康斯坦斯·弗雷德里卡·“埃卡”·戈登-卡明（Constance Frederica “Eka” Gordon-Cumming，1837年5月26日－1924年9月4日）是一位蘇格蘭旅行作家和畫家。她出生於富裕家庭，遊歷世界，並以她所見的場景和生活為題材進行繪畫和描述。她是旅行作家和藝術家瑪麗安·諾斯（Marianne North）和伊莎貝拉·伯德（Isabella Bird）的朋友和影響者。
埃卡的祖父亞歷山大·卡明爵士（Sir Alexander Cumming）於1804年繼承了妻子的財產，並使用了戈登斯頓家族的姓氏和紋章，家族成員並不一致地使用這個雙姓。她於1837年5月26日出生在蘇格蘭福雷斯（Forres）附近的阿爾泰爾（Altyre），是家中第12個孩子。她的父母是第二代從男爵威廉·戈登-卡明（Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming）和埃莉莎·瑪麗亞·戈登-卡明（Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming），後者是阿蓋爾公爵的孫女。埃卡是第四代從男爵威廉·戈登-卡明爵士的姑姑。她的早期教育不詳，但應該有私人家庭教師。她的母親對地質學感興趣，熟悉羅伯特·默奇森（Robert Murchison）的著作。她的瑞士女僕Cherie教她法語，在母親1848年去世後，她搬到北安伯蘭郡的姨媽家生活。她曾在富勒姆的隱士小屋（Hermitage Lodge）就讀，1853年離開學校。她的許多家人都是旅行者，一位叔叔查爾斯·卡明-布魯斯（Charles Cumming-Bruce）娶了尼羅河探險家詹姆斯·布魯斯的孫女。她的哥哥亞歷山大曾到過加拿大，而另一位哥哥魯阿倫（Roualeyn）則在非洲，以大獵物獵人而聞名。另一個哥哥約翰是錫蘭的種植園主，而威廉則是印度的士兵。威廉在《野人與野獸》（1871年）一書中描述了他的狩獵經歷，並將此書獻給了沃爾特·坎貝爾上校（"The Old Forest Ranger"）。她的旅行生涯始於1866年左右，那時她在尼斯湖（Loch Ness）陪伴患病的哥哥魯阿倫。1868年，她與同父異母的哥哥弗雷德里克（Frederick）一起到西部群島進行了一次繪畫旅行。她自學繪畫，並從訪問家中的藝術家那裡獲得幫助，包括維多利亞女王的御用畫家埃德溫·蘭西爾爵士（Sir Edwin Landseer）。她還接受了同父異母的姐姐艾米莉亞·瑟吉森（Emilia Sergison）的邀請，訪問了印度，在那裡她度過了一年，並寫了《在喜馬拉雅山和印度平原上》（1884年）。此後，她經歷了十二年令人陶醉的旅行，正如她所描述的那樣，這些旅行原本是難以想像的，她說這段美好的鏈條是一環接一環編織而成的。
戈登-卡明是一位多產的旅行作家和風景畫家，她遊歷了世界，主要在亞洲和太平洋地區。她創作了超過一千幅水彩畫，並且遵循“不讓一天過去而不畫一幅精心上色的素描”的座右銘。在印度時，她每天早上5點開始畫畫。她訪問過的地方包括澳大利亞、新西蘭、美國、中國和日本。她於1879年10月抵達夏威夷的希洛，成為首批繪製活火山的藝術家之一。她的夏威夷遊記《火之泉：夏威夷王國》（Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii）於1883年在愛丁堡出版。她曾經歷過幾次危險時刻，但她的旅行於1880年結束，當時她乘坐的“蒙大拿號”（Montana）在霍利黑德（Holyhead）觸礁。雖然大多數乘客都搭乘救生艇離開，但她與船長一起堅持到最後，並在幾個小時後獲救，成功地保住了她的畫作。隨後，她與寡居的妹妹埃莉諾（Eleanor）一起搬回克里夫（Crieff）居住，並繼續寫書。
她最著名的書籍是《在斐濟的家》和《一位女士在法國軍艦上的巡航》。後者是應邀參加為薩摩亞主教服務的法國軍艦，該艦旨在訪問主教遙遠教區的偏遠地區。
戈登-卡明小姐經常受到當時男性作家的批評，可能是因為她並不符合維多利亞時代女性的傳統角色，她經常獨自旅行，沒有幫助。亨利·亞當斯（Henry Adams）曾批評她的書只是一些沒有多少趣味的軼事集。不過，她的風景素描和水彩畫似乎普遍受到讚賞。
戈登-卡明小姐於1878年4月訪問了優勝美地山谷（Yosemite Valley），在此之前她訪問了塔希提島（Tahiti）。她原打算逗留三天，結果卻待了三個月。她說：“我已經在這個廣闊的世界上漫遊了足夠遠的地方，能夠識別出當我有幸看到一個獨特的奇觀時，我能夠意識到那種榮耀。”她將寄回家的信件編輯成書，並於1884年出版了《花崗岩峭壁》（Granite Crags）。在優勝美地期間，戈登-卡明小姐還畫了水彩素描，並在優勝美地山谷展出，這成為了優勝美地的第一次藝術展覽。
1879年，在訪問中國北京時，戈登-卡明小姐遇到了蘇格蘭傳教士威廉·希爾·穆雷（William Hill Murray）。他發明了一種數字系統，使盲人和不識字的中國人能夠通過給每個漢語普通話音調分配一個數字來學習閱讀和寫作。戈登-卡明寫了一本書（1899年）來介紹這個系統，並在她的一生中支持這所學校。她於1924年9月4日逝世於蘇格蘭，並安葬於克里夫附近。
檀香山藝術博物館、加利福尼亞奧克蘭博物館和優勝美地博物館是收藏康斯坦斯·戈登-卡明作品的公共收藏之一。
Constance Frederica “Eka” Gordon-Cumming (26 May 1837 – 4 September 1924) was a Scottish travel writer and painter. Born in a wealthy family, she travelled around the world and painted described scenes and life as she saw them. She was a friend and influencer of the travel writers and artists Marianne North and Isabella Bird.
