^S^Ss^^S^SisiiiisseSSS cor:nell university LIBRARY FROM A FUND RECEIVED BY BEQUEST OF WILLARD FISKE 1831-1904 FIRST LIBRARIAN OF THIS UNIVERSITY : I868-1883 Cornell University Library F 2515.R78 1914b Through the Brazilian wilderness / 3 1924 019 988 553 Cornell University Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924019988553 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS BY THEODORE J.OOSEVELT AUTHOR OF "AFRICAN GAME TRAILS," "LIFE HISTORIES OF AFRICAN GAME animals" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY KERMIT ROOSEVELT AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. A'^biS'^s AU rights reaervedt including that of translation into foi'eign languages, including the Scandinavian TO H. E. LAURO MtJLLER, SECRETARY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS FOR BRAZIL, AND TO HIS GOVERNMENTAL COLLEAGUES, AND TO COLONEL RONDON, GALLANT OFFICER, HIGH-MINDED GENTLEMAN, AND INTREPID EXPLORER, AND TO HIS ASSISTANTS, CAPTAIN AMILCAR, LIEUTENANT LYRA, LIEUTENANT MELLO, LIEUTENANT LAURIAD(5, AND DOCTOR CAJAZEIRA, OF THE BRAZILIAN ARMY, AND EUSEBIO OLIVEIRA, OUR COMPANIONS IN SCIENTIFIC WORK AND IN THE EXPLORATION OF THE WILDERNESS, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, WITH ESTEEM, REGARD, AND AFFECTION, BY THEIR FRIEND, THEODORE ROOSEVELT CONTENTS CHAFfEB PAOE I. THE STAKT ... 1 II. UP THE PAKAGUAY • - 37 III. A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 60 IV. THE HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 92 V. UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS - 127 VI. THROUGH THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS OF WESTERN BRAZIL 161 VII. WITH A MULE-TRAIN ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 195 VIII. THE RIVER OF DOUBT - 233 IX. DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER INTO THE EQUATORIAL FOREST 271 X. TO THE AMAZON AND HOME ; ZOOLOGICAL AND GEO- GRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION - 309 APPENDICES : A. THE WORK OF THE FIELD ZOOLOGIST AND FIELD GEOGRAPHER IN SOUTH AMERICA - 331 B. THE OUTFIT FOR TRAVELLING IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN WILDERNESS - - 342 C. MY LETTER OF MAY 1 TO GENERAL LAURO MULLER 360 INDEX - . _ 365 IX ILLUSTRATIONS Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon at Navaite on the River of Doubt - - Frontispiece Photogravure from a photograph Try Clierrie. FACING PAGE Group—The mussurama swallowing the jararaca or fer-de- lance, after having just killed it. Method of the mus- surama's attack upon the jararaca - - 24 Man-eating fish, piranha - 40 Group—Indian boy with coati (coon-like animal) and para- keet. Tupi girl with young ostrich. Indian girl at cooking-pot - - - 46 Group—Indians rolling logs at wood station. Palms along the bank of the river - - - - 48 Cattle on the upper Paraguay River - - 66 Group—Nips with the marsh deer. Returning to the fazenda (ranch) with the marsh deer on the saddle - 74 Group—The brown boy on the long-horned trotting steer, which he managed by a string through its nostril and lip. Colonel Roosevelt and the first jaguar - - 76 Group—A South American puma. A South American jaguar ------- 80 Group—Nine -banded armadillo. Capybaras. Collared peccary ... 86 The entire party on the way back to the ranch - 90 xii ILLUSTRATIONS FAOIKG PAGE An Indian village - 98 We passed an Indian fishing village on the edge of the river, with huts, scaffoldings for drying the fish, hammocks, and rude tables. 104 Group—Wood ibis. South American jabiru. Sariema Group —A jabiru's nest. A troupisd nest - - - H* Snake-birds and cormorants - - 118 Mixed flocks of scores of cormorants and darters covered certain trees, both at sunset and after sunrise. Group—The great ant-eater. South American tapir - 130 Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon with bush deer 134 We hung the buck in a tree. The return from a day's hunt - 138 Tapir, white-lipped peccary, and bush deer. Kermit Roosevelt 144 Two pranchas being pulled by launch with our baggage and provisions - 154 The pranoha was towed at the end of a hawser and her crew poled. Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon looking over the vast landscape - - 168 The ground was sandy, covered with grass and with a sparse growth of stunted, twisted trees, never more than a few feet high. The Salto Bello Falls 182 There is a sheer drop of forty or fifty yards, and a breadth perhaps three times as great. Group—One woman was making a hammock. The mothers carried the child slung against their side or hip, seated in a cloth belt or sling, which went over the opposite shoulder of the mother - . I84, Group—The game of headball played by Parecis Indians at - - Utiarity Falls . jgg kick-off: The a player runs forward, throws himself flat on the ground, and butts the baU toward the opposite side. Often it will be sent to and fro a dozen times from head