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The Lady and the Mountain Man: Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship
Isabella slowly made her way through a lush field of heather and wildflowers toward a cluster of boulders on the Isle of Iona. John Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, and Alexander Ewing, the Bishop of Argyll, followed after the fragile woman. Iona was a little island in the midst of the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles of Scotland. The small plot of land was rich in Christian history. This was Isabella’s first time on the Isle of Iona, and she wanted to learn about the community where missionaries had been dispatched for the conversion of the pagan tribes of Scotland and northern England in the late 1760s. She was compiling another book on religion and believed the information would prove vital. Aside from her research, she hoped the scenery would improve her frail health. Such outings always made a difference to her condition.
While waiting for the duke and bishop to reach her, she gazed out over a nearby pasture at the great horned, shaggy Highland cattle tromping through the fields and thought how much her father would have appreciated the serene setting. Reverend Bird had left behind copious notes and essays about such historic locations important to the faith. Not long after his passing, Isabella her father’s compilations published. Out of respect for her him, she wanted to continue writing on the subject. In addition to focusing on religion in Europe, she planned to study religious revivals in the United States. For that, her health would need to be rejuvenated. At the time, she suffered from muscle weakness in the legs, painful muscle spasms, and periods of extreme exhaustion.
Regardless of her physical struggles, Isabella’s friends noted she was always cheerful and positive. Socially influential people in Edinburgh sought out her company after reading the complimentary article she wrote about the country published in The Leisure Hour magazine and The Sunday Magazine. All who encountered Isabella found her lively disposition infectious. Those who knew her only through her writings would never have imagined she suffered from recurrent spinal attacks. She was good at working through the pain, but there were times when the frustration of having to deal with the ailment would eventually take its toll. When that happened, she would vent about the problem in letters to those closest to her.
“I feel as if my life were spent in the very ignoble occupation of taking care of myself,” she wrote in 1864, “and that unless some disturbing influences arise I am in great danger of becoming encrusted with selfishness, and, like the hero of Romola, of living to make life agreeable and its path smooth to myself alone. Indeed, this summer I have made very painful discoveries on this subject and long for a cheerful intellect and self-denying spirit, which seeketh not its own and pleaseth not itself.”
To learn more about Isabella Bird and Mountain Man Jim Nugent read
The Lady and the Mountain Man.
