Scrapping the Map in Brazil.
We are glad to be able to supplement with some further interesting
details the meagre accounts of Mr. Roosevelt's explorations in Brazil
which have appeared in the daily papers.
Not only did Mr. Roosevelt add to the map a new river nearly a thousand
miles long, but he has discovered a gigantic mountain, hitherto undreamt
of even by Dr. Cook, to which he has attached the picturesque name of
Mount Skyscraper. The lower slopes were thickly infested with cannibals,
whom Mr. Roosevelt converted from anthropophagy by a sermon lasting six
hours and containing 300,000 words--almost exactly as many as are
contained in Mr. de Morgan's new novel.
The middle regions are densely covered with an impenetrable forest
inhabited by rhomboidal armadillos and gigantic crabs, to which Mr.
Roosevelt has given the name of Kermit crabs, to commemorate the escape
of his son, who was carried off by one of these monsters and rescued by
a troglodyte guide after a desperate struggle. On emerging from the
forest the travellers were faced by perpendicular granite crags, which
they ascended on the backs of some friendly condors.... The summit
proved to be an extensive plateau, the site of a prehistoric city, built
of pedunculated wood-pulp. Lying among the ruins was a gigantic mastodon
in excellent preservation, which Mr. Roosevelt brought down on his
shoulders.
It was after the descent from Mount Skyscraper, which was accomplished
in parachutes, that Mr. Roosevelt struck the new river, the upper parts
of which were utterly unknown except to some wild rubber-necked Indians.
In consequence of its character and size Mr. Roosevelt originally
thought of calling it the Taft, but finally decided on the Rio
Encyclopædia in virtue of its volume.
The journey was made in canoes and was full of incident. Descending the
great Golliwog Falls Mr. Roosevelt's canoe was smashed to atoms, but the
ex-President escaped with only slight injury to his eyeglasses, after a
desperate conflict with a pliocene crocodile. The Encyclopædia River, as
described by Mr. Roosevelt, resembles the Volga, the Hoang-ho and the
Mississippi; but it is richer in snags and of a deeper and more luscious
purple than any of them. Near its junction with the Mandragora it runs
uphill for several miles, with the result that the canoes were
constantly capsizing. The waters of Mandragora are of a curiously
soporific character, while those of the River Madeira have a toxic
quality which renders them dangerous when drunk in large quantities.
Mr. Roosevelt, it may be added, is shortly expected in London, when he
will lecture before the Royal Geographical Society, Master Anthony
Asquith having kindly consented to preside.
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