Around the World on Two Wheels

by Peter Zheutlin

  At a reception hosted in Avignon by a Madame Boyer, Annie was given a well-heated room “stocked with drinks to strengthen her.” Then, just four hours after arriving in Avignon, Annie was off again with Monsieur Geo, one of the Avignon cyclists who had met her at Orange. They reached Salon de Provence, some thirty miles southeast of Avignon, later that same day.

  Marseilles, Annie’s final destination in that country, was now just a few hours’ ride away. But this last leg of her French sojourn proved to be the most perilous, at least by Annie’s account.

  “One night I had an encounter with highwaymen near Lacone [Laçon, about thirty miles north of Marseilles and about ten miles southeast of Salon de Provence],” Annie later wrote in the New York World. “I think they were waiting for me, for they knew I had been earning money in Paris. There were three men in the party, and all wore masks. They sprang at me from behind a clump of trees, and one of them grabbed my bicycle wheel, throwing me heavily. I carried a revolver in my pocket within easy reach, and when I stood up I had that revolver against the head of the man nearest me. He backed off but another seized me from behind and disarmed me. They rifled my pockets and found just three francs. They were magnanimous enough to return that money to me. My shoulder had been badly wrenched by my fall, and my ankle was sprained, but I was able to continue my journey. Several wheelmen of the Lacone Club rode out to meet me, and when they understood the cause of my injuries they would not let me travel alone while I remained on French soil.”

  Despite the trauma of the night before, on the morning of January 13 Annie made her triumphant arrival in Marseilles. “Great preparations had been made for my reception in Marseilles, but I cut a sorry-looking figure when I reached the city,” she wrote. “My ankle was so badly swollen that I could not use it, so I was forced to ride into the city with my injured foot in bandages hanging over the handle-bar and pedaling with the other. I was escorted to the hotel by a long procession of cyclists, and the streets were lined with people who were anxious to see the American lady who was riding around the world on a bicycle. My Stars and Stripes were hung from a staff attached to my handle-bar, and it was heartily cheered.”

  While the dramatic encounter with highwaymen near Marseilles quickly became a staple among Annie’s many stories, repeated regularly to reporters along her route, it was never mentioned in the Marseilles newspapers, near the scene of the alleged crime, nor, in fact, in any French newspapers. There was, of course, another explanation for why Annie pedaled into Marseilles with one foot and the other in bandages propped on her handlebars: the inflammation of her Achilles tendon diagnosed in Valence. But there was little glamour in an inflamed Achilles tendon. Surviving a dramatic robbery was much better copy and served to enlarge her already growing legend, and nowhere had it grown as large as it did in Marseilles.

  Indeed, she had become such a star by that time that, during an appearance at the city’s Crystal Palace, Annie received a glorious ovation as she rode her Sterling through the crowd. Telling the people of Marseilles they were “the elite of the French nation” endeared her to the Marsaillais even more, as they loved being told their countrymen to the north were less hospitable and more vulgar. Annie regaled the local papers with anecdotes from her trip and continued to pour on the flattery, working her audience like the seasoned performer she now was. According to one local newspaper, “When she left for Marseilles, Parisians who had only given her a lukewarm welcome, didn’t hesitate to warn her: ‘You will be poorly welcomed in the South! Prepare yourself for a cruel deception.’ It was with a childlike joy that Miss Londonderry declared that the Parisians were bad prophets. She thinks that she has never experienced such sincere warmth and respectful kindness as that which surrounds her in our city.”

  “Maybe Paris got up on the wrong side of the bed when I was there,” said Annie. “In Marseilles, people have shown such cordiality that I’m overwhelmed with emotion.”

  INDEED, MARSEILLES was good to Annie. Not only was she given a hero’s welcome, local merchants eagerly helped her earn money to continue her trip. Monsieur Lorenzy-Palanca, a Marseilles perfume maker, initially offered her money directly but, citing the prohibition on gifts established by the wager, the cyclist replied, “nothing stops me from doing work for any amount you offer me.” True to her word, the next day Annie was out and about the streets of Marseilles, distributing handbills for the Lorenzy-Palanca company from her Sterling.

