The River of Doubt (51 page)

Early in the overland journey
George Cherrie,
Diary
, Jan. 18, 1914, AMNH.

“death to being dislodged”
H. M. Tomlinson,
The Sea and the Jungle
(Evanston, Ill., 1999).

“mournfully, dismally”
KR to Edith Roosevelt, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

Their mules slipped
Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 6, 1914, AMNH.

“Everything became mouldy”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“It is hard”
TR to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., May 17, 1909, in
Letters
, vol. 7.

After they made camp
Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 4, 1914, AMNH.

Miller dismissed Fiala
Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

“I have not written”
Cherrie,
Diary
, Nov. 25, 1914, AMNH.

Roosevelt made an effort
Anthony Fiala, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Meeting, March 1, 1919, TRC.

“Fiala left us”
Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 4, 1914, AMNH.

“The oxen have”
Kermit Roosevelt, Diary, Feb. 6, 1914, KBRP.

Since Tapirapoan
KR,
Diary
, Feb. 6, 1914, KBRP; Theodore Roosevelt,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(New York, 1914).

“enormously heavy”
TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in
Letters
, vol. 8.

Two oxcarts
George Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 6, 1914, AMNH.

The naturalists were even
Leo E. Miller,
In the Wilds of South America
(New York, 1918).

“the sheer necessities”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

He counted as necessities
KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 10, 1914, KBRP.

“Through all the”
KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

The poems were
TR to Thomas Herbert Warren, June 7, 1916, in
Letters
, vol. 8.

Before they began
TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in
Letters
, vol. 8.

Pausing on a hilltop
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
, p.

114. Farther north
Ibid.

When they reached
Ibid.

From a telegram
Anthony Fiala, Appendix B, in ibid.

Not long after
Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon,
Lectures Delivered on the
5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915
(Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

“I just saved myself”
Quoted in “Personal Glimpses,”
Literary Digest
, May 16, 1914, TRC.

It was true that
Rondon,
Lectures
.

Fiala blamed
Webb Waldron, “Making Exploring Safe for Explorers,”
Saturday Evening Post
, Jan. 30, 1932.

“how buoyantly”
Ibid.

“in a still wilder region”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

Rondon had made
Donald F. O’Reilly, “Rondon: Biography of a Brazilian Army Commander,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1969.

Ordering his men
Ibid.; Kalvero Oberg, “Indian Tribes of Northern Mato Grosso, Brazil,”
Institute of Social Anthropology
, Pub. 15, 1953.

For weeks, the Nhambiquara
Miller,
In the Wilds
.

“Someone may recall”
Claude Lévi-Strauss,
Tristes Tropiques
(New York, 1992).

“A Protestant mission”
Ibid. “Nambikwara”: Over the decades since Rondon first made contact with the Nhambiquara, the tribe’s name has been spelled several different ways. This book will use Rondon’s spelling throughout, except when quoting a source that uses an alternate.

In Utiarity
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

He even hired
Ibid.

They were still largely
Julian H. Steward, ed.,
Handbook of South American Indians
, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C, 1948).

Some of the Pareci
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

Shortly before
Ibid.

“I feel for them”
O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

Outraged by
Todd A. Diacon, “Are the Good Guys Always Bad?” Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Alabama, 1998.

In 1910
The SPI still exists today, but under a different name. In the late 1960s, after several of its directors were charged with exploiting the very Indians whom they had been hired to protect, the agency was reorganized and renamed. It is now known as the Fundaçao Nacional do Índio, or FUNAI.

In fact, so infamous
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“Sir! I have”
Esther de Viveiros,
Rondon: Conta Sua Vida
(Rio de Janeiro, 1958).

“Let us weep”
Quoted in Lucien Bodard,
Green Hell
(New York, 1971).

“I don’t go so far”
Michael McGerr,
A Fierce Discontent
(New York, 2003).

“There were still”
Theodore Roosevelt,
An Autobiography
(New York, 1913).

“friends proclaim their presence”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“When preparing for”
Oberg, “Indian Tribes”.

Conversely, to show
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

Once in the camp
Ibid.

“a very pleasant set”
KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

“They had the unpleasant habit”
Miller,
In the Wilds
.

“They laughed at”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“light-hearted robbers”
Ibid.

Not far from the
Miller,
In the Wilds
.

At the very outset
TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915,
Letters
, vol. 8.

Rondon had instructed Pyrineus
Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon,
Lectures
Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915
(Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

“river whose importance”
Ibid.

