At the end of April, 1848, we find Ida Pfeiffer again at sea, bearing her pilgrim’s staff toward Persia. From Bushire she intended to proceed to Shiraz, Ispahan, and Teheran, but was deterred from this project by disturbances in the interior of the country, and turned her footsteps toward Mesopotamia. Through the bay Shat-el-Arab she betook herself to Bassora, and afterward to Bagdad. After an excursion to the ruins of Ctesiphon and Babylon, she traveled with a caravan through the Desert to Mosul and the neighboring ruins of Nineveh, and afterward to Urumia and Tebris. This expedition through Mesopotamia and Persia may be reckoned among the most daring exploits of this courageous woman. A large amount of mental energy, as well as of physical stamina, was required, to enable her to endure without fainting the many hardships of the undertaking--the burning heat by day, discomfort of every kind at night, miserable fare, an unclean couch, and constant apprehension of attack by robber bands. When she introduced herself at Tebris to the English consul, he would not believe that a woman could have achieved such a feat.
At Tebris our traveler was introduced to the vice-king Vali-Ahd, and received permission to visit his harem. On the 11th of August, 1848, she resumed her journey through Armenia, Georgia, Mingrelia, by Eriwan, Tiflis, and Kutais to Redutkale; she touched at Anapa, Kertch, and Sebastopol, landed at Odessa, and returned home by Constantinople, Greece, the Ionian Islands, and Trieste to Vienna, where she arrived on the 4th of November, 1848, just after the taking of the city by the troops of Prince Windischgrätz. It seemed that even in her fatherland, distracted as it was by faction, she was to find no rest.
Ida Pfeiffer’s fame spread more and more after this journey round the world; for a woman who, trusting to herself alone for protection, could travel 2800 miles by land and 35,000 by sea, was looked upon, not unnaturally, as a remarkable character. Her third work, which appeared in Vienna in 1850, under the title “A Woman’s Journey round the World,” was well received. It was translated twice into English, and afterward appeared in a French garb.
It was now for some time Ida Pfeiffer’s purpose to consider her traveling days as over, and to settle down in repose. But this resigned frame of mind did not last long. When, after selling her collections, and preparing and publishing her journal, she found herself in the enjoyment of undiminished health and strength, she gradually began to entertain the idea of a second voyage round the world. Her slender traveling fund was this time increased by a grant of 1500 florins from the Austrian government; and on the 18th of March, 1851, she left Vienna, betaking herself first to London, as she had no fixed goal in view, and intended to wait till an occasion offered for traveling farther. Even when she had left London, and arrived in Cape Town on the 11th of August, she had come to no definite determination. For a long time her mind wavered between the intention of visiting the interior of Africa and that of proceeding to Australia, till at last she sailed to Singapore, and decided to visit the Sunda Islands. Landing on the west coast of Borneo, at Sarawak, she received a hospitable welcome and energetic assistance from Sir James Brooke, who has established an independent principality in these regions. During an excursion she made among the savage, independent Dyaks, she was not only spared by the “head hunters,” but was even received with great cordiality. Proceeding to Sinting, she continued her journey westward to Pontianak and the diamond mines of Landak. Every where the Dutch officials, civil and military, offered her the readiest assistance, without which she would have found it impossible to extend her travels so far as she did in the Indian Archipelago. Ida Pfeiffer’s design was to push on from Pontianak directly through the interior of the island, a region never yet traversed by Europeans; but she could endure no one to be her guide or companion on so dangerous an expedition. She therefore cast her eyes on Java, and landed at Batavia at the end of May, 1852. Here, likewise, she received every assistance and support from the Dutch authorities, and, in consequence of their example, from the native grandees also. This she often afterward publicly acknowledged, with the warmest thanks.