Death on the River of Doubt

by Samantha Seiple

  Camarada Antonio Pareci also came running into camp with good news. There was a troupe of barrigudo monkeys nearby. Kermit, Lyra, and Cherrie grabbed their guns. The monkeys were moving with surprising speed through the tree branches. Even so, Kermit shot one and Cherrie killed two.

  “They will give us a taste of fresh meat that we all crave,” Cherrie wrote in his diary. “Our prospects look brighter this evening. The mountains, that have so long hemmed us in, seem to be falling away from the river. The river seems to be broadening.”

  Despite the flicker of hope that lifted their spirits, they were still worried that not everyone was going to make it out alive, especially Roosevelt. It was evident that he was reaching his limits.

  Earlier in the day, the doctor and Rondon both agreed that their current camp was too muddy and uncomfortable for Roosevelt. So Rondon decided to move a half mile downriver. The doctor arranged for the camaradas to carry Roosevelt on his cot.

  But Roosevelt flat-out refused. He wasn’t going to be a burden. He would walk—if necessary on all fours—until he dropped.

  “If I am to go, it’s all right,” Roosevelt had told the doctor. “You see that the others don’t stop for me. I’ve the shortest span of life ahead of any in the party. If anyone is to die here, I must be the one. The others must look out for themselves. You are all strong and can make it.”

  With the support of Kermit, Cherrie, Rondon, and Dr. Cajazeira, Roosevelt slowly made the trek down and around the rapids to their next camp.

  “From time to time, when he became very tired, he would rest either on his bed or chair,” Dr. Cajazeira stated. “And so he bravely made the journey.”

  * * *

  The following morning, on April 6, the four canoes were back on the river. With the loss of two canoes, some of the men were walking alongside the river on the right bank. Roosevelt was still too sick to walk and was again traveling in the largest canoe. Rondon and Lyra were traveling ahead of him and the others, continuing to map the River of Doubt. But their concentration was interrupted when someone shouted, “Tenente!”

  Rondon and Lyra looked up from their work and scanned the area. They weren’t sure who was shouting “Lieutenant” until they saw someone clinging to a tree branch that hung over the left bank of the river.

  It was Julio. He begged them for mercy and pleaded with them to let him climb on board the canoe.

  Rondon was stunned to see him. He thought Julio would have walked upriver, along its edge, to head back to where they had started the trip at the telegraph station. Instead, Julio had been following them.

  “It isn’t possible to stop the canoe now, and to interrupt the survey,” Rondon said. “Besides, it is best to wait for Mr. Roosevelt.”

  Without another word, Rondon’s canoe passed him by. Desperate, Julio scanned the river, waiting anxiously. When Roosevelt’s canoe was in sight, he shouted frantically for Roosevelt, telling him he wanted to surrender and climb on board the canoe.

  Roosevelt didn’t reply. He thought Julio was “craven at heart, a strange mixture of ferocity and cowardice.” And the decision of what to do was clear-cut in Roosevelt’s mind.

  “I had no intention of taking a murderer aboard, to the jeopardy of the other members of the party,” Roosevelt wrote. “Unless Colonel Rondon told me that it would have to be done in pursuance of his duty.”

  Without saying a word or giving a backward glance, Roosevelt gave Julio his answer. His canoe passed him by.

  Julio watched as the expedition that he was once so eager to join headed down the River of Doubt without him, knowing he was left for dead.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Hunt

  April 7, 1914

  Day 40

  The following morning, Rondon told Roosevelt that he wanted to send a search party back for Julio. This wasn’t the first time Rondon had suggested it. He’d also mentioned it the day before after they had set up their campsite.

  Roosevelt didn’t like the idea then, and he still didn’t like it this morning. A bitter argument between Roosevelt and Rondon ensued.

  It would take all day to look for Julio, Roosevelt argued. They didn’t have time to spare.

