Death on the River of Doubt by Samantha Seiple

Author:Samantha Seiple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

Rondon was a great leader who commanded the respect of the expedition members.

While Kermit went back upstream, Rondon and Lyra decided to continue scouting the area downstream. They wanted to take a look at the second waterfall.

It wasn’t long before Rondon and Lyra saw João walking toward them. When Rondon questioned him, João told a different version of events. João said that after Kermit looked over the rapids, he ordered them to go down them—even though João and Simplicio told him that they were impassable. In spite of their warning, Kermit repeated the order, and the two men felt obligated to obey.

What really happened, no one will ever know. João’s version may have been true. Or he may have been afraid of the consequences for disobeying Rondon’s order. At that moment, what they did know was that Simplicio was missing and so was the canoe with ten days’ worth of food and tools.

No one searched harder for Simplicio than Kermit. He spent hours walking up and down the river, hoping to find him. But Simplicio’s body was never found. The men speculated that when he went over the waterfall, his body must have been pulled underwater and beaten against the boulders, drowning him.

The canoe was also gone. It must have been smashed to pieces against the boulders and swept away, with no trace left of it.

Though the men knew that danger and death were real possibilities on the expedition, the pain from the loss of Simplicio was felt by everyone. A feeling of despair was also edging its way into the group.

“Misfortune still pursues us and this morning we lost another canoe and one of the boys was drowned. Today’s misfortune is a tragedy!” Cherrie wrote in his diary.

The following morning, after everyone listened to Rondon’s Order of the Day, a post and a marker were placed at their campsite. The sign read: “In these rapids died poor Simplicio.”

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