The darkest jungle the true story of the Darién expedition and America's ill-fated race to connect the seas
The darkest jungle: the true story of the Darién expedition and America's ill-fated race to connect the seas

"The Darkest Jungle tells the story of America's first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darien, a place that loomed large in the minds of the world's most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rival warships and explor...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Balf, Todd (VerfasserIn)
Format: Buch
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: New York Crown Publishers 2003
Ausgabe:1st ed.
Schlagworte:
Strain, Isaac G. <1821-1857>
Cyane (Sloop of war)
Darien Ship Canal Expedition > (1853-1855)
Geschichte 1800-1900
Geschichte 1853-1854
Expedities
Geschichte
Expedition
Darien (Panama and Colombia) > History > 19th century
Panama Canal (Panama) > History > 19th century
Provinz Darién
Online-Zugang:Table of contents
Zusammenfassung:"The Darkest Jungle tells the story of America's first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darien, a place that loomed large in the minds of the world's most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rival warships and explorers from England and France days behind, the 27-member U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition landed on the Atlantic shore at Caledonia Bay in eastern Panama to begin their mad dash up the coast-hugging mountains of the Darien wilderness. The whole world watched as this party attempted to be the first to traverse the 40-mile isthmus, the narrowest spot between the Atlantic and Pacific in all the Americas. Later, government investigators would say they were doomed before they started. Amid the speculative fever for an Atlantic and Pacific ship canal, the terrain to be crossed had been grossly misrepresented and fictitiously mapped
By January 27, 1854, the Americans had served out their last provisions and were severely footsore but believed the river they had arrived at was an artery to the Pacific, their destination. Leading them was the charismatic commander Isaac Strain, an adventuring 33-year-old U.S. Navy lieutenant. The party could have turned back except, said Strain, they were to a man "revolted at the idea" of failing at a task they seemed destined to accomplish. Like the first men to try to scale Everest or reach the North Pole, they felt the eyes of their countrymen upon them." "Yet Strain's party would wander lost in the jungle for another sixty nightmarish days, following a tortuously contorted and uncharted tropical river. Their guns rusted in the damp heat, expected settlements never materialized, and the lush terrain provided little to no sustenance
As the unending march dragged on, the party was beset by flesh-embedding parasites and a range of infectious tropical diseases they had no antidote for (or understanding of). In the desperate final days, in the throes of starvation, the survivors flirted with cannibalism and the sickest men had to be left behind, so, as the journal keeper painfully recorded, the rest might have a chance to live." "The U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition's 97-day ordeal of starvation, exhaustion, and madness - a tragedy turned "triumph of the soul" due to the courage and self-sacrifice of their leader and the seamen who devotedly followed him - is one of the great untold tales of human survival and exploration
Beschreibung:Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-320) and index
Beschreibung:xiv, 331 p. ill., maps : 25 cm
ISBN:0609609890

Es ist kein Print-Exemplar vorhanden.

Fernleihe Bestellen Achtung: Nicht im THWS-Bestand!

Ähnliche Einträge