This is Isabella Bird’s text ‘The Golden Chersonese’, which details here travels through Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia in 1879 and was first published in 1880. This is an 1883 copy. Bird travelled on boat, pony and on foot, and wrote letters to her sisters, on which this travelogue is based. Bird provides great detail on the natural landscape, the people and the culture of the areas she passes through. Isabella Bird was the first woman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She describes Singapore as ‘intensely tropical’, and summed it up as a place of ‘overpowering greenery, a kaleidoscopic arrangement of colors, Chinese predominance, and abounding hospitality’.
