ble in the satirical sense
in which it is commonly used. There was nothing masculine about her. On
the contrary, she was so reserved and so unassuming that it required an
intimate knowledge of her to fathom the depths of her acquirements and
experience. "In her whole appearance and manner," we are told, "was a
staidness that seemed to indicate the practical housewife, with no
thought soaring beyond her domestic concerns."

This quiet, silent woman, travelled nearly 20,000 miles by land and
150,000 miles by sea; visiting regions which no European had previously
penetrated, or where the bravest men had found it difficult to make their
way; undergoing a variety of severe experiences; opening up numerous
novel and surprising scenes; and doing all this with the scantiest means,
and unassisted by powerful protection or royal patronage. We doubt
whether the entire round of human enterprise presents anything more
remarkable or more admirable. And it would be unfair to suppose that she
was actuated only by a feminine curiosity. Her leading motive was a
thirst for knowledge. At all events, if she had a passion for
travelling, it must be admitted that her qualifications as a traveller
were unusual. Her observation was quick and accurate; her perseverance
was indefatigable; her courage never faltered; while she possessed a
peculiar talent for first awakening, and then profiting by, the interest
and sympathy of those with whom she came in contact.

To assert that her travels were wholly without scientific value would be
unjust; Humboldt and Carl Ritter were of a different opinion. She made
her way into regions which had never before been trodden by European
foot; and the very fact of her sex was a frequent protection in her most
dangerous undertakings. She was allowed to enter many places which would
have been rigorously barred against male travellers. Consequently, her
communications have the merit of embodying many new facts in geography
and ethnology, and of correcting numerous popular errors. Science
derived much benefit also from her valuable collections of plants,
animals, and minerals.

We conclude with the eulogium pronounced by an anonymous
biographer:--"Straightforward in character, and endued with high
principle, she possessed, moreover, a wisdom and a promptitude in action
seldom equalled among her sex. Ida Pfeiffer may, indeed, justly be
classed among those women who richly compensate for the absence of