Harriet conquers Ceylon and the world
On July 17, 1909, 43-year-old Harriet White Fisher, a wealthy widow who had inherited her husband’s company and become a successful businesswoman, set sail from America on the liner SS New York bound for Europe. Nothing very unusual about that you may think; a widow perhaps wanting to assist her recovery from her husband’s death by making a tour of London, Paris, Rome, Athens and thereabouts.
Harriet, her entourage, Honk-Honk, and supplies, San Francisco, 1910
But you would be wrong, for loaded in a crate within the ship’s hold was Harriet’s car, an American Locomobile, one of the finest then available with a 40-horsepower engine. It was fitted with a special fuel tank under the back seat allowing the driver to travel 400 miles (640km) between refills. The car was packed with plentiful supplies, including an enormous tent, and Harriet’s “essentials” contained in many trunks and suitcases.
As if that wasn’t enough, Harriet was accompanied by her compatriot, chauffeur-cum-personal secretary Harold Brooks, British valet Albert Bacheller, and Italian maid Maria Borge. Last, but certainly not least, was her adored Boston bull terrier Honk-Honk, a name presumably inspired by the noise of the rudimentary car horn operated by squeezing an air-filled rubber ball.
Quite simply, Harriet wished to become the first woman to travel around the world by automobile (whether she believed that Maria should receive the same recognition if the feat was achieved is debatable). Harriet was the widow of Clark Fisher, the owner of Fisher and Norris Anvils, situated in Trenton, Philadelphia. After his death in 1903 she successfully took over the business and, aided by a lucrative federal government contract for the construction of the Panama Canal, became known as the “Anvil Queen of America” and the “woman ironmaster”. Remarkable was the fact that she was the sole female factory owner in the United States at that time and consequently the first woman member of the Manufacturers of America.
Today, Harriet and her trail-blazing expedition are forgotten, but the fact remains that she and Maria did become the first women to circumnavigate the world by car, taking 13 months in the process. Their triumphant journey was chiefly due to the inventiveness of Harold Brooks. Just 23, Brooks not only drove the car most of the way, but also fixed the engine and undertook body repairs; the patching of tyres; purchasing and shipping of petrol, oil and parts; finding bridges and ferries; hunting quail, pheasant or pigeons for dinner; and documenting the trip through photography.
Many of these photographs are reproduced in Harriet’s unique travelogue, A Woman’s World Tour in a Motor (1911). “I have only the plain unvarnished tale to tell of my trip around the world in a motor-car; the trip of a woman who had grown a little weary of the details of a useful but somewhat heavy business, and sought recreation under India’s burning sun, in Ceylon, China, Japan, in many places where no motor-car had ever taken man or woman before.”
The nascent relationship between the new iron contraption and isolated rural populations was most apparent in India. Harriet’s car on the four-month journey across the Subcontinent was greeted with awe, and so scarce was the existence of the support systems motoring requires that scouts were used to deposit fuel along the 2,300-mile (3,700-km) route.
Wherever she travelled Harriet gained the attention of the local press and in Calcutta, for instance, one newspaper reported: “Mrs Fisher seemed much pleased with the sardee [sari] and wore one while in India; and said she had never felt so comfortable dressed as she did in that lovely light silk gown; and hoped to persuade American ladies to adopt the style for house wear during the summer months, since they are cool, easily put on, require no buttons and sewing, and are easily laundered.”
The time arrived for their departure to Colombo, so Brooks dutifully crated the car for the voyage. Honk-Honk missed the Ceylon leg of the circumnavigation and was instead shipped to the entourage’s future destination, Japan. Why Harriet decided on such a drastic measure remains unexplained.
In Chapter XVII of her account, “Wonderful Little Ceylon”, Harriet describes the emotional upheaval that often accompanied life in the British colonial service. “In the Far East one sees humanity under different aspects from those we observe at home: mothers and fathers parting with their children, husbands parting with their wives, oftentimes forever.”
