Word: rondon
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Theodore Roosevelt was moving out of the White House, a Brazilian army engineer named Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, running a telegraph line through the untracked fastnesses of central Brazil, glimpsed the headwaters of an unmapped river that flowed he knew not whither. He called it Rio da Dúvida-"River of Doubt...
...amused if they heard of him traveling down a "River of Doubt." There were hints in the air, which Roosevelt was not supposed to hear, that, if he agreed to go, the river would be named for him. For second-in-command he was promised the services of Colonel Rondon, a seasoned jungle traveler. Colonel Roosevelt agreed...
After crossing the land of the Nham-biquaras, whose complete nudity failed to offend the hard-bitten colonel, Roosevelt, Rondon, the others and a troop of native porters and boatmen found the headwaters of the Rio da Dúvida and started down it in rough dugout canoes. The river, winding northward through precipitous canyons toward the Equator, almost beat them. There were grueling portages around roaring rapids. Fever and bloodsucking insects sapped their strength. Once, when a whirlpool caught a canoe, a porter was drowned and Kermit nearly perished. They eked out their provisions by eating monkeys, Brazil nuts...