riends--to whom, indeed, she was as one who had
been dead and was alive again.
The mental and physical sufferings she had undergone, combined with the
peculiar effects of the fever, now brought on an illness of so serious a
character that for long the doctors doubted whether her recovery was
possible. On her sixtieth birthday, the 14th of October, they pronounced
the brave lady out of danger; but, in fact, her constitution had received
a fatal shock. The fever became intermittent in its attacks, but it
never wholly left her; though she continued, with unabated energy and
liveliness, to lay down plans for fresh expeditions. She had made all
her preparations for a voyage to Australia, when a return of her disease,
in February 1858, compelled her to renounce her intention, and to direct
her steps homeward.
Early in the month of June she arrived in London, where she remained for
a few weeks. Thence she repaired to Berlin.
Her strength was now declining day by day, though at first she seemed to
regard her illness as only temporary, and against the increasing physical
weakness her mind struggled with its usual activity. About September,
she evinced a keen anxiety to behold her home once more,--evidently
having arrived at a conviction that her end was near. She was carefully
conveyed to Vienna, and received into the house of her brother, Charles
Reyer; where, at first, the influence of her native air had an
invigorating effect. This gave way after a week or two, and her illness
returned with augmented force. During the last days of her life, opiates
were administered to relieve her sufferings; and in the night between the
27th and 28th of October she passed away peacefully, and apparently
without pain,--leaving behind her the memory of a woman of matchless
intrepidity, surprising energy, and heroic fixity of purpose.
NOTES.
{105} Since Madame Pfeiffer's time this mode of self-torture has been
prohibited by the British Government.
{197} That is, the "City of a Thousand Towns."
{204} We give Madame Pfeiffer's account, as an illustration of the old
ways of Madagascar society. But the poison-ordeal has of late been
abandoned, owing to Christian influence.
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF IDA PFEIFFER***
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