After a typical passenger’s description of the reception from hawkers and porters on arrival in Colombo harbour, Harriet proceeds to explain the strict medical procedures in force. “As soon as you arrive, you pass a doctor’s inspection and receive a certificate; and for three days after your arrival you are obliged to visit the doctor and have your pulse felt and tongue examined. If the slightest symptoms of fever present themselves, you are immediately quarantined and sent to hospital. This is absolutely unavoidable. All the inhabitants of the Island of Ceylon are as carefully watched as the members of a large family to prevent contagious diseases.”
After providing basic information on Ceylon, Harriet turns her attention to motoring on the island: “The motor-car is now being quite commonly used, and affords the most perfect means of touring the island. The cost for hiring these motor-cars is about fifty dollars a day for the car and driver. You have, naturally, tips and other expenses in addition, and I understand from people who have hired cars that it runs up to seventy-five dollars a day. As you can do the island in a week or ten days, it is for the person touring to decide whether he will take this means or be crowded into ill-smelling and overcrowded cars. Of course if you can take your own motor-car the travelling is ideal.”
What she doesn’t reveal is that the age of the motor-car in Ceylon began in February 1902, when an eight-horsepower single-cylinder steam driven locomobile was imported by E.G. Money. Asgi Akbarally notes in Classic and Vintage Automobiles of Ceylon (2012): “It was fitted with high tiller steering and two front seats, which were placed over a boiler and therefore it was quite hot for the occupants! The main trouble with this model was the burner, which had to be specially constructed to burn kerosene instead of petrol. As long as steam was kept up and the burner was clean, the car could run at 20mph, which was considered extremely fast at the time.”
Later that year Money and a friend conquered the ascent to Nuwara Eliya in this primitive car in just 14 hours. By 1904 the Ceylon Automobile Association was founded with 100 members, and the condition of the roads was improved with the increasing number of vehicles. A few years later 10-seater Albion buses were hired for up-country trips, especially to Nuwara Eliya.
Harriet states “Colombo and its neighbourhood affords opportunity for a multitude of charming and picturesque drives.” Those were the days when driving a car was a pleasurable experience in a city that possessed an infinitesimal volume of traffic and didn’t require bewildering one-way systems. In 1973, when I made my first visit to Sri Lanka, the traffic-volume remained light for a capital city. I took some 8mm footage along Galle Road from the heights of Galle Face Court that demonstrates this – the odd double-decker, a Morris Minor taxi or two, and a few examples of the most popular British models of the period such as the Oxford Cambridge.
The first Colombo drive Harriet describes began at the Galle Face Hotel, traversed Galle Face Green and then proceeded through Pettah “past an Old Dutch Belfry, beyond which are the Market Place and Town Hall. Here two streets diverge, the one to the left being Sea Street, where dwell the dealers in rice and cotton. The other, Wolfendahl Street, to the right, conducts to Wolfendahl Church . . . it is the most interesting as well as the most complete of the relics of the Dutch occupation now remaining. Thence the drive may be continued through the suburb of Mutwal, over the bridge crossing the Kelani River, to Maradana, and back to Galle Face.”
The second drive Harriet recommended started “by crossing the bridge from Galle Face almost immediately behind the hotel, to Slave Island, and then driving along the edge of a beautiful freshwater lake [the Beira], past the pretty residence of the General commanding the troops in Ceylon, to Victoria Park. The Park occupies the old Cinnamon Gardens, and is well laid out with ornamental grounds, in the midst of which is a Museum, built in 1877.”
A preparatory drive through Central Park, 1909
The party, Brooks especially, spent several days “trying to find out what the rules were for motor driving” – presumably “trying” means that goal was never achieved – before setting off for a two-week drive around the island. “At the garage where we were able to obtain supplies, they told us we would be permitted to travel ten days without a license, and that the tax for a year for driving a car in Ceylon was 40 rupees. This seemed rather high for ten days. We packed our luggage, said farewell to our friends at the hotel, and with numerous admirers gazing at our heavily loaded car, started to the west.”
That night they stayed at Puttalam’s “very dirty” resthouse and “congratulated” themselves on having their own bedding. “Early next morning we started on our way to Anuradhapura, and on the road we met some of the people called ‘Rock Veddahs’, who are absolute savages, wearing no clothing whatever. Upon seeing our car approaching, they would run and conceal themselves in the dense forest.”
