The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1914-05-22
ROOSEVELT HAD
TERRIBLE Time
Colonel Back from the Amazon
Punched and Lean.
CLAIMS HE DISCOVERED RIVER

Promises Planning for Lanrer-coI
oneI's Plight on Amazon Became So
Desperate He Urged Others to Go on
and Leave Him-Suffered from In
juries and Malaria.
New York, May 20.-The steamship
Aidan, decorated from stern to stern
| and bringing Theodore Roosevelt from
Brazil, reached quarantine at $40 p.
m. Tuesday.
The colonel boarded the tug on
which members of his family waited
unassisted. He looked bit pinched
| and lean, but said that he was nearly
| well. He said he has had slight re-
cur-ence of malaria and that he had
lost fifty-ive pounds, but had gained
considerable on the trip up.
Worth Several Dead Men.
81 am still worth several dead men,"
| said the colonel, his bronzed cheeks
| showing many traces Of the strain of
the hardships and the dangers he has
endured. But the fact was learned
that the colonel and the members OF
his party were near death from starva
ton and that the colonel himself was
| so i'll at one time that it was feared
that he never would reach civilization
alive.
Delirious with fever, almost covered
with fever sores, and the wound in
his right leg so terribly festered that
it was necessary to lance it to the
bone, the colonel felt himself a draw.
back to his party after most of the
provisions had been lost and some Of
the provisions had been lost and some
| OF the canoes sunk in the rapids OF
the River of Doubt. Then, as he could
not make a hundred feet day, he
urged his comrades, including his son,
Kermit, two naturalists and the Brazil
ians who accompanied him, to go
ahead and leave him to take care OF
| himself.
CoIoneI's Terrible Experience.
The desperate experiences Of the
party occurred between April and
10 First the colonel was stricken
with the jungle fever after the party
had met with several mishaps. He
fought his way down the river, how
ever, and when another canoe was
overturned and was in danger of be-
ing swept away, the colonel jumped in.
to the river himself. He saved the
canoe, but he gashed his leg severely.
The insects poisoned it and the fever
aggravated the wound still more.
He and the members Of his party,
With their food supplies almost gone,
made their way, however, but when
the colonel reached Manaos on the
Amazon, he still was so weak that he
could not walk. He had lost sixty
pounds and he was exceedingly de-
pressed in spirits as the result Of the
stress of body and mind through which
he had been. The country through
which he had been, scientists agree, is
te most dangerous in the world from a
viewpoint of disease.
While Colonel Roosevelt and his
companions, Leo E. Miller and George
X. Cherrie, declined to go into vivid
details of their experiences, it was
plain that they had not shaken off the
strain of the jungle and that they
shook themselves with Joy at being
back home, alive and we'll once more.
Claims He Discovered River.
The colonel was exuberant. He met
questions about the "River of Doubt"
With snap of the jaws and as for A.
Henry Savage Lander, who denied the
existence of the river, the colonel an
nounced he had contribution to
make to Mr.. Lander's biography"
That is said to be letter which Col.
onel Rondon, Mr.. Roosevelt's guide in
the jungles, has written.
There was no discussion Of politics
down the bay except for the colonel
to deny emphatically that he had given
out any interview at Barbados in
which he said that if he ran for presl.
dent in 1916, it would be on a Pro-
eressive platform which the Republi-
cans must accept. He announced with
equal emphasis that he will not run
for governor this fall