Science: Rio Teodoro

Rio Téodoro

In 1909, as Theodore Roosevelt was moving out of the White House, a Brazilian army engineer named Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, running a telegraph line through the untracked fastnesses of central Brazil, glimpsed the headwaters of an unmapped river that flowed he knew not whither. He called it Rio da Dúvida—"River of Doubt."

In 1913 Theodore Roosevelt, his thirst for adventure unslaked by a shooting trip in Africa and another unsuccessful crack at the U. S. Presidency, was invited to address a number of learned bodies in Argentina and Brazil. He decided to organize an expedition in the cause of mammalogy and ornithology, journey up the waters of the Paraguay River, cross over to one of the tributaries of the Amazon. Accordingly he dropped in for lunch at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History, arranged to take with him Ornithologist George Cherrie, Mammalogist Leo Miller and Arctic Explorer Anthony Fiala. In Brazil he was joined by his son Kermit.

In Buenos Aires a government official approached Colonel Roosevelt, requested him to change his plans, explore and map the "River of Doubt." Amused, T. R. observed that his countrymen would also be amused if they heard of him traveling down a "River of Doubt." There were hints in the air, which Roosevelt was not supposed to hear, that, if he agreed to go, the river would be named for him. For second-in-command he was promised the services of Colonel Rondon, a seasoned jungle traveler. Colonel Roosevelt agreed.

After crossing the land of the Nham-biquaras, whose complete nudity failed to offend the hard-bitten colonel, Roosevelt, Rondon, the others and a troop of native porters and boatmen found the headwaters of the Rio da Dúvida and started down it in rough dugout canoes. The river, winding northward through precipitous canyons toward the Equator, almost beat them. There were grueling portages around roaring rapids. Fever and bloodsucking insects sapped their strength. Once, when a whirlpool caught a canoe, a porter was drowned and Kermit nearly perished. They eked out their provisions by eating monkeys, Brazil nuts, honey, birds, turtles, fish, palm tops. Leader Roosevelt slept in a cot, which toward the end sagged badly; the others slept in hammocks. One day, to Roosevelt's surprise. Rondon revived flagging spirits by erecting a sign naming the river "Rio Roosevelt" by authority of the Brazilian Government. The party cheered bravely and went on. When they finally sighted the first outpost huts of rubber-gatherers, the dauntless Rough Rider was prostrate in the bottom of a covered canoe with a bad abscess of the knee. He found that his river flowed into the Madeira, which in turn flowed into the Amazon.

Meanwhile, the "River of Doubt" had become a great popular joke in the U. S. First a noisy controversy arose as to whether such a river actually existed. The newspapers jumped into the fray. Cartoons appeared featuring a burly figure with buck teeth and thick-lensed glasses, and a nebulous torrent. Editorials were written on both sides of the quarrel. The "River of Doubt" became a household phrase and the country had a grand time.