Biography[edit]
Eka's grandfather Sir Alexander Cumming inherited the wealth of his wife and the name and arms of Gordon of Gordonstoun in 1804 and used the hyphenated double surname which was not consistently used by family members. She was born on 26 May 1837 at Altyre, near Forres in Scotland, the 12th child of a wealthy family. Her parents were Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet, and Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming, granddaughter of the Duke of Argyll. Eka was the aunt of Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 4th Baronet. Little is known about her early education but she would have had private home tutors. Her mother was interested in geology and was familiar with the works of Robert Murchison. A Swiss maid, Cherie, taught her French and after the death of her mother in 1848, she went to live with an aunt in Northumberland. She went to Hermitage Lodge at Fulham leaving it in 1853. Many of her family members were travellers, an uncle Charles Cumming-Bruce married the grand-daughter of the Nile explorer James Bruce of Kinnaird. Her brother Alexander had been Canada while another, Roualeyn had been Africa where he had been famous as a big-game hunter. Another brother John was a planter in Ceylon while William was a soldier in India. William wrote about his hunting in "Wild Men and Wild Beasts" (1871) dedicated to Col. Walter Campbell ("The Old Forest Ranger"). Her travelling phase began around 1866 when she was in Loch Ness where her terminally ill brother Roualeyn was being nursed by another sister. In 1868 she went on a painting tour with her half-brother Frederick to the Western Islands. She taught herself how to paint, and had help from artists visiting her home, including one of Queen Victoria's favorite painters, Sir Edwin Landseer. She also took an invitation from her half-sister Emilia Sergison to visit India and after spending a year there she wrote In the Himalayas and on the Indian Plains (1884).[1] This was followed by, twelve years of enchanting travel which followed would never have been dreamt of, for link by link that pleasant chain wove itself, as she described it.[2]
Gordon-Cumming was a prolific travel writer and landscape painter who traveled the world, mostly in Asia and the Pacific. She painted over a thousand watercolors and worked with a motto to ‘never a day without at least one careful-coloured sketch’ starting her day at 5 am while in India. Places she visited include Australia, New Zealand, America, China, and Japan. She arrived in Hilo, Hawaii in October 1879, and was among the first artists to paint the active volcanoes.[3] Her Hawaii travelogue, Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii, was published in Edinburgh in 1883.[3] She had several dangerous moments but her travel ended in 1880 when the Montana that she was on ran into rocks at Holyhead. While most of the passengers took the lifeboat, she stayed on last along with the captain to save her paintings and was rescued many hours later. She returned to live at Crieff with her widowed sister Eleanor and continued to write books.[2]
Her best known books are At Home in Fiji and A Lady's Cruise on a French Man-of-War. The latter book resulted from an invitation to join a French ship put into service for the Bishop of Samoa so that he could visit remote parts of his far-flung diocese.
Miss Gordon-Cumming received much criticism from male writers of the era, perhaps because she did not fit in the traditional Victorian role of women, as she often traveled alone and unaided. Henry Adams said her books are a collection of anecdotes without much interest. In any case, her landscape drawings and watercolors seem to be universally admired.
Gordon-Cumming visited Yosemite Valley in April 1878, after visiting Tahiti. She intended to visit for 3 days, but ended up staying 3 months. She says "I for one have wandered far enough over the wide world to know a unique glory when I am blessed by the sight of one . . ." She published her letters back home as Granite Crags in 1884. While in Yosemite Miss Gordon-Cumming also drew watercolor sketches, which she displayed in Yosemite Valley—making it the first art exhibition in Yosemite.
In 1879, while visiting Peking, China, Miss Gordon-Cumming met William Hill Murray, a Scottish missionary to China. He had invented the Numeral Type system, through which blind and illiterate Chinese learned to read and write, by assigning numbers to each of the 408 Chinese Mandarin sounds. Gordon-Cumming wrote a book (1899) about the system and supported the school for the rest of her life. She died in Scotland on 4 September 1924, and is buried near Crieff.
The Honolulu Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of California and the Yosemite Museum are among the public collections holding works by Constance Gordon-Cumming.[4]
Selected works[edit]
'Temporary Chimneys and Fire Fountains', watercolor by Constance Gordon-Cumming, c. 1880