The River of Doubt
THE RIVER OF DOUBT: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
By Candice Millard
Doubleday ISBN 0-385-50796-8 $26.00
Just try and imagine it: George W. Bush Jr. loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, he sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship – into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle. There would be media circus the like of which the world has never seen. Every TV-crew worth its salt would follow in his wake tripping over chemical toilets, generators and satellite phones. In these times of media gurus and spin-doctoring, we’d assume the expedition was all being laid on as a stunt, as a way of stealing the limelight from the rival’s success.
But oh how times have changed. Rewind almost a century, to November 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most popular Presidents in American history, is crushed at the polls by Woodrow Wilson after two terms in office (it was before the two-term rule). Roosevelt, is 54 years of age, five feet five, weighs more than 200 pounds and sounds ‘as if he had just taken a sip of helium’. He’s shunned by his high society Republican friends for running as a third-party candidate, and is generally lampooned by everyone else. What does he do? He sets off into the Brazilian jungle to venture up an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as ‘The River of Doubt’.
For the indefatigable Theo Roosevelt, the adventure was not a media stunt, nor was it as circuitous start to a long comeback campaign. It was a form of self-imposed therapy. Roosevelt had been a pallid sickly child. He had overcome asthma and early illness by throwing himself headlong into a physical challenge. Whenever hit by a wall of despair, he seized himself and embarked on what he termed as ‘the strenuous life’. The more insurmountable the obstacle, the more energy and raw determination he conjured to beat it.
There was never question of Roosevelt’s stamina. While campaigning for the third-term election, he had been shot in the chest by a Bavarian immigrant. Although wounded (one bullet was five inches inside him), he insisted on going ahead and delivering the address. He held the text of his speech high so the terrified audience could glimpse the holes in it, and shouted ‘It takes more than that to kill a bull moose!’
As far as he was concerned, resounding political whipping called for a fabulous feat physical endurance as therapy. While languishing in the solitude of defeat, Roosevelt was invited to Latin America to deliver a series of political speeches. It was a mildly uninteresting proposition – for he claimed to detest public speaking; but the thought of jungle adventure was a potent incentive. The fact his third son, Kermit, was living in Brazil at the time made the idea of South America all the more enticing.
The expedition was to be led jointly by Roosevelt and by Brazil’s most celebrated explorer – Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Kermit was invited to participate, too, and he readily accepted despite his recent engagement. Another leading member was the naturalist George Cherrie, who had spent thirty years exploring the Amazon.
A journey of 400 miles took them across the Brazilian Highlands to the Amazon basin. Three years earlier, while exploring the region, Rondon had discovered a twisting foaming waterway. With no clue where it went – if it went anywhere at all – he christened it Rio da Duvida – ‘The River of Doubt’.
From the outset it must have seemed an inappropriate name (‘The River of Execution’ would have been more fitting). The tributary was a surging passage of rapids, boiling white water, the banks of which were lined with wild Indian tribes, armed with poison-tipped arrows. As one who has enduring months of adversity in the Amazon searching for a lost city, I can vouch that jungle hardship strips a man down to the bare bones. The enemy is all around: anacondas, piranhas, caimans, sweat bees, disease, hunger, fever and – worst of all – the uncertainly of knowing of when, how, and if, it will come to an end.
For Roosevelt the bout of jungle therapy must have worked a treat: his usual world of American politics seemed distant and trivial. An unending succession of calamities (resulting from ill-planning and sheer bad luck), was enough to distract the most disciplined mind. The most notable setbacks were terrible illness, and the loss of canoes and supplies to the perfidious rapids. By the end of it, the party was so worn down that even the slowest progress was too great a challenge. The team members were emaciated, crippled by illness and fatigue, and trapped by rapids. George Cherrie, the naturalist and Amazonian expert, took a good look at the sweat-soaked figure before him. He confided in his diary that there was little hope Theodore Roosevelt would survive the night. The spectre of death hung low over a man who faded in and out of delirium, reciting over and over the couplet from Coleridge’s Kubla Khan – ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree… In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree’.
THE RIVER OF DOUBT, Candice Millard’s debut book, charts the story of the former President’s fateful expedition down one of the most hazardous of all Amazonian tributaries. It is a book that reminds one of Roosevelt himself – thorough, robust, extremely knowledgeable, and triumphant. There are far too many books in which a travel writer follows in the footsteps of his or her hero – and there are far too few books like this, in which an author has spent time and energy ferreting out the story from archival sources, and weaving a truly gripping tale. To do any better one would have to lure Mr Bush down to the jungle, along with his spin-doctors, speech writers and stylists, and chart the ensuing chaos of it all.
