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Walls, Laura Dassow. The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2009. Crowding everyone aboard took some doing. Their new canoe, a hollowed tree trunk, was only forty feet long and three feet wide, and so unstable that whenever anyone wanted to move, the rowers had to lean to the opposite side. Really it was a "new prison," on which they would be trapped for two months. A bit of latticework created a shed on the stern where four people could lie down under a close roof of leaves, but it didn't extend far enough to cover one's legs, so the sleepers got half-drenched during storms. In front were the Indian rowers, seated two by two, and their pilot, singing sad and monotonous songs as they labored. Trunks and scientific instruments were stowed below the shed, the safest place, but to reach anything at all required beaching the canoe and unpacking everything. All about the canoe were hung cages for various small birds and animals, joined by free-roaming monkeys, parrots, and a toucan – a menagerie which grew steadily. Eventually at least one passenger thought it all too much: Humboldt recorded that "Father Zea whispered some complaints at the daily augmentation of this ambulatory collection." One can understand why: whenever it threatened to rain, "the little monkeys … went in search of Father Zea, to take shelter in the large sleeves of his Franciscan habit." Tucked in amongst the rest were Carlos del Pino, José de la Cruz, and Zerepe the Indian translator, at least twelve men in all, plus one large mastiff dog who went for romps on shore and every night in camp howled at the jaguars. The little ark would take Humboldt through the wildest country he ever experienced.… (pp. 68-9) |