Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [204]
Rondon did not try to make him understand that it now bore the name of the emaciated senhor in the big canoe. The fisherman did learn, however, that Roosevelt had once been President of the United States. It took a while for this information to register.
“But is he truly a president?”
Rondon explained that Roosevelt was now retired.
“Ah, but he who has been a king, is still majestic.”
When Roosevelt heard this in translation, he thanked the fisherman, and said that no ordinary person in his own country would be capable of such eloquence.
Later in the day, the expedition reached another rubber-tapping outpost, where Rondon learned that some rough stretches of river swirled downstream. Dr. Cajazeira was afraid they might fatally delay the hospital treatment his patient needed. So far, Roosevelt had declined camp surgery, but it had become imperative to lance and drain the abscess on his thigh. No anesthetic was available. On the morning of 16 April, he submitted without complaint to the agonizing operation, in which pium and boroshuda flies greedily participated. His condition at once improved, although he continued to shed weight until his clothes drooped around him.
It took another ten days, and several more portages, before an affluent that looked even broader than the Dúvida opened out on the right bank, and a neat tent hove into view, flying the combined colors of the United States and Brazil.
Rondon knew at once who had pitched it, and what the affluent was. Early in the year he had ordered one of his junior officers in Amazonas, Lieutenant Antonio Pirineus de Sousa, to sail up the navigable river known as the baixo, or “lower” Aripuaná to the point that it received a river of mysterious origin, flowing north. Rondon had not been able to guarantee that the unknown river was the Dúvida, nor had he been able to predict when—if ever—he and Roosevelt might come down it. But assuming his guess was correct, he wanted Pirineus to be ready with a range of emergency supplies.
The lieutenant had been waiting for more than a month. He was consequently as relieved as Rondon was when their respective rifle salutes cracked across the water. After the joy of a champagne-sluiced reunion, Pirineus added further cheer by reporting that the Lauriodó-Fiala and Amílcar-Miller expeditions had been successful. Fiala had left for New York. Miller was in Manáos, indefatigably collecting local specimens.
It was agreed in a hydrological conference that the so-called Dúvida, Castanho, and baixo Aripuaná were all the same river. Broad as the inflowing alto Aripuaná might be, its volume was less than that of the main stream—which could now be formally “baptized” as the Rio Roosevelt.
ROOSEVELT HAD TO brace himself to stand through the long ceremony, which took place the following day, Monday, 27 April 1914. He could not sit, because of the unlanced abscess in his buttock. But at least he could look forward to immediate transportation out of the worst hell he had ever been in. There was a steamboat terminal not far away, at the little rubber town of São João, with daily departures to Manáos. Rondon had sent ahead to reserve tickets on the next service for the three norte-americanos. The rest of the expedition would follow after Lyra had surveyed the Aripuaná confluence for the information of Brazilian cartographers.
Helmet in hand, looking thin and spent, Roosevelt listened patiently as Rondon read an extensive summary of what they had achieved together. The subsequent ritual was anticlimactic, being a repetition of the one already conducted more than a month before. The dedicatee seemed less moved by it than by having to say goodbye to Rondon and Lyra.
“ROOSEVELT HAD TO BRACE HIMSELF TO STAND THROUGH THE LONG CEREMONY.”
From right of the flag-draped marker: two camaradas, the two colonels, Lt. Lyra, Cherrie, Kermit, unidentified Brazilian officer. (photo