Caroline Kirkland

Some African Highways Caroline Kirkland

Much of this work originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Caroline Kirkland's goal was to encourage other Americans, particularly women, to make the voyage into Uganda and parts of East Africa. Kirkland described her journey as "made with entire safety and great comfort...where else can you look out from railway carriage windows and see zebras, gnus, giraffes, hyneas, and even lions as you steam through a land?" While this work is greatly valuable as a travelogue by a female traveler, it is not unbound from the social mores of the time. For example, Kirkland also describes Uganda as for, "the lover of strong contrasts, of high lights and black shadows, of wonderful scenery, of great spaces, of all that is new and free and sitting, I recommend a trip to this dark, mysterious, violent and enchanting country. We two women only touched the surface of it, but we were ever conscious of much we could not see, nor hear, nor formulate, but which exists in a land teeming with fierce and savage life." Kirkland took the journey with her mother, and an Italian maid, Nannina, who was to work for Kirkland's sister residing in Central Africa. Her work includes a historical sketch, and numerous photographs.