author
Almira Stillwell Cole
An adventurous late-19th-century traveler, she is remembered for a lively firsthand account of riding mule-back through Honduras in 1891. Her writing mixes humor, grit, and sharp observation, giving the journey an unusually personal voice.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Almira Stillwell Cole is known for Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule, a travel narrative about a journey she made on mule-back in Honduras, Central America, in August 1891. Project Gutenberg, the Online Books Page, and LibriVox all list this work under her name, and the 1893 book itself identifies her as the author.
The book was published in New York by The Knickerbocker Press in 1893, and its opening pages note that it was issued after her death for distribution among her relatives and friends. In the narrative, she presents herself as determined, witty, and unafraid of discomfort, turning a difficult trip into a vivid and often funny account of travel in late-19th-century Honduras.
Very little biographical information about her was easy to confirm from reliable public literary sources, so she remains a somewhat elusive figure. What does come through clearly is her voice: curious, resilient, and memorable enough that this single surviving book has kept her name in circulation.