About the author and the book (from Wikipedia):
Ida Laura Pfeiffer (14 October 1797, Vienna – 27 October 1858, Vienna), née Reyer, was an Austrian traveler and travel book author. She was one of the first female explorers, whose popular books were translated into seven languages. She was a member of geographical societies of both Berlin and Paris, but not of Royal Geographical Society in London because she was a woman and in those days they thought women weren’t capable of serious thoughts.
Second trip round the world
In 1851 she went to England and to South Africa, intending to penetrate into the interior; this proved impracticable, but she proceeded to the Malay archipelago, spending eighteen months in the Sunda Islands, where she visited the Dayaks of Borneo and was one of the first people to report on the behavior of the Bataks in Sumatra, and the Malukus. After a visit to Australia, Madame Pfeiffer proceeded to California, Oregon, Peru, Ecuador, New Granada, and north again to the Great Lakes, reaching home in 1854. Her narrative, Meine zweite Weltreise (“My second trip around the world”), was published at Vienna in 1856 (the English translation: Second Journey round the World, was published first by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman in London, 1855).