  Annie received so many letters in Marseilles from well-wishers hoping for a word with her that visitation hours at her hotel were posted in the local paper. Indeed, her celebrity had grown so large, that on January 20, the day of her departure for points east on the steamship Sydney, thousands turned out by the docks to bid her farewell. The throng “resembled a huge swarm of ants,” reported Le Petit Provençal. “The Soufre pier was equally invaded. Along the quay, privileged hundreds came to make their good-byes to the intrepid…Miss Londonderry.” For all her outward bravado and, at times, emotional detachment, Annie was deeply moved by this outpouring of affection and her eyes “filled with tears.” France had embraced her and she returned the embrace.

  As the Sydney maneuvered through the port, American and French flags flying from her stern, the captain passed as close as possible to the pier so the crowd could soak up one last long look at their heroine. The crowd cheered and Annie waved her final farewell. France would never see her again.

  Chapter Five

  A Girl Globe-Trotter

  ANNIE LONDONDERRY CIRCLES THE GLOBE ON A WHEEL—ATTACKED BY HIGHWAYMEN IN FRANCE—WHEELING ACROSS THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE ORIENTAL WAR SHE GATHERED MATERIALS FOR A LECTURE TOUR

  On that simple machine she rode like a winged victory, women’s rights perched on the handlebars, and cramping modes and manners strewn on her track.

  —Fairfax Downey

  The time between Annie’s departure from Marseilles in January 1895 and her return to the United States was filled with harrowing adventure, frequent danger, and endless drama.

  Annie rode her Sterling through Alexandria, Port Said, Jerusalem, and Aden. She rode across the “Hindustan Peninsular” from Bombay to Calcutta, a trip made miserable by insects. In India, she hunted Bengal tigers, sometimes in the company of German royalty. Nearly killed several times by “Asiatics” who mistook her for a flying squirrel, some believed her to be an evil spirit, or a even a Martian. She rode overland from India to the China coast, often wearing local clothing over her own to keep from being molested. Caught up in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, she traveled to the front lines with two journalists and a missionary, fell through a frozen river, took a bullet in the shoulder that caused a full month’s delay in her trip, rode over fields littered with the dead, and was thrown into a Japanese prison where she saw a Japanese soldier kill a Chinese prisoner. She endured freezing nights on “Corean furnace beds” heated by coals, and made her way by bicycle across the Korean peninsula to Siberia, where she “observed the workings of the Russian system of treating political prisoners.”

  It was a remarkable series of adventures and an extraordinary amount of cycling, especially for a woman who left Marseilles on January 20, 1895, and departed Yokohama on March 9, 1895, just seven weeks later. In fact, while all of this high adventure in the jungles of India, at the war front in China, and in the bitter cold of Siberia was unfolding in her fertile imagination, Annie was instead onboard the Sydney, skipping like a stone across the water. When she left Marseilles in late January, she had just eight months to make it back to Chicago if she was going to claim victory in her wager. She needed to find a fast away across Asia—and to obscure the fact that she had taken such an extraordinary liberty with her means of travel.

  During the course of Annie’s around-the-world journey she logged thousands of miles by bicycle, and it could be argued that she was genuinely the first woman to cross the American continent by bicycle, even if she hopped the train from time to time. But her accounts of the Asian leg of her trip are virtu
ally another story altogether. Even if she had ridden nonstop, it would have been impossible for Annie to have crossed India and cycled overland to the China coast in seven weeks.

  Annie often lived on the edge of reality and fiction. Simply put: when it suited her, she made up parts of her own story. Her real goal wasn’t to circle the globe on a bicycle, but to become rich and famous in the attempt, or at least in what appeared to be an attempt. And if she was going to lay claim to having cycled around the world, she needed to deliver a colorful account of her travels between Marseilles and Yokohama, one more interesting than she undoubtedly had during her time at sea. Upon her return to the States, in her lectures and for the trip account she later wrote for the New York World, she told amazing, literally incredible tales of bandits, war, and derring-do that would appeal to American audiences—even if they had little more than a grain of truth in them, or perhaps none at all—and she evinced no concern about whether her contradictory stories were adding up.

