Bird, ISABELLA

Bird, ISABELLA (Mrs Bishop), an adventurous lady traveller, long resident in Edinburgh, visited Canada and the United States in 1854. During a six months' residence in the Sandwich Islands, from time to time she sent home glowing letters describing what she saw and did, to a sister in Edinburgh. From such materials most of her books of travel have been compiled. Her lively and picturesque narratives of journeys made to the Rocky Mountains, to the aborigines of Yezo, to Persia and Kurdistan, to Tibet and other parts of Asia, have been very extensively read. The daughter of the rector of Tattenhall in Cheshire, she married Dr Bishop of Edinburgh in 1881. Since her widowhood she has continued her travels and her work at home and abroad on behalf of philanthropic and missionary objects. She has lectured on many platforms, was elected the first woman F.R.G.S., and is also a F.R.S.G.S. Among her books are The Englishwoman in America (1858), which appeared anonymously; Six Months among the Palm Groves of the Sandwich Islands (1875); A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879); Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880); The Golden Chersonese (1883); Persia and Kurdistan (1891); Among the Tibetans (1894); Korea and her Neighbours (1898); The Yangtse Valley (1899).