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A year after Roosevelt lost a third-party bid for the White House in 1912, he decided to chase away his blues by accepting an invitation for a South American trip that quickly evolved into an ill-prepared journey down an unexplored tributary of the Amazon known as the River of Doubt. The small group, including T.R.'s son Kermit, was hampered by the failure to pack enough supplies and the absence of canoes sturdy enough for the river's rapids. ~Copyright © Reed Business Information
“Martin Luther Roosevelt” Roosevelt reacts to the offer of a third term, regarded here in 1907 as a deal with the devil. ~Time Photo Essay
November - 1913
21 "...we crossed the Andes into Chile by rail."
December - 1913
09 "...we left the attractive and picturesque city of Asuncion to ascend the Paraguay."
10 Arrives in Concepcion and fishes for piranha. "The only redeeming feature about them is that they are themselves fairly good to eat, although with too many bones."
12 Meets Colonel Rondon on the boundary of Brazil and listens to numerous piranha stories.
27 Bags ant-eater.
January - 1914
14 Jaguar hunting in Brazil after "a good New Year's Day breakfast of hardtack, ham, sardines, and coffee."
February - 1914
04 "We started into the 'sertao', as Brazilians call the wilderness...Skeletons of mules and oxen were more frequent ; and once or twice by the wayside we passed the graves of officers or men who had died on the road...
05 "We camped at the headwaters of a little brook called Huatsui, which is Parecis for 'monkey.'"
21 Kermit comes across a band of Nhambiquaras and brings them back to camp.
27 "shortly after midday, we started down the River of Doubt into the unknown."
March - 1914
01 "Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile tail. It was very good eating."
11 Party loses two canoes in the Broken Canoe Rapids.
14 After three days work, the replacement canoes have been hewn from the Brazialian jungle and the journey down the River of Doubt continues.15 "In these Rapids died poor Simplicio."
18 Colonel Rondon " formally christened it [Duvida] the Rio Roosevelt.”
April - 1914
03 "Under such conditions whatever is evil in men's natures comes to the front." A porter, Julio, kills another porter and runs into the jungle.
04 Injures leg while preventing destruction of yet another canoe.
06 Julio is sighted along the river. Request to be brought into captivity are rebuffed and the murderer is left in the jungle.
15 "We had come over three hundred kilometers in forty-eight days, over absolutely unknown ground; we had seen no human being, although we had twice heard Indians."
26 "We had been two months in the canoes … [and] had put on the map a river
May - 1914
07 "…We bade good-by to our kind Brazilian friends and sailed northward for Barbados and New York.”
About the Author
Millard does an excellent job of making us feel the uncanny silence of the rain forest, with its odd lack of visible animal life and the way its greatest dangers - human and other - are ever at hand but almost always unseen.
To read this book is to gain nothing but respect for Roosevelt himself and also for his son, both of whom acquitted themselves as true heroes, as did almost all their fellow voyagers.
Overall, this is a stranger-than-fiction tale that - be forewarned - many readers will feel compelled to devour in a single sitting. ~Marjorie Kehe, Monitor's book editor.