to head until finally it rises. The Falls of Utiarity . jgg I doubt whether, excepting of course Niagara, there is a waterfall in North America which outranks this, if both volume and beauty are considered. ILLUSTRATIONS xiii r/lCINO FAOE Group—A lonely grave by the wayside. The Parecis dance 190 The dance of the Parecis Indians ... - 194 A number carried pipes, through whieh they blew a kind of deep, stifled whistle in time to the dancing. Group—Tres Burity. The kitchen under the ox-hide at Campos Novos - - - 198 At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras, very friendly and sociable, and very glad to see Colonel Rondon Group—Nhambiquara child with a pet monkey. The men had holes pierced through the septum of the nose and through the upper lip, and wore a straw through each hole - - - 208 Group—Maloca or beehive hut of the Nhambiquaras. A Nhambiquara shelter hut and utensils - - 212 The ant-hills were not infrequently taller than a horseman's head - - - - 220 Group—A Nhambiquara family. Nhambiquara women and children. "Adam and Eve" 226 Group—Nhambiquara archer. First position. Second position 228 Group—I did my writing in headnet and gauntlets. Colonel Roosevelt's canoe disappears down the River of Doubt - 236 Colonel Roosevelt's and Colonel Rondon's canoes at the mouth of the Bandeira 238 In loid-afternoon we came to the mouth of a big and swift aflluent. ... It was undoubtedly the Bandeira. The rapids of Navaite - ... 242 There were many curls, and one or two regular falls. Cherrie holding a rifle to show the width of the rapids at Navaite - - - 244 At one point it was less than two yards across. Portaging around Navaite Rapids - - 246 We spent March 3 and 4, and the morning of the 5th, in portaging around the rapids. xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAOE Rapids of the Duvida - - - - - 252 Dragging the canoes over a portage by means of ropes and logs . - - - . - 256 Group—Manner of dragging the canoes across a hilly portage. Making the big canoe which was soon afterward lost 258 Group—^The Upper Duvida. Cherrie in his canoe - 268 Group—Red-and-yellow macaw. Egret. Curassow. Hya- cinthine macaw. Toco toucan. Trumpeter - 276 The river rushed through a wild gorge, a chasm or canyon, between two mountains - 288 Groups—Rapids at the chasm. We bathed and swam in the river, although in it we caught piranhas 298 Group—Castanho-tree (Brazil-nut). Pacova-tree - 304 Group—At the rubber-man's house. The canoe rigged with a cover, under which Colonel Roosevelt travelled when sick - ..... 310 The camaradas, gathered around the monument erected by Colonel Rondon - - 320 MAPS Map showing the entire South American journey of Colonel Roosevelt and members of the expedition - - 1 Map forwarded by Lieutenant Lyra, showing the route of the expedition, and the positions of the new river and of the Gy-Parana, and of the upper tributaries of the Juruena . , _ . _ Q^g THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS Map showing the entire South American journey of Colonel Roosevj;lt and members of the expedition THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS CHAPTER I THE START One day in 1908, when my presidential term was coming to a close. Father Zahm, a priest whom I knew, came in to call on me. Father Zahm and I had been cronies for some time, because we were both of us fond of Dante and of history and of science—I had always commended to theologians his book, " Evolution and Dogma." He was an Ohio boy, and his early schooling had been ob- tained in old-time American fashion in a little log school; where, by the way, one of the other boys was Januarius Aloysius MacGahan, afterward the famous war corre- spondent and friend of Skobeloif. Father Zahm told me that MacGahan, even at that time, added an utter fearlessness to chivalric tenderness for the weak, and «was the defender of any smaU boy who was oppressed by a larger one. Later Father Zahm was at Notre Dame University, in Indiana, with Maurice Egan, whom, when I was President, I appointed minister to Denmark. On the occasion in question Father Zahm had just returned from a trip across the Andes and down the Amazon, and came in to propose that after I left the 1 2 THE START [chap, i Presidency he and I should go up the Paraguay into the interior of South America. At the time I wished to go to Africa, and so the subject was dropped ; but from time to time afterward we talked it over. Five years later, in the spring of 1913, I accepted invitations, conveyed through the governments of Argentina and Brazil, to address certain learned bodies in these countries. Then it occurred to me that, instead of making the conventional tourist trip purely by sea round South America, after I had finished my lectures I would come north through the middle of the continent into the vaUey of the Amazon ; and I decided to write Father Zahm and tell him my intentions.