The Madeira, which starts
Michael Goulding, Ronaldo Barthem, and Efrem Ferreira,
The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon
(Washington, D.C., 2003).

On the spot
Rondon,
Lectures
.

Unknown to Roosevelt
Todd A. Diacon,
Stringing Together a Nation
(Durham, N.C., 2004).

“recently built”
Rondon,
Lectures
.

“One was small”
Theodore Roosevelt,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(New York, 1914).

At up to twenty-five hundred
Anthony Fiala, Appendix B, ibid.

He had been fighting
Diacon,
Stringing Together a Nation
.

137
”Most of his equipment”
Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

“We discovered here”
Ibid.

“For meat”
Fiala, Appendix B, in TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

They finally decided
George Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 26, 1914, AMNH.

“If our canoe voyage”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“We had looked forward”
Leo E. Miller,
In the Wilds of South America
(New York, 1918).

In a gesture
Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

“Roosevelt asked me”
George Cherrie to Stella Cherrie, Feb. 26, 1914, AMNH.

“For several minutes”
Miller,
In the Wilds
.

From his position
Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon,
Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th, of October, 1915
(Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

“As we drifted”
Theodore Roosevelt,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(New York, 1914).

“fragrant scents”
Ibid.

“Very little animal life”
George Cherrie,
Diary
, Feb. 27, 1914, AMNH.

While Roosevelt and Cherrie
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

Pulling the dugout
Rondon,
Lectures
.

“the muscles stood out”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“strapping set”
Ibid.

“like pirates”
Ibid.

Roosevelt’s own boatmen
Ibid.

Alexander von Humboldt
John Noble Wilford,
The Mapmakers
(New York, 2000).

Kermit and his paddlers
George Cherrie,
Dark Trails
(New York, 1930).

“literally toward”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
; Rondon,
Lectures
.

“close supervision”
TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in
Letters
, vol. 8.

After only two hours
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

After making their way
Ibid.

Soaring more than
John Terbough,
Diversity and the Tropical Rain Forest
(New York, 1992).

Unable to sink
Edward S. Ayensu,
The Life and Mysteries of the Jungle
(New York, 1980).

The most obvious
Adrian Forsyth and Kenneth Miyata,
Tropical Nature
(New York, 1984).

While most plants
Ibid.

A principal risk
Ibid. This book offers a fascinating and more detailed discussion of the relationship of vines, epiphytes, and trees.

Another adaptation
Edgar Aubert De La Rüe,
The Tropics
(New York, 1957); Ayensu,
Life and Mysteries
.

Some have developed
Forsyth and Miyata,
Tropical Nature
; Francis E. Putz,
The Biology of Vines
(Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

Its shading action
Ayensu,
Life and Mysteries
.

If Roosevelt had been
John Kricher,
A Neotropical Companion
(Princeton, 1997).

Every morning
George Cherrie,
Dark Trails
(New York, 1930).

“The ragged bugler”
Theodore Roosevelt,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(New York, 1914).

The colonel still woke
Donald F. O’Reilly, “Rondon: Biography of a Brazilian Army Commander,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1969.

He was, Rondon wrote
“Col. Roosevelt as His Guide Remembers Him,”
New York Times
, Jan. 6, 1929.

Although they had risen
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

Hour after hour passed
Cherrie,
Dark Trails
.

He drank in
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“There would be”
Kermit Roosevelt,
The Long Trail
(New York, 1921).

“Our clothes”
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

That afternoon
Kermit Roosevelt, Diary, Feb. 28, 1914, KBRP; TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“Often, even in”
Henry Walter Bates,
The Naturalist on the River Amazons
(London, 1864).

This blindness left them
TR,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
.

“Frequently at night”
Cherrie,
Dark Trails
.

“Let there be”
Ibid.

The river had been
George Cherrie,
Dark Trails
(New York, 1930).

Floating in the shallow
New York Times
, Jan. 6, 1929.

During telegraph line expeditions
Todd A. Diacon,
Stringing Together a Nation
(Durham, N.C., 2004).

One morning during
Theodore Roosevelt,
Through the Brazilian Wilderness
(New York, 1914).

While crossing a river
John Hemming,
Die If You Must
(London, 2003).

“the fish that eats men”
Ibid.

“ferocious little monsters”
Ibid.

“The [piranha’s] rabid”
Ibid.

“Suddenly I heard”
Cherrie,
Dark Trails
.

“As I fell”
Ibid.

This sharp-spined fish
Stephen Spotte,
Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes
(Berkeley, Calif., 2002).