The River of Doubt by Candice Millard Read Free Book Online Page A

explorers in the country: Few scientists would pass up an opportunity to work for the American Museum of Natural History. As fate would have it, however, the man Chapman had picked for the job—a nearly forty-eight-year-old ornithologist and veteran explorer named George Cherrie—was also the only man who was likely to turn it down.
    George Cherrie had spent the past quarter-century, more than half his life, collecting birds in South America. Although he had the lean, carved muscles of a jaguar and skin that looked as if it had been soaked in tannin and left to dry in the sun, Cherrie also had the refined features of a venerated statesman. His hair was closely clipped and graying, and he had a handsome face, a modest mustache, and a calm, dignified expression that unfailingly inspired trust and respect. If you were about to go into the Amazonian jungle, George Cherriewas the man you wanted by your side. Chapman had known Cherrie for more than thirty years and had recently accompanied him on an “exceptionally trying” collecting trip in Colombia. “He speaks Spanish like a native, is accustomed to roughing it, and is, besides, a capital traveling companion,” Chapman told Father Zahm.
    Cherrie received Chapman’s letter on a scorching-hot day in July, while he was “lounging in comfortable fashion” in the speckled shade of an apple tree on his Vermont farm—Rocky Dell. Tearing open the envelope postmarked “New York” with his leathery hands, he found an invitation to join Roosevelt’s expedition—a journey that would begin in the fall and, he knew, last well into the spring. “Having just returned from my twenty-fifth trip to that country,” he later observed dryly, “my enthusiasm did not break bounds.” Besides his reluctance to leave his family and his farm, which had been obliged to struggle on without him far too long and too often, Cherrie had little interest in tagging along with an official entourage or spending time, as he put it, “camping with royalty.”
    Despite such misgivings, Cherrie agreed to make the trip to New York in ten days to learn more about the expedition. Once he was at the museum, Chapman was able to remind him of the excitement of their recent adventures and the possibility of collecting specimens that were new to science. Chapman also offered the naturalist a salary of $150 per month, guaranteeing that he would be making nearly three times the average American worker’s wage, and far more than he could have expected to receive from his own farm. By the end of the visit, Cherrie had agreed to repack the luggage he had so recently put down and to leave behind his family and farm for yet another long trip through the South American wilderness.
    As extra insurance, Chapman also recruited another museum scientist, Leo Miller, who at twenty-six was already highly regarded by his colleagues, to accompany Roosevelt. Miller, who was already in South America collecting both birds and mammals for the museum, would be the designated mammalogist on the Roosevelt expedition, leaving the birds to Cherrie. This division of labor, Chapman reportedto Osborn, would have the effect of “practically doubling the efficiency of the collecting force.”
    With the addition of Cherrie and Miller to the expeditionary team, Osborn relaxed, secure in the knowledge that Roosevelt would come home safely. Although the museum president would later insist that his friend had “prepared with the utmost intelligence and thoroughness for what he knew would be a hazardous trip,” the truth was that at this point Roosevelt viewed the expedition as neither hazardous nor deserving of much time or thought. Osborn, however, had two reasons to feel confident. He had hired tough, experienced naturalists to accompany Roosevelt. Even more important, the expedition’s intended route, although strenuous, was relatively well known and not particularly dangerous.
    There was no cause for concern—so long as Roosevelt’s