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which he carefully inspected until he was sure that none of the man-eating fish were in it: yet as soon as he put his foot in the water one of them attacked him and bit off a toe. On another occasion while wading across a narrow stream one of his party was attacked; the fish bit him on the thighs and buttocks, and when he put down his hands tore them also; he was near the bank and by a rush reached it and swung himself out of the river by means of an overhanging limb of a tree; but he was terribly injured, and it took him six months before his wounds healed and he recovered. An extraordinary incident occurred on another trip. The party were without food and very hungry. On reaching a stream they dynamited it, and waded in to seize the stunned fish as they floated on the surface. One man, Lieutenant Pyrineus, having his hands full, tried to hold one fish by putting its head into his mouth; it was a piranha and seemingly stunned, but in a moment it recovered and bit a big section out of his tongue. Such a hemorrhage followed that his life was saved with the utmost difficulty.

Rondon’s fellow officers also talked of aqueous anacondas big enough to constrict a cow. While not entirely believable, these stories did not encourage a meaty norte-americano to wade through Brazilian waters without trepidation. But Kermit and Rondon splashed on unafraid, so Roosevelt followed suit.

Hours went by with no sign of tapir. The humid heat became insufferable. All at once the dogs scented a jaguar. Kermit was off after them with a young man’s energy, and soon disappeared. Roosevelt tried to keep up with Rondon, but at 220 pounds he was almost twice as heavy as his spry partner. He felt himself flagging when they had to swim across a bahia with their rifles held overhead. Afterward his sodden clothes and squelching boots dragged with a weight that would not lighten. By midday, he was reduced to a slow walk. He went on all afternoon, but had to face the fact that he was beginning to be old.

“PRIMITIVE FORCE SHEATHED IN CIVILIZED RESTRAINT.”

Colonel Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon. (photo credit i15.1)

FOR THE NEXT FOUR DAYS Roosevelt let Rondon command the Nioac’s final ascent of the Paraguay to São Luís de Cáceres. He relaxed on deck with Father Zahm, talking literature under the shade of a canvas awning.

The great river was now at its maximum flood, inundating the flat country so widely that they could have been crossing a motionless lake. Palm trees—the tallest he had ever seen—protruded incongruously. Some were rubied around the crown with orchids. Restless green parakeets added and subtracted emeralds. Lower down, apparently weightless Jesus Cristo birds walked on the water.

Now that he saw with one eye only, he relied heavily on his hearing to identify species of avifauna—as he had in boyhood, before he got his first spectacles. The dense air was full of bird calls that he found more interesting than beautiful. If this was tropical song—the curu-curu of screamer storks, querulous wails of wood ibises and plover, macaws squawking ar-rah-h ar-rah-h and flycatchers sneezing kis-ka-dee—it amounted to discord compared to the choral symphony he was used to every spring at home. Howling monkeys and the amazing whistle of the locomotive cicada added to the din. There was no diminuendo at night, just an abrupt switch to the shrilling of crickets.

He rejoiced all the same in the novelty of an America so unlike his own, it could have been attached to another continent. Brazil’s environment struck him as an illogical clash of extremes. The intensity of tropical coloration, whether in feathers or flowers, made no biological sense. Only a vulgarian could consider the toucan beautiful. Giant tamanduá anteaters lurched through papyrus groves on upside-down paws, as if crippled. The marsh fringes evaporated, in the fiery heat, at such a rate that stranded fish lay around dying. They shone silver at first, but later turned dull and began to stink. Then cloudbursts replenished the lagoons, and overfed vultures and caymans took their pick of