(Written for the Washington Post)
(C) Tahir Shah, 2006
Ends
By Candice Millard
Doubleday ISBN 0-385-50796-8 $26.00
Just try and imagine it: George W. Bush Jr. loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, he sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship – into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle. There would be media circus the like of which the world has never seen. Every TV-crew worth its salt would follow in his wake tripping over chemical toilets, generators and satellite phones. In these times of media gurus and spin-doctoring, we’d assume the expedition was all being laid on as a stunt, as a way of stealing the limelight from the rival’s success.
But oh how times have changed. Rewind almost a century, to November 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most popular Presidents in American history, is crushed at the polls by Woodrow Wilson after two terms in office (it was before the two-term rule). Roosevelt, is 54 years of age, five feet five, weighs more than 200 pounds and sounds ‘as if he had just taken a sip of helium’. He’s shunned by his high society Republican friends for running as a third-party candidate, and is generally lampooned by everyone else. What does he do? He sets off into the Brazilian jungle to venture up an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as ‘The River of Doubt’.
For the indefatigable Theo Roosevelt, the adventure was not a media stunt, nor was it as circuitous start to a long comeback campaign. It was a form of self-imposed therapy. Roosevelt had been a pallid sickly child. He had overcome asthma and early illness by throwing himself headlong into a physical challenge. Whenever hit by a wall of despair, he seized himself and embarked on what he termed as ‘the strenuous life’. The more insurmountable the obstacle, the more energy and raw determination he conjured to beat it.
There was never question of Roosevelt’s stamina. While campaigning for the third-term election, he had been shot in the chest by a Bavarian immigrant. Although wounded (one bullet was five inches inside him), he insisted on going ahead and delivering the address. He held the text of his speech high so the terrified audience could glimpse the holes in it, and shouted ‘It takes more than that to kill a bull moose!’
As far as he was concerned, resounding political whipping called for a fabulous feat physical endurance as therapy. While languishing in the solitude of defeat, Roosevelt was invited to Latin America to deliver a series of political speeches. It was a mildly uninteresting proposition – for he claimed to detest public speaking; but the thought of jungle adventure was a potent incentive. The fact his third son, Kermit, was living in Brazil at the time made the idea of South America all the more enticing.
The expedition was to be led jointly by Roosevelt and by Brazil’s most celebrated explorer – Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Kermit was invited to participate, too, and he readily accepted despite his recent engagement. Another leading member was the naturalist George Cherrie, who had spent thirty years exploring the Amazon.
A journey of 400 miles took them across the Brazilian Highlands to the Amazon basin. Three years earlier, while exploring the region, Rondon had discovered a twisting foaming waterway. With no clue where it went – if it went anywhere at all – he christened it Rio da Duvida – ‘The River of Doubt’.
From the outset it must have seemed an inappropriate name (‘The River of Execution’ would have been more fitting). The tributary was a surging passage of rapids, boiling white water, the banks of which were lined with wild Indian tribes, armed with poison-tipped arrows. As one who has enduring months of adversity in the Amazon searching for a lost city, I can vouch that jungle hardship strips a man down to the bare bones. The enemy is all around: anacondas, piranhas, caimans, sweat bees, disease, hunger, fever and – worst of all – the uncertainly of knowing of when, how, and if, it will come to an end.
For Roosevelt the bout of jungle therapy must have worked a treat: his usual world of American politics seemed distant and trivial. An unending succession of calamities (resulting from ill-planning and sheer bad luck), was enough to distract the most disciplined mind. The most notable setbacks were terrible illness, and the loss of canoes and supplies to the perfidious rapids. By the end of it, the party was so worn down that even the slowest progress was too great a challenge. The team members were emaciated, crippled by illness and fatigue, and trapped by rapids. George Cherrie, the naturalist and Amazonian expert, took a good look at the sweat-soaked figure before him. He confided in his diary that there was little hope Theodore Roosevelt would survive the night. The spectre of death hung low over a man who faded in and out of delirium, reciting over and over the couplet from Coleridge’s Kubla Khan – ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree… In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree’.
THE RIVER OF DOUBT, Candice Millard’s debut book, charts the story of the former President’s fateful expedition down one of the most hazardous of all Amazonian tributaries. It is a book that reminds one of Roosevelt himself – thorough, robust, extremely knowledgeable, and triumphant. There are far too many books in which a travel writer follows in the footsteps of his or her hero – and there are far too few books like this, in which an author has spent time and energy ferreting out the story from archival sources, and weaving a truly gripping tale. To do any better one would have to lure Mr Bush down to the jungle, along with his spin-doctors, speech writers and stylists, and chart the ensuing chaos of it all.
(Written for the Washington Post)
(C) Tahir Shah, 2006
Ends
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