The Yangtze Valley and Beyond

by Isabella Lucy Bird, Pat Barr (Introduction)

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1899 edition by John Murray, London.

Genres: Travel, China, Nonfiction, Asia, History, British Literature

560 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 1985

About the author

Isabella Lucy Bird Bishop (October 15, 1831 – October 7, 1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveller, writer, and a natural historian.

Works:
* The Englishwoman in America (1856)
* Pen and Pencil Sketches Among The Outer Hebrides (published in The Leisure Hour) (1866)
* The Hawaiian Archipelago (1875)
* The Two Atlantics (published in The Leisure Hour) (1876)
* Australia Felix: Impressions of Victoria and Melbourne (published in The Leisure Hour) (1877)
* A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
* Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880)
* Sketches In The Malay Peninsula (published in The Leisure Hour) (1883)
* The Golden Chersonese and the way Thither (1883)
* A Pilgrimage To Sinai (published in The Leisure Hour) (1886)
* Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (1891)
* Among the Tibetans (1894)
* Korea and her Neighbours (1898)
* The Yangtze Valley and Beyond (1899)
* Chinese Pictures (1900)
* Notes on Morocco (published in the Monthly Review) (1901)

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Isabella Bird spent a great deal of her life travelling, writing about it and taking photographs. She travelled all over the world, often to places that were little known. This trip to China took place in the late 1890s when Bird was about 68 and involved travel along and close to the Yangtze for over two thousand miles. Bird appears to be indefatigable and did something few others had done. There were very few other Europeans in the areas of China she visited, the occasional missionary. Diplomat or trader as Bird very much went off the beaten track. I read the folio edition which has a wealth of Bird’s remarkable photographs in it.
Bird has a great love for facts and figures and the whole book is stuffed full of them. Lengths of journeys, populations of towns, villages and cities, exports, tonnage of exports, types of exports, destinations, means of travel. There are copious descriptions of architecture (grand and modest), accounts of food and drink, descriptions of religious practices and local culture.
I admire Bird for actually doing what she did, even if when she was not travelling on the river she was being carried in a sort of sedan chair. There were a number of close calls including being hit on the head by a rock when the welcome at one particular town was not very friendly.
Bird’s attitude to the Chinese seems variable. She can come out with statements like this:
“The mannerless, brutal, coarse, insolent, conceited, cowardly roughs of the Chinese towns, ignorant beyond all description, live in a state of filth which is indescribable and incredible, in an inconceivable beastliness of dirt, among odours which no existing words can describe, and actually call Japanese “hideous dwarfs”! I wondered daily more at the goodness of people who are missionaries to the Chinese in the interior cities, not at their coming out the first time, but at their coming back, knowing what they come to. The village people are quite different and doubtless have attractive qualities and it must be admitted that Christianity does produce an external refinement among those who receive it, which is very noticeable. Having relieved my hoarded disgusts by these remarks, I will proceed with my narrative.”
In contrast Bird can be positive at times towards the religion and culture. The whole does feel contradictory and it is certainly Eurocentric. Many of the good things come from the missionaries. Bird recognises the economic power of China and its potential. There’s a fair bit about opium, its use and cultivation. The passages where Bird is approaching Tibet and the interactions with the peoples there is also very interesting and sets a bit of a contrast with her interactions with the Chinese.
Bird does provide information and narrative coupled with some remarkable pictures she took herself and the book is worth reading for that. It was a remarkable achievement for someone in their late 60s. However this is tempered by the racism and periodic contempt for those she was living amongst.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman was amazing! After reading all she did, I feel like a wimp! From battling upstream in a boat being towed up deadly rapids, to walking at night in snow up to her neck in freezing clothing, to surviving riots and rocks, and sleeping with pigs, this woman did it all. And she comes out the other side expressing appreciation for all the good she saw: good people, good culture, beautiful scenery. While she doesn't sugar-coat her opinions when she thinks something is awful or wrong or disgusting, she is lavish in her recognition of that which has merit. Bless you, Isabella!

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobody wields a parasol like this women, not even Amelia Peabody.

[Cordelicacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book will make you feel like a poorly travelled, spoiled couch potato. On the other hand, it will also make you feel grateful for solid walls, dry interiors, warm water, food, and paved roads. Isabella Bird was a great traveler of the 19th century, leaving her footprints in Hawaii, Colorado, Korea, Japan, Kashmir, and elsewhere. It seems that she was drawn to places that were just beyond the realm of civilization as she and her peers knew it. As such, when it came to China, her ultimate destination was Somo, an area in what is now western Sichuan, which was a place that appears to have once been a sort of a no-man’s land between Tibet and China proper. In this book, she describes an arduous journey up the Yangtze River on boats and over land across Sichuan on foot or in a a sedan chair with a team of porters. As she approached her final destination, she was running from Qing officials who wanted her to stay within the official boundaries of the empire. Ms. Bird didn’t give a lot of information about what motivated her travels, but she does say that she hated being among other foreigners for significant amounts of time. Readers get the feeling that she may have collected information from her travels so she could be the most informed person in the room when she was back in the UK.

Bird’s descriptions of her travels up and down the Yangtze River in 1897 are especially informative to readers today because she experienced a river that no longer exists, as the Yangtze has been completely remade as a result of the Three Gorges Dam project. As such, she saw a Yangtze River that rose and fell with the seasons and thousands of coolies working as trackers. She saw all sorts of boats, including a few that literally exploded upon hitting river boulders after being washed downstream by rapids. As for her overland travels, she saw riots (that she seems to have triggered by virtue of being a foreigner in a time of intense distrust regarding foreigners). She saw stunning but mysterious stone buildings. She also apparently saw some of the most beautiful scenery and people of her life.

[Zee · Rating 4 out of 5]

For cultural, geographical, historical, and linguistic reasons this journal will have much more benefit and meaning for someone with prior interest and experience in China. Having both of these I found many of her observations to be relevant today, although there were several that are either offensive or haven’t aged well. Her account allows for a fascinating linkage between late dynastic and modern China that those familiar with the latter will appreciate. Definitely helpful for anyone desiring a more personal, less textbook insight into China’s cultural history, and recent enough to be make that history relatable.

[Carolyn Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vivid writing about a long journey in this area of China in 1897, kept me reading every night before bed.

There were quite a few rude and prejudicial comments about the native peoples the author encountered, which I shrugged off. Ignorance and the common views of the times did not keep me from enjoying a very complete travel book.

[Helga · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of Isabella Bird's travel books, mostly because she is very no nonsense and genuinely interested in different cultures. One of the best parts of this book are the photographs that she took during her trip in 1897. It is also hilarious how she makes fun of "amateur photographers" who need dark rooms, when she can develop photographs on a tiny boat during the night.