  Rondon reasoned that with so many of the men sick, the time spent hunting for Julio would give them a chance to rest. But Roosevelt suspected that Rondon really wanted some time to survey a large tributary that flowed into the River of Doubt, which they had discovered the day before and had named Rio Capitão Cardoso in honor of Rondon’s friend and colleague who had died while working in the Brazilian wilderness. Roosevelt remembered how Rondon had secretly delayed finishing the canoes in order to fill in the details of their map earlier in the journey.

  Kermit didn’t believe Rondon’s intentions were pure, either.

  “Rondon deliberately vacillated about Julio with 100 lies. He wants to wait and take the latitude but F[ather] won’t let him … Rondon and Lyra begged to stop to send back for Julio whom 3 days ago they were in a blind rage to kill,” Kermit wrote in his diary.

  Cherrie echoed this feeling in his own diary:

  “What was our astonishment to hear Col. Rondon announce that he intended remaining [sic] in this camp for the day!” Cherrie wrote. “And he intended to send a couple of men to look for the murderer Julio! To capture and carry him along with us to where he could deliver him to the military authorities! This resolution on Col. Rondon’s part is almost inexplicable in the face of facts regarding our position.”

  The burden of feeding and guarding a prisoner was not something the expedition could afford to do.

  “We do not know what difficulties are ahead of us or how long a time must pass before we reach a point where assistance can be obtained,” Cherrie wrote. “From our point of view this delay and the trying to carry a prisoner places in jeopardy the lives of every member of our party. And the carrying of a prisoner passenger with us is a very serious undertaking.”

  Although Roosevelt strongly disagreed with the plan, he told Rondon it was his decision to make.

  “Colonel Rondon was the superior officer of both the murderer and of all the other enlisted men and army officers on the expedition,” Roosevelt wrote. “And in return was responsible for his actions to his own governmental superiors and to the laws of Brazil; and that in view of this responsibility he must act as his sense of duty bade him.”

  So Rondon sent two camaradas, Antonio Pareci and Luiz Correia, to look for Julio. In the meantime, he and Lyra surveyed the newly discovered river.

  “To take the greatest advantage possible of the stoppage which had been imposed upon us,” Rondon said, “Lieutenant Lyra and I occupied ourselves with the measurement of the rivers and the necessary astronomical observations for the calculation of the geographical coordinates of our position.”

  Though Roosevelt had conceded to Rondon’s wish to stay, he pushed Rondon to send someone to scout the area ahead of them. At first Rondon resisted, figuring that they were out of the hills, so the chance of encountering impassable rapids was unlikely. But Roosevelt insisted, as they heard an ominous roar in the distance.

  Reluctantly, Rondon ordered Antonio Correia to check out the area. The remaining camaradas who weren’t sick were tasked with chopping down some trees to make spare paddles—also at Roosevelt’s insistence.

  Hours later, Antonio returned with bad news. There were more rapids and waterfalls down the river.

  “It may well be that we are ‘up against it’ again and good and hard!” Cherrie wrote.

  Despite this disappointing and worrisome news, Antonio also brought back something good—a pirarara, a type of catfish. It was three and a half feet long, which was enough to feed everyone. He handed it over to Franca to prepare.

  When Franca cut the fish open and began cleaning it, he found the partially digested head and arm of a monkey!

  “We Americans were astounded at the idea of a catfish making prey of a monkey,” Roosevelt wrote.

  Roosevelt supposed that the monkey
must have been dangling from a tree branch, trying to take a drink of water from the river, when the catfish swam up and ate him.

  The taste of fresh fish helped lift everyone’s spirits. That evening, despite the persistent pain in his leg, Roosevelt enjoyed watching the sunset and the stars twinkling in the dark sky while waiting for Antonio Pareci and Luiz Correia to return.

  When they finally arrived, Julio wasn’t with them. They had spent hours shouting his name, firing their guns into the air, and even starting a fire, with the hope that the smoke would help Julio find his way back to them. But he was nowhere to be found.

  It was possible that in a desperate attempt to survive, Julio had sought help from the Cinta Larga. If that was the case, he was as good as dead.

  In the end, Julio’s fate remained a mystery.

