uccessfully in professional pursuits, Madame
Pfeiffer, who had lost her husband in 1838, found herself once more under
the spell of her old passion for travel, and in a position to gratify her
adventurous inclinations. Her means were somewhat limited, it is true,
for she had done much for her husband and her children; but economy was
natural to her, and she retained the simple habits she had acquired in
her childhood. She was strong, healthy, courageous, and accomplished;
and at length, after maturing her plans with anxious consideration, she
took up her pilgrim's staff, and sallied forth alone.

Her first object was to visit the Holy Land, and tread in the hallowed
footsteps of our Lord. For this purpose she left Vienna on the 22nd of
March 1842, and embarked on board the steamer that was to convey her down
the Danube to the Black Sea and the city of Constantinople. Thence she
repaired to Broussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth,
Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo; and travelled
across the sandy Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. From
Egypt the adventurous lady returned home by way of Sicily and Italy,
visiting Naples, Rome, and Florence, and arriving in Vienna in December
1842. In the following year she published the record of her experiences
under the title of a "Journey of a Viennese Lady to the Holy Land." It
met with a very favourable reception, to which the simplicity of its
style and the faithfulness of its descriptions fully entitled it.

With the profits of this book to swell her funds, Madame Pfeiffer felt
emboldened to undertake a new expedition; and this time she resolved on a
northern pilgrimage, expecting in _Ultima Thule_ to see nature manifested
on a novel and surprising scale. She began her journey to Iceland on the
10th of April 1845, and returned to Vienna on the 4th of October. Her
narrative of this second voyage will be found, necessarily much abridged
and condensed, in the following pages.

What should she do next? Success had increased her courage and
strengthened her resolution, and she could think of nothing fit for her
energies and sufficient for her curiosity but a voyage round the world!
She argued that greater privations and fatigue than she had endured in
Syria and Iceland she could scarcely be called upon to encounter. The
outlay did not frighten her; for she had learned by experience how little
is required, if the traveller will