Read Online The River of Doubt by Candice Millard - Free Book Online
Authors: Candice Millard
Ads: Link
for her husband. For Roosevelt, this journey was an opportunity to escape the doomed Progressive Party, his own humiliating defeat, and the self-doubt that had haunted him for the past year. For his wife, it was just another long, lonely separation—as painful as it was familiar. Edith had spent half her life waiting for Theodore to come home—from the battlefield,the campaign trail, hunting trips, and grand adventures. After the election, she had been hurt when he had decided to set sail once again, but she had not been surprised. “Father needs more scope,” she had written to Ethel, “and since he can’t be President must go away from home to have it.”
Edith was also worried about Roosevelt’s safety. He was no longer a young man, and he had driven his body too hard for too long. Worse, he had become secretive. She complained that Theodore had maintained a “sphinx-like silence” about his expedition into the Amazon. If he thought that his reticence might spare her worry, he was wrong. “I can but hope that the wild part of his trip is being more systematically arranged than is apparent,” she had written Kermit just a few weeks before they sailed.
* * *
O N BOARD the
Vandyck
, while Roosevelt fielded reporters’ questions and attempted to calm the South American ambassadors’ fears, Father Zahm and Fiala desperately tried to tie up loose ends. It was only with much frantic telephoning and telegraphing that they got the last of the equipment and provisions on board and safely stored in the ship’s hold. Roosevelt was getting nervous, because it was nearly 1:00 p.m., the time the
Vandyck
was scheduled to set sail, and no one had seen George Cherrie, the naturalist whom Frank Chapman had hand-picked for the expedition.
To add to the chaos, Father Zahm had decided at the eleventh hour to hire another man, a Swiss handyman named Jacob Sigg. Although Zahm had first met Sigg only a short time earlier, he envisioned the handyman as a perfect jack-of-all-trades—and, perhaps more important, as a capable personal assistant for the priest himself. These qualities, real or imagined, persuaded Zahm to overlook what even he himself acknowledged to be the handyman’s “checkered career.” In offering his services, Sigg had told Zahm, who had no real ability to check out his story, that he had been the chief engineer of an electrical power plant, had operated steam engines, served as a courier inEurope, mined for gold in the Andes, helped build a railroad in Bolivia, and, incredibly, been the interpreter for an Indian princess. He could also drive a motorboat and an automobile (still a relatively rare skill at that time), speak Spanish and Portuguese, and shoot a gun. “And with all these qualifications,” Zahm wrote enthusiastically, “he was brave and trustworthy, devoted and ready for any emergency, from extracting an ulcerated tooth and amputating a crushed finger to making an anchor for a disabled launch.”
Roosevelt’s team was becoming larger and more eclectic with each passing hour, but he knew that it would be seriously, and dangerously, incomplete without George Cherrie. At 1:00 p.m., the final gong sounded, warning anyone who was not a passenger to head quickly to shore or find himself steaming toward Barbados. Just as Roosevelt was beginning to think that his ornithologist was not going to make it, Cherrie raced up the pier and bounded on board. Although he had had his colleagues’ hearts in their throats, Cherrie was casually but completely prepared for his twenty-sixth expedition to South America when the
Vandyck
slipped its moorings and plowed through the muddy East River en route to the sea.
* * *
T HE MOMENT Manhattan melted into the horizon, Roosevelt was reborn. “I think he feels like Christian in
Pilgrims Progress
when the bundle fell from his back,” Edith wrote her sister-in-law Bamie from her stateroom. “In this case it was not made of sins but of the Progressive
Edith was also worried about Roosevelt’s safety. He was no longer a young man, and he had driven his body too hard for too long. Worse, he had become secretive. She complained that Theodore had maintained a “sphinx-like silence” about his expedition into the Amazon. If he thought that his reticence might spare her worry, he was wrong. “I can but hope that the wild part of his trip is being more systematically arranged than is apparent,” she had written Kermit just a few weeks before they sailed.
* * *
O N BOARD the
Vandyck
, while Roosevelt fielded reporters’ questions and attempted to calm the South American ambassadors’ fears, Father Zahm and Fiala desperately tried to tie up loose ends. It was only with much frantic telephoning and telegraphing that they got the last of the equipment and provisions on board and safely stored in the ship’s hold. Roosevelt was getting nervous, because it was nearly 1:00 p.m., the time the
Vandyck
was scheduled to set sail, and no one had seen George Cherrie, the naturalist whom Frank Chapman had hand-picked for the expedition.
To add to the chaos, Father Zahm had decided at the eleventh hour to hire another man, a Swiss handyman named Jacob Sigg. Although Zahm had first met Sigg only a short time earlier, he envisioned the handyman as a perfect jack-of-all-trades—and, perhaps more important, as a capable personal assistant for the priest himself. These qualities, real or imagined, persuaded Zahm to overlook what even he himself acknowledged to be the handyman’s “checkered career.” In offering his services, Sigg had told Zahm, who had no real ability to check out his story, that he had been the chief engineer of an electrical power plant, had operated steam engines, served as a courier inEurope, mined for gold in the Andes, helped build a railroad in Bolivia, and, incredibly, been the interpreter for an Indian princess. He could also drive a motorboat and an automobile (still a relatively rare skill at that time), speak Spanish and Portuguese, and shoot a gun. “And with all these qualifications,” Zahm wrote enthusiastically, “he was brave and trustworthy, devoted and ready for any emergency, from extracting an ulcerated tooth and amputating a crushed finger to making an anchor for a disabled launch.”
Roosevelt’s team was becoming larger and more eclectic with each passing hour, but he knew that it would be seriously, and dangerously, incomplete without George Cherrie. At 1:00 p.m., the final gong sounded, warning anyone who was not a passenger to head quickly to shore or find himself steaming toward Barbados. Just as Roosevelt was beginning to think that his ornithologist was not going to make it, Cherrie raced up the pier and bounded on board. Although he had had his colleagues’ hearts in their throats, Cherrie was casually but completely prepared for his twenty-sixth expedition to South America when the
Vandyck
slipped its moorings and plowed through the muddy East River en route to the sea.
* * *
T HE MOMENT Manhattan melted into the horizon, Roosevelt was reborn. “I think he feels like Christian in
Pilgrims Progress
when the bundle fell from his back,” Edith wrote her sister-in-law Bamie from her stateroom. “In this case it was not made of sins but of the Progressive
Similar Books
