Wikipedia claims that the character of Amelia Peabody Emerson was inspired by the real-life Amelia Edwards. Consider, however, this excerpt from the essays of Evan S. Connell (1924-2013) regarding one Mary Kingsley, who despite a differing area of interest seems very Peabody-ish:
-- "Various Tourists" in Connell's essay collection The White Lantern and the later The Aztec Treasure House
I highly recommend Connell's essays, by the way; factual but witty. In one of them, mentioning Kingsley and a number of other adventurers of her time and nationality, he remarks, "Faced with such people, one can't help thinking that the nineteenth-century English must have been utterly bonkers."
And then there's his account of Sir Douglas Mawson trudging toward safety in the Antarctic after an accident killed the other two members of his expedition ... and Sir Douglas had inadvertently poisoned himself....
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
Quote:So we come upon Mary Kingsley: naturalist, ethnologist, sailor, scholar, guest of cannibals and champion of lost causes... .
She was born in 1862 and for thirty years lived in a state of suffocating restriction, tight even by Victorian norms. Then both of her parents died and all at once her life made no sense; suddenly she had nobody to care for. Her father had been an anthropologist who traveled quite a bit, but he had never gone to Africa; therefore, in accordance with the Byzantine laws of human behavior, Mary realized that she must go to Africa... .
Being unusually bright and observant, she quickly learned about navigation, about stowing cargo and how to manage a crew. Later, after more experience aboard other boats, she would be ready to argue seamanship with grizzled old mariners: "I say you can go across Forçados Bar drawing eighteen feet... . I have taken vessels of 2,000 tons across that Bar and up the Forçados creeks... ."
... In order to reassure everybody when she materialized from the bush at some remote factory or trading post on the river she would call out: "It's only me!" She liked mangrove swamps. She would paddle around for hours examining everything, stung by flies and threatened by crocodiles: "On one occasion a mighty Silurian, as the Daily Telegraph would call him, chose to get his front paws over the stern of my canoe and endeavoued to improve our acquaintance. I had to retire to the bows to keep the balance upright, and fetch him a clip on the snout with a paddle... ." ... With mud-caked skirts, scratched and bitten until her face and hands were bloody, she approached a trading station operated by a German; but instead of hurrying toward it she stopped to wash. After all, one should not appear untidy in front of a strange man. Even so, the German was appalled by what came marching out of the bush. He offered her a bath -- an offer she declined because, as she asks rhetorically, how could she be expected to bathe in a house with inadequate shutters? Men! she laments. Men can be so trying! Her book, Travels in West Africa, was publish in 1896, but... . She omitted some of her most implausible adventures ... such as the time she found herself on a tight little island with a hippopotamus and finally persuaded the monster to leave by poking it with her umbrella... . And she almost neglected to tell about the leopard which she released from a trap because the animal was beating itself to death against the bars -- and the creature, when it had been freed, stood looking at her in bewilderment until she stamped her foot and shouted, "Go home, you fool!" And this same woman perceived, when British officialdom could not, that African society was as meticulously structured as European society; and that missionaries were doing more harm than good... . And being the woman she was, she let it be known what she thought... .
She was eager to return to Africa. There were so many swamps to be investigated, so many insects, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and leopards to examine, so many cannibals to whom she had not yet introduced herself. You can almost see her emerging cheerfully from the bush. "Hello there! Hello? I say, is no one at home?"
-- "Various Tourists" in Connell's essay collection The White Lantern and the later The Aztec Treasure House
I highly recommend Connell's essays, by the way; factual but witty. In one of them, mentioning Kingsley and a number of other adventurers of her time and nationality, he remarks, "Faced with such people, one can't help thinking that the nineteenth-century English must have been utterly bonkers."
And then there's his account of Sir Douglas Mawson trudging toward safety in the Antarctic after an accident killed the other two members of his expedition ... and Sir Douglas had inadvertently poisoned himself....
-----
Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.