摘要
This paper compares 18th and 19th century travelogues written by women and men travelling the cultural contact zones of the empire, as well as fictional recreations of such first encounters. A juxtaposition of the writers＇ reaction to the dynamics of gazing and the ethics of touch yields surprising results. Many women travellers have no problem to acknowledge the reciprocity of the gaze, accepting, as a matter of course, that the objects of their ethnological interest will gaze at them in return. In comparison, male travellers often exhibit unease at becoming an object of appraisal and observation. Even more interestingly, male travellers often shy away from haptic contact with members of the indigenous population, whereas many （though not all） women are more tolerant of touch and proximity. Regarded as ＂unwomanly＂ by their contemporaries, they carved out for themselves roles which allowed for a more intimate interaction with foreign ethnicities; also, they wrote in different genres--private memoirs instead of official reports. But even in their （semi） fictional writings male authors seem to imagine inter-cultural encounters in different terms from women and tend not let their protagonists enter into close bodily contact with the indigenous population.
