wavering did not last long in Miss Bird’s mind, and she soon recovered the assurance of faith in which she had lived from her earliest days.
Winter and the great Bazaar recalled her to 7 Atholl Crescent. Another occupation claimed her evenings and mornings. The editor of The Leisure Hour asked her for a series of papers on her travels in the Rocky Mountains, so she was engaged in the now familiar task of revising her letters this time of the autumn of 1873.
Again Dr. Grainger Stewart advised travel, and her thoughts went far afield — to the Andes and to Japan. She asked Mr. Darwin for advice as to the highlands of the Andes, where she hoped to ride, using the Mexican saddle, which had been indis¬ pensable to her comfort in the Rockies. But he was not encouraging, and the untravelled parts of Japan began to win on her consideration. Miss Gordon Gumming was there at this time.
1877]
THE BAZAAR
99
The Bazaar was fixed for December 13, 14, and 15, and she engaged to assist Lady Paton in taking charge of a table for pictures, for which Sir Noel had already painted one. On December 18 she wrote to Mrs. Willoughby :
The Bazaar was a most splendid success, and the very pleasantest thing of the kind I was ever at. Hennie edited a Bazaar Gazette , which was printed and sold in the Hall at three o’clock daily, and took immensely. I wrote a Bazaar Guide , of which two thousand copies were sold. Lady Paton and I took £650 — not bad, as raffling was prohibited. Our most expensive things sold best. I hope to answer your very delightful letter shortly. In the meantime, I will only say that it did me good.
But alas for her bereaved friends ! her next letter, only three days later, was to sympathise with them on the death of Lord Middleton, Mr. Willoughby’s father :
Truly death is a terrible thing. Fearlessly as we commit the spirits of those we love into the keeping not only of a merciful Creator, but of a loving Father, mystery hangs around their future, and faith has to ignore speculation as to their condition and look hopefully forward to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him — when we shall be satisfied not only in ourselves, but in each other, and lose at once and “for ever” that bitter ache of loneliness, which is sometimes almost maddening.
CHAPTER V
THE WIDE EAST
Japan was in Miss Bird’s mind all winter, and by February, 1878, she was preparing for her voyage and exploration. From the first she planned to make a tour in the interior rather than to prolong her residence in the capital and other cities. She wished to come in contact with as much of ancient Japan as possible. The old order was changing, the Shogunate had disappeared, the very name of the capital — Yedo — was altered to Tokio, although the old customs died hard, and there was still an old-world, in spite of its continuous transformation under the breath of the Western spirit. It was indeed the very hour of its transition, and Miss Bird was to witness the process of a metamorphosis unequalled in thoroughness since Roman days and swifter far than any national change chronicled by historians.
Lady Middleton, who secured for Miss Bird a valuable introduction to Sir Harry and Lady Parkes from the Duke of Argyll, had asked her to choose and purchase curios, embroideries and bronzes. She was equipped altogether with forty letters to influential residents. The parting with her sister was unspeakably sad. Henrietta was not well, and Dr. Bishop was again in attendance.
He has treated her admirably [Miss Bird wrote to Mrs. Blackie], and I am so glad that, if need arise,
100
1878]
TO JAPAN ioi
she is now able to have a doctor who has learned something of her very sensitive constitution. It is terrible to me to part from her. I hope I shall get such health as that I may never be long separated from her again. These are very solemn and pathetic hours ; “ the last time ” is written on everything.
This foreboding was half prophetic and originated no doubt in the shock she received from the illness and death of her father, immediately after her second return from America.
My friends [she continued] are dearer to me, and people I care little about become more interesting, and even the dull grey streets smile in the sunshine.
Dr. Macgregor prayed aloud for her safety in St. Cuthbert’s Church on her last Sunday at home. Then she and Henrietta gave three large afternoon parties, to save her from a trying round of farewell calls, and when all was arranged and ended she left for Japan. It was April when she started, and already for some months her letters from the Rocky Mountains had been appearing in The Leisure Hour , where they attracted so much interest, that a demand for their separate publication made itself heard, even before her departure. But she deferred its con¬ sideration until her return.
She had a particularly good passage to New York, and found on board a pleasant companion in her friend Mr. Robertson. At Chicago she spent a day with Sandwich Island friends, and then travelled to Salt Lake City, where some of her introductions enabled her to see a little of Mormon domestic life, before she resumed her long and weary railroad journey to San Francisco. Thence she sailed to Shanghai, which she reached in May, going on to Yokohama in the s.s. City of Tokio . At Yokohama
102
THE WIDE EAST
[CHAP. V
she put up at the Oriental Hotel, paid business visits to Mr. Wilkinson, the Consul, and to Mr. Fraser, who changed her British gold into Japanese paper money and rouleaux of copper coins. She left her letters and cards at the Legation, and Sir Harry and Lady Parkes came to see her the next day, in jinrikishas , and showed the liveliest interest in her intended enterprise, encouraging her with offers of every possible assistance.
Two days later she took the train to Tokio and stayed at the British Legation, where she met for the first time Mr. (now Sir Ernest) Satow, Secretary to the Legation, the best-informed man in Japan, whose friendship she secured and who put at her disposal all his stores of knowledge of the country and its history. This was indeed an acquisition, for she had learned how needful it is for a traveller to have her record endorsed by authority, since the quidnunc stay-at- home is unwilling to believe what he is unqualified either to prove or disprove. What she needed most for her adventurous journey were a servant and a pony, and they were hard to find.
At last a servant was secured— -the “Ito ” well known to readers of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan — and about the middle of June, after a visit to Nikko, she started for the interior without a pony, in one of the three jinrikishas} which she had hired with their runners for the first stage of ninety miles, at a charge of eleven shillings each for three days ! But her book narrates every step of that deeply interesting journey, and we must note its interludes rather than its stages.
Her tour was prolonged throughout July, August, and part of September. By August io, she reached Hakodate, the port of Yezo, the northern island