  AFTER LEAVING Marseilles on January 20, the Sydney sailed east toward the Suez Canal. Its first port of call, on January 25, was Alexandria, on Egypt’s north coast. A day later the Sydney stopped at Port Said, a major coaling station for ships passing through the Suez Canal. Annie wrote in the New York World that she visited Jerusalem, where, it appears, she amassed a collection of about a dozen lantern slides of the Holy City that she used in her lectures about the trip. To reach Jerusalem from either of these cities, she would have had to have taken a boat to the ancient port of Jaffa, near modern-day Tel Aviv, and a forty-mile, three-hour overland journey on a narrow gauge railway to the Holy City. It seems improbable, but Annie could have made it to Jerusalem and back to the Sydney if she had left the ship in Alexandria and rejoined it in Port Said the next day.

  Annie had a strong Jewish identity; the opportunity to see Jerusalem, even if briefly, would have had strong appeal. However, her many slides of Jerusalem do little to confirm her presence there, for the slides were made by a commercial photographer and could have been purchased elsewhere.

  After refueling at Port Said, the Sydney continued its voyage east to deliver the French mail. At one P.M. on the afternoon of February 7, the vessel, having sailed through the Suez Canal to Aden, reached Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Apparently, Annie was not the only female cyclist among the Sydney’s approximately eighty passengers, and women on bicycles were not a common sight in 1890s Ceylon. “A great deal of amazement was caused among the natives in the Fort [the center of colonial Colombo was the area near the city’s fort] this afternoon, by the unusual site of three lady cyclists in reformed dress—tights, knickerbockers and jacket—peddling [sic] their machines along the streets,” said the Ceylon Examiner. “These were from the French steamer ‘Sydney,’ which came in during the afternoon; and crowds kept following them, and surrounding shops and other places they went into. They seemed amused to see the crowds watching them; and after a time proceeded on board.” Annie found time to take a “30 mile spin” around Colombo with members of the local cycle club later that day.

  THE SYDNEY left Colombo the very next day for Singapore. On February 14, the Singapore Straits Times reported on Annie’s brief stop there. The tone was more skeptical than she had come to expect from the generally admiring French press, but she would soon have to get used to such attitudes and worse when she returned to the United States. It would only be a matter of time until some journalists would begin to take note of her remarkably fast time passing through Asia, especially for someone supposedly riding a bike.

  * * *

  A WOMAN ON WHEELS

  50,000 FOOLS AT MARSEILLES

  About two years ago a gentleman, who, not inappropriately, had been dubbed in America “the boss dead beat,” passed through the East on a journey around the world. He started from Copenhagen centless, to beg or borrow, or if dire necessity compelled, work his way around the world to win a wager, variously stated and variously explained. An indulgent public took this young man by the sleeve and led him comfortably on his way. He was furnished with the best of food and the most comfortable lodgings; his progress was watched with interest and recorded by the press. We believe that he succeeded in his task with but trifling difficulty, for the great steamship lines seemed to think the advertisement which this unmitigated young humbug gave them was worth the passage ticket which they presented. He had what Mark Twain’s bad boy would describe as a “bully time.”…

  And now we have chanced upon another crank from that land of marvellous [sic] wagers and remarkable exploits. This time it is a woman; a woman arrayed in an advanced costume smacking of the feminine attire of the next century. Last evening on the balcony of [her hotel]…[she was] the object of curious interest. A short woman, with a not unpleasant face, and a back at once suggesting to a Sherlock Holmes, by the deductive theory, she was addicted either to a sewing machine or a bicycle. Her costume removed the doubt. An easy fitting, low-cut blouse of pale blue, knickerbockers of dark serge, black stockings on well shaped legs, and white shoes denoted the modern cyclist. Her face was sunburnt, and there was a latent will power, not to say aggressive independence, in its lines which prepared one to know that the lady was not an ordinary tourist.