  CHAPTER 21

  Signs of Life

  April 13, 1914

  Day 46

  The men didn’t know how much more they could take. The rapids were unrelenting. They had been fighting them for the past six weeks, and the last six days had been no different. Barely ten minutes would go by before they were faced with another series of rapids, which meant another punishing portage.

  “We were … on our way … but without much hope of getting far ahead. With what dread we watched each turn in the river to see what it held in store,” Cherrie wrote.

  On April 13, they nearly crashed another canoe when two paddles splintered against the rocks while battling the rapids. With no spare oars, they were forced to stop, chop down a tree, and make new ones. The process took three hours.

  Meanwhile, Roosevelt was barely hanging on. At each portage, Kermit and Cherrie held him up as he walked. The bacterial infection in his leg was now so severe, he could barely hobble. A shiny, bright red rash, called St. Anthony’s fire, covered his swollen leg, and pus-filled abscesses protruded beneath the skin. Just a mere touch to his leg caused unbearable pain.

  The infection also left Roosevelt so weak that he couldn’t sit up, forcing him once again to lie down on top of the boxes in the canoe in an uncomfortable position. Sometimes it rained so hard, he was drenched. Other times, the sun beat down, roasting him.

  Roosevelt knew it was only a matter of time before the infection got the best of him. But he never complained, not even when Dr. Cajazeira cut open his leg, without painkillers, and drained the abscesses.

  “With it all he was invariably cheerful,” Kermit wrote. “And in the blackest times ever ready with a joke … Father’s courage was an inspiration never to be forgotten by any of us.”

  Despite how sick he was, Roosevelt always made a point of asking about the others on the expedition.

  “Whenever one of the canoemen was ill the Colonel [Roosevelt] was the first to inquire about the man,” said Cherrie.

  Just about everyone on the expedition—with the exception of Rondon—had been sick. Even though Dr. Cajazeira administered daily doses of quinine to everyone, half of the camaradas were battling malaria. Kermit was still feeling ragged from it, but he was better compared to four days ago, when he could barely stand up.

  Cherrie and Lyra had recovered from dysentery, but then Cherrie developed a cough and sore throat. It was difficult for all the men—even Rondon—not to feel depressed.

  “This long series of rapids … has knocked a little of the cocksuredness out of Rondon … He has been discouraged and gloomy,” Cherrie wrote in his diary.

  But there was one glimmer of hope. When camarada Luiz Correia had taken a canoe out to fish, he had noticed an area where the vines had obviously been cut with an ax. Since the Cinta Larga didn’t use metal tools, it could only mean one thing—they were near civilization! Still, that was three days ago, and they hadn’t seen any signs since.

  Now the only signs they had been seeing were more rapids. Until late in the afternoon, when it suddenly became quiet.

  “At last!” Cherrie wrote. “After for more [sic] than a month’s fighting rapids we are at a camp where their roar is not heard.”

  The following day, on April 14, they traveled twenty miles—much farther than their usual three miles.

  Dinner that night was fairly good for a change, too. They ate fish, monkey, and a jacare-tinga bird, which is similar to a turkey. The camaradas also found a large pile of nuts that they gorged on.

  Before the day was over, there was one more surprise near the campsite: Kermit found a walking stick. The men speculated it must have belonged to one of the rubber gatherers who had been out exploring the area. They dared to hope that things were looking up.

  But the next morning, on April 15, they were “a rather sorry crew.” The nuts the camaradas had eaten were bad, and most of them were suffering from food poisoning—with vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness.

  Despite Kermit’s painfully sore arms from the quinine injections, he took over paddling one of the canoes because most of the camaradas were too sick to work. His father was still deathly ill, lying down in the larger canoe that followed him.

  For the next three hours, there wasn’t a rapid in sight. Then, suddenly, Rondon began to wave excitedly. He was pointing and gesturing to the other canoes to paddle their boats to the shore. Rondon jumped out of his canoe and ran over to a wooden sign nailed to a post. The letters J.A. were burned onto it. They were the initials of a rubber gatherer, and it marked his territory.

