After cataloging her disappointment with Europe, Asia, and Australia, xenophobic travel writer Favell Lee Mortimer finished her world survey with Far Off, Part II: Africa and America Described (1854). What did she discover about the intriguing people and exotic customs of these remote continents?

• “It is a rare thing in Egypt to speak the truth.”
• “Those who wish to visit Nubia ought to go there in a boat, for there is no other pleasant way.”
• “Perhaps there is no Christian country in the world as ignorant as Abyssinia.”
• “Cruelty is the chief vice of the Caffre.”
• “Newfoundland is a dreary abode.”
• “Though Mexico is so beautiful at a distance, yet the streets are narrow and loathsome, and the poor people, walking in them, look like bundles of old rags.”

“Washington is one of the most desolate cities in the world: not because she is in ruins, but for the opposite reason — because she is unfinished. There are places marked out where houses ought to be, but where no houses seem ever likely to be.”