When cars were still rare, two US women decided to experience India from behind the wheel

In 1904, Margarita Grace Phipps and her husband John ‘Jay’ Schaffer Phipps were spending their unusual honeymoon in India, driving through the country, camping in the wilderness, when they encountered a tiger.

The scene is described in an article in The New York Times on March 20, 1904. As the couple waited in their luxury sedan and the “native helpers” set up camp, “there came out of the bushes some distance ahead, the cry of a wild animal, which to them was a strange sound… Before they had time to ask any of the natives, these came running of their own accord to warn them that one of the big cats of the jungle could not be far away.”

Jay directed every man to load his rifle but then “gallantly ordered that the first shot at the tiger should belong to his wife since she was very anxious to achieve the honor of having slain one of the most feared of animals”.

“In another moment the animal stepped out in the open,” read the article. “He was a superb figure, though still young and not full grown. Mrs. Phipps raised her rifle just as the tiger turned his head toward her. She aimed but a second and then fired. So true had been her sight that the bullet found the fatal spot.”

The newlyweds were scions of two of the wealthiest families in the West. Jay’s father was a partner of steel baron Andrew Carnegie, while Margarita’s family ran a company with various interests in South America, including guano trade and “the world’s richest silver mine”.

The Phipps couple had decided to drive through India at a time when motorcars were still luxury items and their mass production had only just commenced. It was not common back then to see a car on Indian roads, let alone in the jungles.

For nearly three months, the couple moved around the nation in three automobiles, riding in the luxury sedan themselves, while reserving the other two cars for servants and supplies.

All the while, Margarita wrote letters home describing the hospitality of the maharajas and the “strangeness” of the “natives”, who, she said, would often gawk rather than assist. The quality of Indian roads also found a mention in her letters:

“Delhi – from there to Umballa, the road was excellent. The highway was swarming with travelers, on foot and riding on camels, while every now and then we encountered drovers bringing bullocks to the market. In the fields there was plenty of cattle, and they all, camels and men, and women and cattle, stared open-mouthed as we passed by.”

During their India trip, Margarita and Jay’s encounters with wildlife – they saw crocodiles, monkeys and exotic birds aside from a tiger – were viewed as encounters of the modern West with the mysterious East. To them, and some in the press, the couple’s adventure presented an allegory: it showed how the East could be tamed with technological advancements such as a motorcar and a rifle (wielded occasionally by a woman).

The hide of the tiger they killed remains displayed at the Phipps’ Long Island mansion. The house, now a heritage property, has featured in several classic films, such as North by Northwest and The Manchurian Candidate.

World tour

Six years after the Phipps’ visit, Harriet White Fisher drove a 40 HP Locomobile around the world, including in India. Born in 1861, Fisher was a businesswoman who owned and ran an anvil and vise factory in Trenton, New Jersey.

She left the United States in July 1909 and travelled in her car for 13 months over 10,000 miles, covering Europe, India, Ceylon, China and Japan. A year later she wrote about her travels in A Woman’s World Tour in a Motor and had this to say about the East:

“When one from the Western world visits the strange scenes of the Far East, there is very much more to be noted than mere guidebook details. There is indeed much more to be felt. The mind, as well as the eye, is entranced. The mystic quality of India – that wonderful magic of atmosphere and antiquity is impressive.”

To make her journey relatively comfortable, Fisher’s Locomobile was equipped with a bigger fuel tank that allowed her to travel longer distances between refills. Giving her company through the miles were her manager, a cook-cum-secretary, an Italian maid and a Bostonian bull terrier named Honk-Honk. In India, she added a servant to her team called Antonio.

Fisher’s book has several chapters devoted to India. In them, she describes the roads she crossed, the rivers her car forded, and the royalty and commoners she met. She found the hotels and inns in India invariably dirty and crowded but had no complaints about the generous hospitality of the maharajas of Gwalior, Benares and Baroda.

When she landed in Bombay, she was struck by its cosmopolitanism:

“Travellers will be struck with the picturesqueness of the scene on landing in Bombay. The quaint native craft at the quay; the crowds of people dressed in the most brilliant and varied costumes; the Hindus of different castes; the Mohammedans, Jews, and Parsis, with a sprinkling from other nationalities; the gaily painted bullock-carts; and other sights of equal novelty, combine to make a lasting impression on the mind of the stranger.”

She stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel and bought supplies from the Army and Navy Store in the Fort area. “The first thing a tourist does is to provide himself with a topee and a thin pongee silk suit or gown,” she wrote. “Also, it is advisable to carry a small bamboo stick with which to whip the bare legs of the natives who are too persistent in coming close up to one in begging or selling their wares. In this close contact there is danger of catching the plague or some other disease.”

Royal welcome

From Bombay, whose streets she found narrow and crowded, she drove to Poona, the first time any car had ascended the Bhor Ghat. As she moved up north, the journey was not always pleasurable. The dak bungalows and inns in the interiors were often poorly maintained. At Mhow, she wrote, the dak bungalow was infested with “crimson ramblers” or bed bugs.

From Indore, she travelled to Mandu. While in Guna near Gwalior, she sighted the Halley’s Comet, which has an orbital period of around 76 years.

A number of sights and experiences impressed her in India. The variety of birds in the country – “the mynas, the green parrots, and the swarms of peacocks that made noises like human beings” – was striking, she said. The Taj Mahal presented a wonderful sight by moonlight. The roads of Gwalior were “magnificent, the natives working on them all day long. Even a little pebble, the size of one of our hickory nuts, is not allowed to remain…” The maharaja of Gwalior was a fine host, she said, and in his palace could be found several American inventions, including an electric railway set, with silver cars carrying wines, cigars, sweets and cakes.

Fisher received a majestic welcome in Allahabad after crossing Kanpur and Lucknow, where the British were still scarred by the memory of the 1857 Rebellion. “None of the natives are permitted to carry arms of any kind; each man and woman is permitted to carry (only) a long staff of bamboo to protect themselves against snakes and wild animals.”

Invited by Motilal Nehru, she also stayed at the magnificent Nehru house in Civil Lines. The mansion, made of white marble, stood in the midst of a big park with miniature lakes on either side. When Fisher arrived, she was welcomed by 75 servants standing in a line, with two elephants on either side. Since elephants routinely scared off horses used by the police and the army, they were not always allowed out. But Motilal Nehru secured special permission from the city authorities to ensure Fisher could ride an elephant to Ganga.

In the last stretch of her India visit, Fisher visited the burning ghats of Benares, passed miles of poppy fields in Bengal, and met the 13th Dalai Lama, who had fled Tibet and arrived in Darjeeling looking dishevelled but still dignified. The souvenirs she gathered in India were displayed in her New Jersey home. To her, she said, they were reminders of her journey through a “fairyland”.

Between 1899 and 1916, several American women, besides Fisher, travelled across the United States by car. For the nascent auto industry, these journeys were significant because they popularised the motorcar as essential, efficient and easy to use. But reading the accounts of Margarita Phipps and Fisher, it appears that, to them, the destination was as important as the journey.

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