  The cyclist was introduced as Miss Londonderry and when she spoke one would have known at a considerable distance that she hailed from the land of the stars and stripes…[S]he cycled to Paris and there appears to have had a “high old time.” La belle France was at her feet. Her photographs were bought for 200 fr. a-piece. Advertisers found it a paying business to give her 100 fr. a day to distribute prospectuses. Smith’s soap and Jones’ pills were labeled all over the machine at 25 cents a spoke. She sampled somebody’s milk, gave a certificate of its excellence, and pocketed 200 fr. She wore another enterprising firm’s boots and testified to the durability. She donned all kinds of patent arrangements, and received substantial bonuses…And when she took reduced passage from Marseilles to Yokohama there must have been 50,000 people on hand to give her a royal farewell. But we fancy she exaggerates. Some women do.

  Singapore has been reached, therefore, by the easy method of a French mail [a reference to the Sydney] on the cheap…To the chagrin of the wagerers she will be in Boston once more…with the $5,000 legitimately earned according to the terms of the contract. Miss Londonderry then, fortunately for journalism, retires on her laurels, and writes a book. Miss Londonderry has had experiences, of course, but they are reserved for the volume which a waiting world is bound to buy. She carries a revolver and a small chemist’s shop. The revolver she has used twice in the free land of America. The drugs are to analyse Bink’s milk and Juggins’ soda water. Her trip, has on the whole, been a pleasant and profitable outing. As [Miss Londonderry] told us, “I have been treated most beautifully; it is wonderful to find the sympathy and courtesy of the people?” It is indeed!

  These individuals seem to be coming—the experiment having proved such a success—in a regular procession. Another man has started on his way, clad in a newspaper, and may in due course find his way to Singapore. It is reasonable to protest vigorously against this latest phase of beach combing—but is it of any use?

  —Singapore Straits Times, February 14, 1895

  * * *

  Another Singapore newspaper, the Free Press, was a little more charitable, but just a little. “Astonishment, curiosity, and amusement were created last evening by the advent of the New Woman…To [the M.M. Sydney’s] brief stay in port the community is indebted for its glimpse of the dress of the Woman of the Future, and a peep at the Woman herself.”

  That Annie was utterly unabashed about using her sexuality to help promote the wares of the advertisers who commissioned parts of her body as a billboard was clear in Singapore. “Miss Annie Londonderry…the lady cyclist who might have been seen walking about town yesterday evening and cycling around Teluk Ayer and the roads near the Borneo Wharf this morning, has dispensed with any superfluous outer garment or skirt above the knee and wears
a pair of knicker-bockers calculated to effectively display a pair of advertisement garters, advising everybody to ‘Ride Somebody’s tyres’ or perhaps to wear ‘Untearable Twills,’” said the Free Press. “The textual accuracy of the quotations is not vouched for, our representative (who is a modest man and fears to be misunderstood) not caring to appear as if gazing too intently in that quarter.”

  The Free Press noted that Annie was “but lightly” touching Asia on her around-the-world tour, and gently chided her for her naïveté about the region. “Miss Londonderry said…that she would have liked to cycle from Singapore to Hongkong, if time permitted, and asked as to the nature of the roads, which shows how easy it is to be in Malaya and not know anything about it. She is a very chatty person, and does not mind showing how she stops her cycle when going down hill, using her foot as a brake, the machine…having none.”

  As she had in Colombo, Annie tried to enlist some local Singapore cyclists for a bicycle tour, but to no avail. “No doubt the local cycling club would have been delighted—but, at all events, they did not know of the advent of the ‘nervy’ young lady, who appears quite capable of holding her own on the road and full of ‘grit’—extending nearer the finger tips than is usual with her sex,” said the Free Press. Then, a gentle parting shot: “But that is perhaps due to the fact that the Sydney has been coaling.”