Traveling Alone: Ida Pfeiffer’s Encounter with India
Traveling Alone: Ida Pfeiffer’s Encounter with India

Summary/Abstract: India has long featured in the imagination of German-speaking countries as the exotic “Other.” In “Eine Frauenfahrt um die Welt” (1850; A Lady’s Voyage Around the World, 1851) the Austrian travel writer Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858) leaves an account of her visit to India that differs from previous accounts in its attempts to depict the country’s real rather than imagined life. Pfeiffer was one of the first German-language female explorers and travel writers. For her time she was an unusual traveler since she traveled alone without any official patronage and on a very tight budget. In this essay, I discuss Pfeiffer’s observations of India. She arrived in 1847 and left in 1848. During her visit, she traveled extensively, from Kolkata, to Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and many places in between. Pfeiffer traveled by boat when possible, by camel or ox cart, or even on foot, accompanied only by an Indian guide. When she did not stay with other Europeans, she slept in modest government-built shelters or even outside. This slow and arduous method of travel gave her insights into many different aspects of life in India, including rural India. To a large extent, she avoids the Euro-imperialism of her time. She perceptively and vividly comments on India and is sensitive to India’s different cultures and religions: she gives, for example, insights into Hinduism, religious festivals, the caste system, marriage ceremonies, architecture, but most of all people. She was interested in the situation of Indian women and, as a woman, had access to Indian women that would have been denied to European men. She also deplores European attitudes to Indians and is highly critical of European treatment of Indians.

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