  Excitement swept through the men.

  “It was the first definite mark that a civilized man had been on the river,” Cherrie noted.

  With renewed vigor, the men got back in their canoes. Less than an hour later, a house came into view. Cheers erupted.

  The expedition paddled their canoes ashore. The men reached the house and realized it belonged to Joaquim Antonio—the man whose initials Rondon had found carved on a signpost.

  Inside they found a large supply of food. As hungry as the men were, they didn’t take anything. Instead, Rondon left a note and listed all of their names, letting the owner know they’d been there. Rondon was now confident that there would be other homes along the river where they would have a chance to buy food.

  They returned to their canoes and headed down the river. Just a half hour later, Rondon spotted a man in a canoe. The man took one look at the motley crew and frantically paddled his canoe toward the shore, desperately trying to get away. He was convinced they were Indians and knew that no one who came down the river from that direction was friendly.

  Rondon jumped up in his canoe and yanked his hat off his head. He waved it wildly in the air and shouted friendly assurances to the man.

  Luckily, it worked. The man turned his canoe around and came right up to them. Rondon introduced himself, and the man told Rondon that his name was Raymundo José Marques.

  Rondon informed him about their trip down the River of Doubt, and when he introduced the man to Roosevelt, Marques was astonished.

  “But is he really a president?” he asked Rondon.

  Rondon explained that Roosevelt was not the president of the United States now, but he had been.

  “Ah,” said Marques. “He who has once been a king has always the right of majesty.”

  Although Roosevelt was too weak to sit up in his canoe, he appreciated the man’s wit and courtesy.

  Rondon continued talking to Marques and learned that he lived alone and could not spare any food. But the man assured Rondon that they would indeed find more houses down the river. He also gave Rondon a bamboo horn and told Rondon to sound it and fire three gunshots in the air so the people would know that they weren’t Indians coming to raid their homes.

  Rondon thanked him, and the expedition headed back down the river.

  Although it would take two more weeks to complete their journey, from this point on, there would be houses along the river where the men could buy provisions with the money they’d brought with them on the expedition. They no longer had to fear starving to death.

  “We had passed the period when there was a chance of peril, o
f disaster, to the whole expedition … We now no longer had to face continual anxiety, the need of constant economy with food, the duty of labor with no end in sight, and bitter uncertainty as to the future,” Roosevelt wrote.

  The families who lived along the river were an enormous help, selling the expedition two new canoes and setting them up with a knowledgeable guide. The group no longer had to worry what was around the next bend. Their new guide knew exactly where the rapids were, where to unload the canoes, and where the carry-trails were.

  “Our adventures and our troubles were alike over … It was [now] all child’s play compared to what we had gone through,” Roosevelt wrote.

  The men were overjoyed. Cherrie and Kermit celebrated by drinking the last few drops of whiskey they’d saved for just such an occasion.

  On the evening of April 15, the rain finally stopped and the clouds parted. Looking up, Roosevelt and Cherrie saw the Big Dipper shining brightly in the clear, dark sky. Though the Big Dipper appeared “upside down” in this part of the world, it still felt like they were being greeted by an old friend from home—where they longed to be.

  Roosevelt could at last take some comfort in knowing that their journey down the River of Doubt hadn’t been for nothing. And he felt grateful to be a part of it.

  “It was astonishing … to realize no geographer had any idea of its existence … For the first time, this great river … was to be put on the map … rendered possible by seven weeks of hard and dangerous labor we had spent in going down an absolutely unknown river; through an absolutely unknown wilderness,” Roosevelt wrote.

  Mapping and exploring the River of Doubt had been a daring and deadly feat. The Roosevelt-Rondon Expedition had risked their lives to travel through a dangerous land—and in doing so, they forever changed the map of the world.

  As Cherrie happily noted in his diary later that night, “Our work as explorers of an unknown river is of course finished!”

  Roosevelt drew this map of the previously uncharted River of Doubt.