The pictures:

1. In the Fiji Isles

Wood engravings after several paintings, published in in her two chapters in W.C.Procter (ed) Round the Globe, Wm Isbister Ltd, London (n.d.) 188?.

2. At Home in Fiji

Photo-relief plates reproducing several watercolour paintings in C.F.Gordon Cumming At Home in Fiji, Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1881

Brief biographical notes:

Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming

Lady Gordon-Cumming, by Herbert Rose Barrund. 1893 (National Portrait Gallery)

Constance Frederica ("Eka") Gordon Cumming (1837-1924) was the 12th child of a wealthy Scottish family, her father Sir William Gordon Cumming (2nd Baronet), her mother Elizabeth Maria née Campbell of Islay and Shawfield. The family estates were at Altyre, where Constance was born on May 26, 1837, and Gordonstoun, now home to Gordonstoun School, which boasts some very eminent alumni, among them the Prince of Wales.*

Constance grew up in Northumberland and was educated at Fulham in London. A self-taught painter, she received some help and advice from artists visiting her home, including Sir Edwin Landseer, painter of "Stag at Bay" and Queen Victoria’s favorite painter.

Among the great number of her relatives was Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, KCMG, son of George Hamilton Gordon, the Fourth Earl of Aberdeen and Prime Minister of Great Britain 1852-55. In 1874 Sir Arthur was appointed the first permanent governor of the fledgling Crown Colony of Fiji, and because of this connection, and because she was already renowned as an intrepid traveller and adventurer, Constance was invited to accompany Lady Gordon to Fiji as companion - a role for which she was uniquely prepared. A remarkable woman in a number of ways, not least as an accomplished artist who producrd over a thousand paintings of subjects all over the world. She was a prolific author — her Pacific experiences are best remembered from her books At Home in Fiji and A lady's Cruise on a French Man-of-War. She also contributed articles to various magazines, being grouped by one author among "Viragos (sic) of the periodical press"**

After leaving Fiji, she sailed for the US via Tahiti, and in April 1878 visited Yosemite. Intending a three-day visit, she stayed three months. She wrote, “I for one have wandered far enough over the wide world to know a unique glory when I am blessed by the sight of one . . .” While in Yosemite Miss Gordon-Cumming painted a number of watercolours, which she displayed in Yosemite Valley—making it the first art exhibition in Yosemite. She published her letters from Yosemite as Granite Crags.

On another of her epic adventures, In 1879, while visiting Peking, China, Gordon-Cumming met William Hill Murray, a Scottish missionary to China. He had invented the Numeral Type system, through which blind and illiterate Chinese learned to read phonetically, by assigning numbers to each of the 408 Chinese Mandarin sounds (not characters) was assigned a number, which was encoded in Braille. Gordon-Cumming wrote a book (1899) about the system and supported the school for the rest of her life.

In old age Lady Gordon-Cumming returned home in Scotland. She died September 4, 1924, and is buried near Crieff.

It was perhaps inevitable in the extraordinarily patriarchal society of the late Victorian era that she was the object of considerable derision and contempt from a number of male flâneurs of the era, but in retrospect that fact, and their remarks, merely serve to highlight the remarkableness of her achievements. Her career is noted in a number of university courses about female adventurers and authors.

* I am indebted to Mr Alan Wills, Archivist of Gordonstoun School, Elgin, Moray, Scotland, for seeking out on my behalf several pictures, including the photographic portrait above, and an obituary newspaper article on Constance.

** Ralph Jessop, "Viragos of the Periodical Press: Constance Gordon-Cumming, Charlotte Dempster, Margaret Oliphant, Christian Isobel Johnstone," in Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan, eds., A History of Scottish Women's Writing, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, 216-231.

Publications:

1876  From the Hebrides to the Himalayas; a Sketch of Eighteen Months' Wanderings in Western Isles and Eastern Highlands. London: Sampson Low,

1881  "The last king of Tahiti" IN Contemporary Review, v.41, London

1881  At Home in Fiji, Edinburgh, Blackwood

1882  A lady's Cruise on a French Man-of-War, Edinburgh, Blackwood,

1882  "Gordon Ningpo and the Buddhist Temples" IN The Century Magazine

1883  Fire fountains, Edinburgh

1883  In the Hebrides [cruising in the islands of Scotland], Edinburgh

1884  "Fijian pottery" IN The Art Journal

1884  California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years. London: W. Blackwood and Sons

1884  Granite Crags [later edition: Granite crags of California], Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Son

1884 "New Zealand in Blooming December," IN The Century Magazine (Dec.)

1885 "The Offerings of the Dead" IN British Quarterly Review

1885 Via Cornwall to Egypt, London: Chatto & Windus

1886 & 1900 Wanderings in China (2 v.) Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons

1887 Work for the blind in China: showing how blind beggars may be transformed into useful Scripture readers

Part I, London: Gilbert & Rivington, Part II, Helensburgh (1892)

1889 Notes on Ceylon, London

1889 Notes on China and its Missions (London)

1890 "Across the Yellow Sea," IN Blackwood's Magazine

1892  Two happy years in Ceylon. 2 volumes. Edinburgh & London, William Blackwood and Sons

1899  The inventor of the numeral-type for China, by the use of which illiterate Chinese both blind and sighted can very quickly be taught to read and write fluently. London: Downey & Co.

  Wanderings in China. Edinburgh & London, William Blackwood and Sons

1904  Memories