Isabella Bird traveled by horseback from Truckee, California, through the Tahoe Basin and on to Colorado where, during the autumn and early winter of 1873, she explored more than eight hundred miles of Rocky Mountain terrain only recently opened to pioneer settlement. Riding not sidesaddle but frontwards like a man (though she threatened to sue the Times for saying she dressed like one), she encountered magnificent unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife-including rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas, and grizzly bears.
In letters to her sister, first printed in the magazine The Leisure Hour, Bird recounted her adventures and her impressions of the small remote townships and the miners and pioneer settlers she came across. For a time she was joined by Jim Nugent, ‘Rocky Mountain Jim, ‘ an outlaw with one eye and an affinity for violence and poetry and someone Bird described as ‘a man any woman might love, but no sane woman would marry, ‘ in a section excised from her letters before their publication.
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, Bird’s fourth and most famous book, remains a classic of Western literature.
Inhoudsopgave
Contents
Letter I 1
Lake Tahoe-Morning in San Francisco-Dust-A Pacific mail-train-Digger Indians…
Letter II 12
A lady’s ‘get-up’-Grizzly bears-The ‘Gems of the Sierras’-A tragic tale-A carnival of color.
Letter III 17
A Temple of Morpheus-Utah-A ‘God-forgotten’ town…
Letter IV 28
A plague of flies-A melancholy charioteer-The Foot Hills-A mountain boarding-house…
Letter V 34
A dateless day-‘Those hands of yours’-A Puritan-Persevering shiftlessness…
Letter VI 50
A bronco mare-An accident-Wonderland-A sad story-The children of the Territories…
Letter VII 66
Personality of Long’s Peak-‘Mountain Jim’-Lake of the Lilies-A silent forest-The camping ground…
Letter VIII 81
Estes Park-Big game-‘Parks’ in Colorado-Magnificent scenery-Flowers and pines…
Letter IX 97
‘Please Ma’ams’-A desperado-A cattle hunt-The muster-A mad cow-A snowstorm-Snowed up…
Letter X 114
A white world-Bad traveling-A millionaire’s home-Pleasant Park-Perry’s Park-Stock-raising…
Letter XI 131
Tarryall Creek-The Red Range-Excelsior-Importunate pedlars-Snow and heat-A bison calf…
Letter XII 141
Deer Valley-Lynch law-Vigilance committees-The silver spruce-Taste and abstinence…
Letter XIII 152
The blight of mining-Green Lake-Golden City-Benighted-Vertigo-Boulder Canyon…
Letter XIV 162
A dismal ride-A desperado’s tale-‘Lost! Lost! Lost!’-Winter glories-Solitude-Hard times…
Letter XV 171
A whisky slave-The pleasures of monotony-The mountain lion-‘Another mouth to feed’…
Letter XVI 183
A harmonious home-Intense cold-A purple sun-A grim jest-A perilous ride-Frozen eyelids…
Letter XVII 192
Woman’s mission-The last morning-Crossing the St. Vrain-Miller…
Biographical Timeline 200
Over de auteur
Isabella Bird (1831-1904) was a British explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist. She began traveling at the age of twenty-three-first to America, then eventually, to Australia, Hawaii, and Colorado. In her later travels she journeyed to Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Morocco, India, Persia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Turkey, and Iran. Featured in journals and magazines for decades, Bird was, by 1890, a household name. She was the first woman to be awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and the first woman elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
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