Simply Curious

You can't have an interest in history and live in Colorado long without hearing about Isabella Bird.  This Victorian English Lady Traveler ventured all over the world, including a stop along the Colorado Front Range, and had an amusing bit to say about it.  I found "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" in a thrift shop, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

I found Isabella fascinating.  A typical Prim and Proper Englishwoman who seems to  be attempting to escape society.  She generally scorns the people she meets and waxes poetic about the scenic views she finds.  She seems happiest when she's alone in the wild.

All green that I have ever seen, of English lawns in June, or Alpine valleys, seems poor and colourless as compared with the dazzling green of this sixty-five miles.  It is a joyous green, a glory.  Whenever I look up from my writing, I ask, Was there ever such green?  Was there ever such sunshine?  Was there ever such an atmosphere?  Was there ever such an adventure?  And Nature--for I have no other companion, and wish for none--answers, “No.”  The novelty is that I am alone, my conveyance my own horse; no luggage to look after, for it is all in my saddle-bags; no guide to bother, hurry, or hinder me; and with knowledge enough of the country to stop when and where I please.  A native guide, besides being a considerable expense, is a great nuisance; and as the trail is easy to find, and the rivers are low, I resolved for once to taste the delights of perfect independence!  This is a blessed country, for a lady can travel everywhere in absolute security. - Letter XXVI, The Hawaiian Archipelago

In Hawaii, Isabella learned how to ride astride a horse, and takes full advantage of it during her Colorado visit.  It might have been this that really got my attention.  In England she would have caused quite a scandal.  In Western America, she gained some approval from the men for her ability to adapt and keep up. (No opinion on what the women thought.)  In Hawaii, where she learned to ride this way, no one would have cared, because EVERYONE rode astride!


In a footnote in 'A Lady's Life' she provides a hint:  "For the benefit of other lady travelers, I wish to explain that my "Hawaiian riding dress" is the "American Lady's Mountain Dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots,—a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the Alps or any other part of the world."

I continued searching, but only got a few more comments on her clothing.

I have nothing else to wear!

"Owing to my inability to get money in Denver I am almost without shoes, have nothing but a pair of slippers and some "arctics." For outer garments—well, I have a trained black silk dress, with a black silk polonaise! and nothing else but my old flannel riding suit, which is quite threadbare, and requires such frequent mending that I am sometimes obliged to "dress" for supper, and patch and darn it during the evening."

"Putting a minimum of indispensables into a bag, and slipping on my Hawaiian riding dress over a silk skirt, and a dust cloak over all, I stealthily crossed the plaza to the livery stable . . ."

"I wore my Hawaiian riding dress, with a handkerchief tied over my face and the sun-cover of my umbrella folded and tied over my hat, for the sun was very fierce."

What do you know, she does the same thing Jane Austen does that I hate - minimal mention of color or detail!

So, we have a few things to go on. Flannel, threadbare, Mountain Dress, turkish trousers, and the ubiquitous Hawaiian Riding Dress. What exactly IS that?  I turned to her previous book, The Hawaiian Archipelago, in the hopes of finding some answers, and pulled out some more hopefully useful clothing descriptions.

The native women all ride astride, on ordinary occasions in the full sacks, or holukus, and on gala days in the pau, the gay, winged dress which I described in writing from Honolulu.  A great many of the foreign ladies on Hawaii have adopted the Mexican saddle also, for greater security to themselves and ease to their horses, on the steep and perilous bridle-tracks, but they wear full Turkish trowsers and jauntily-made dresses reaching to the ankles.

The women seemed perfectly at home in their gay, brass-bossed, high peaked saddles, flying along astride, barefooted, with their orange and scarlet riding dresses streaming on each side beyond their horses’ tails, a bright kaleidoscopic flash of bright eyes, white teeth, shining hair, garlands of flowers and many-coloured dresses;

Many of the women were in flowing riding-dresses of pure white . . . 

. . . their drapery, which consists of a sleeved garment which falls in ample and unconfined folds from their shoulders to their feet, partly conceals this defect, which is here regarded as a beauty.  Some of these dresses were black, but many of those worn by the younger women were of pure white, crimson, yellow, scarlet, blue, or light green.  

I had on my coarse Australian hat which serves the double purpose of sunshade and umbrella, Mrs. Thompson’s riding costume, my great rusty New Zealand boots, and my blanket strapped behind a very gaily ornamented brass-bossed demi-pique Mexican saddle, which one of the missionary’s daughters had lent me.

My saddle-bags contain, besides “Sunday clothes,” dress for any “gaieties” which Hilo may offer; but I circumscribed my stock of clothes as much as possible, having fallen into the rough-and-ready practice of washing them at night, and putting them on unironed in the morning.   

 I even wish that you could see me in my Rob Roy riding dress, with leather belt and pouch, a lei of the orange seeds of the pandanus round my throat, jingling Mexican spurs, blue saddle blanket, and Rob Roy blanket strapped on behind the saddle!

 "Rob Roy" is apparently a red and black tartan fabric.