Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [187]
At first sight on 16 January, Tapírapoan looked like a stock fairground, jostling with beef cattle, milch cows, oxen, and mules. Barefooted cowboys in fringed leather aprons were attempting to tame some of the pack animals, who gave no sign of having ever carried anything. The noise of bleats and brays and snapping lassos, intermixed with curses in several languages, was discordant. Flags of all the American republics flapped around the plaza. Dozens of wagons were standing by ready to load. But they remained empty while various factions of the expedition squabbled over stowage space.
It did not look as if there could be any general departure for days. Fiala and Sigg pitched in to help. Harper seized on the astonishing quantity of specimens already bagged by Cherrie and Miller—totaling about a thousand birds and 250 mammals—to volunteer to take them to New York for delivery to the American Museum. He left two days later in the launch, laden with skulls, skins, and alcohol jars. This lightened at least some of the baggage Fiala was responsible for. But a vast amount of extra equipment still crammed Tapírapoan’s storerooms. The Brazilians insisted every item was necessary. They had even shipped a giant land turtle, either as potential soup or as a spare, if unreliable, bench.
Roosevelt had begun to notice a Latin need for “splendor” among Rondon and his officers, and seating seemed to be an important part of it. He was embarrassed by the gift of a silver-mounted saddle and bridle that would have looked pretentious on his best horse at Sagamore Hill, but was especially so on a mule. Courtesy required that it be accepted with appropriate obrigados. But when he saw that the enormously heavy tents Lauro Müller had provided were going to displace vital provisions, he insisted half of them be left behind. He still thought the expedition was burdened with a ridiculous amount of canvas.
Rondon and Lyra, in turn, looked askance at the American food store. Both of them were small, wiry men, trained to march for months on minimal sustenance. They saw the value of a hundred tins of emergency rations that Fiala had brought from New York. Such luxuries, however, as pancake mix, malted milk, chocolate bars, two varieties of marmalade, and a spice chest full of paprika, cinnamon, chutney, and other exotic seasonings did not seem necessary for survival in the wilderness. Rondon felt it would be undiplomatic to protest, and asked his colleagues to pack and eat less, so the norte-americanos could “enjoy the abundance to which they were accustomed.”
This was too much for the Brazilian field detail, four of whom threatened to resign. They believed themselves to be better qualified to explore and report on their own country than a gang of foreigners. Rondon was sympathetic, but had to remember the constraints placed on him by Minister Müller. He reasoned that Roosevelt was an amateur naturalist only by default. Cherrie had been on twenty-five South American expeditions, and young Miller was a born collector, alive even to the near-inaudible squeaking of bats in a rotten log. The unhappy scientists were dismissed.
On 19 January, Captain Amílcar led the bulk of hoofed and rolling stock out of Tapírapoan. His biggest wagon, hauled by six oxen, carried the two Canadian power canoes and a sloshing supply of kerosene. Sixty-four other bois cargueiros and about a hundred pack mules followed, many of them resentful of their burdens. A much smaller rear guard consisting of Roosevelt, Rondon, and the other exhibition principals left town two days later. They were accompanied by their servants, five hunting dogs, and enough carts and mules to keep them supplied all the way to José Bonifácio. Together, the two detachments comprised 159 men, moving 360 sacks and cases.
The plan was to reunite the expedition at, or near, the headwaters of the Dúvida, then immediately divide it again. Only a select few members were to