C. F. Gordon Cumming

Indian Life on Mirror Lake, Yosemite Valley, 1879, C. F. Gordon Cumming

Constance Gordon Cumming, ca. 1900

C. F. Gordon Cumming was something of an explorer, something of a writer, something of an artist, and most surprisingly, far more than "something" of a woman. She was all this between the years 1867 and 1924, during the height of the Victorian era, at a time when the mental image of the word "explorer" was totally male, and that of writer and artist predominantly so. Upper-class women such as Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming, traveling around the world at that time, did so only accompanied by their husbands. "Eka" (to her friends) Cumming had no husband. She had lots of wealthy acquaintances of both genders with whom she sometimes traveled and with whom she often visited for extended periods. She has frequently been termed intrepid, bold, dauntless, and fearless, which is redundant in the extreme, but perhaps necessary in describing such an exceptional woman.

 

Sydney Harbor, 1875, Constance Gordon Cumming

Constance Cumming was born, the youngest of twelve children, to a wealthy Scottish landowner and his wife in 1837. She grew up in Northumberland (northernmost England along the Scottish border) and was educated at Fulham in London. She taught herself how to paint and likely, to no small extent, how to write as well, inasmuch as young ladies at the time were only schooled in writing letters. Actually, most of her travel books are very much like letters home, journals, and what we'd call today, blogs. That is to say, despite having written and published some twenty-five books and articles, she was a much better artist than she was a writer. Even at that, her only instruction as an artist came from the English horse and dog painter, Sir Edwin Landseer, a friend of her father's.

 

The Great Hong Kong Fire, Christmas Day, 1878, Constance Gordon Cumming

Had the camera been a mandatory traveling accoutrement at the time, Constance Cumming might never have become an artist (a noted photographer, maybe). She began her travels by spending a year in India in 1867 (a British colony at the time). From there she moved on to other British colonies, Australia, then to Hong Kong. The British Empire pretty much wrapped itself clear around the world during this era. Arriving in Hong Kong on Christmas Day, she found herself becoming a witness to the great Hong Kong fire of 1878. Minus a camera, she painted a watercolor of it. From Hong Kong, friends urged her on to mainland China, Shanghai, Peking, and from there to Fiji, Japan, and Hawaii (also British at the time). Continuing her global jaunt, Miss Cumming next landed in San Francisco where she took to the hills and mountains of Yosemite, painting Indian Life on Mirror Lake (top). An intended stay of three days turned into three months. Her harrowing experiences in touring Yosemite on horseback demonstrates Cumming's unique flair for writing (notice, it's all one long sentence):

"The owners of the sure footed horses of the valley pride themselves on the fact there has never yet been accident, though hundreds of tourists who look as if they had lived all their lives in paved cities, and are wholly guiltless of any notion of riding, annually deliver themselves over to the guides, who place them on the backs of unknown ponies, arrange them in Indian file, and adroitly steer them up and down most fearfully dangerous trails, where one false step or stumble would probably land pony and rider right down in the valley in the form of a jelly."

The Great Wall of Peking, 1879, Constance Gordon Cumming

Quite apart from her travels, her writings, and her art, Constance Gordon Cumming is also remembered for her efforts in promoting the work of Scottish missionary, William Hill Murray, whom she met while visiting Peking. Murray had devised a method of teaching blind Chinese how to read by converting 408 Mandarin Chinese sounds to numerals. In 1887 she wrote a book, Work for the Blind in China: Showing How Blind Beggars may be transformed into useful Scripture Readers. A similar book followed in 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. Though the  book titles may be as ungainly as her prose, Constance Gordon Cumming nonetheless maintained financial support for Murray's work until her death in 1924.

Temporary Chimneys and Fire Fountains, 1880, Constance Gordon Cumming. She was one of the first to paint Hawaiian volcanic activity, though the official date is suspect
unless the watercolor works were rendered sometime after she visited the islands.