Harriet not only displays the typical prejudice of the period towards Veddahs, but even expresses some disquiet about her party’s safety in their territory. “We were told that these people were rarely seen by travellers, but the strangeness of our outfit must have attracted their curiousity, for we saw as many of them as we cared to, and felt a good deal safer when we were beyond their retreat.”
Toll-gates are a subject of discussion today in the context of new expressways, but it must be remembered they were mandatory on most roads a century ago. “Every six or eight miles you will find a toll-gate in Ceylon, where you are obliged to pay from half a rupee to a rupee going one way. Save for hotel bills, this was the only form of graft to which we were especially subjected, and by comparison modest indeed.”
The party often partook of a jungle luncheon, a routine in which Brooks often killed an endemic Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Jungle Fowl (Gallus lafayetii), which became the country’s national bird. Harriet’s heart sank when she saw the beautiful plumage of the male of the species, but consoled herself by admitting “they are very good to eat, tasting something like guinea fowl. Albert made us an old-fashioned pot-pie with dumplings – a very savoury and tempting dish.”
On arrival at Anuradhapura “we visited the government doctor and gave up our papers, and were given a free passport to good health.” Little is written about their visit to the ancient city but much is made of Harriet’s encounter at her hotel with her friend James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald. (Bennett financed Henry Stanley’s African expedition to find David Livingstone.) “This is a favourite place of his for a winter trip, and nearly every year brings a party over on his yacht. He also brings a couple of motor-cars with which to tour the island.”
Bennett was en route to Kandy and gave Harriet advice regarding the roads, but she decided to take the one least-known, thus travelled to Kandy from Anuradhapura via Trincomalee and Dambulla. Harriet stayed at the Queen’s Hotel, which charged 20 dollars a night. Predictable visits were paid to the Dalada Maligawa, Lady Horton’s Walk and the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens.
Upon her return to the hotel the Chairman of the Ceylon Automobile Association presented himself to Harriet and said, “I am very sorry but must tell you that you are going to be arrested for having driven away from Colombo without the proper license for your car, and neither did you gain a license for the privilege of driving your car.” Having explained she had been informed licences would not be required because they were staying for just a few days, the chairman said he’d see what could be done, which was much, as Harriet heard no more about the matter.
The next leg of the tour took them from Kandy to Colombo via Ratnapura in order to see a gem mine. “We found it very interesting, and saw so many precious stones that we looked at them finally with only about the same curiousity and interest one would look at a rare pebble, losing any desire to possess them.”
Chapter XVIII, “Colombo to Shanghai”, begins with the regrettable story of how Harriet acquired a baby monkey she had seen darting about on a tea plantation. “We stopped the car and I followed this little monkey to a hut. We were told it was part of Sir Thomas Lipton’s tea plantation, and that the man living there with his family was the care-taker. I tried by signs to make them understand that I desired to possess this baby monkey, and after manoeuvres and coaxing, the little fellow jumped on my hand, and I soon had him in a firm grasp.”
Curiously, on her return to the Galle Face Hotel, Harriet was introduced to Sir Thomas Lipton. On her journey out of Colombo, Brooks had overtaken Lipton’s car. “We were surprised to find here a car larger than mine, as I flattered myself I owned the largest car on the Island of Ceylon,” the extremely wealthy tea magnate told her.
Soon the day arrived when they were due to sail from Colombo. “Mr Brooks again packed the motor in its case, the money deposited with the Customs House was returned to me in check, and we were all ready to start for China. The motor was to go on to Japan, where we would meet it later.” And so Harriet’s saga in Ceylon, within the global canvas of her pioneering journey, came to a close.
What of Harriet’s legacy? Virginia Scharff, a University of New Mexico professor and the author of a history of women drivers, Taking the Wheel (1992), declares: “The sheer spectacle of the whole thing was a big part of popularising the automobile. Someone might have said, if a woman could drive around the world, why couldn’t any idiot drive a car?”