The after effects of the fever still hung on; and the leg which had been hurt while working in the rapids with the sunken canoe had taken a turn for the bad and developed an abscess.  The good doctor, to whose unwearied care and kindness I owe much, had cut it open and inserted a drainage tube; an added charm being given the operation, and the subsequent dressings, by the enthusiasm with which the piums and boroshudas took part therein.  I could hardly hobble, and was pretty well laid up.  “But there aren’t no ‘stop conductor,’ while a battery’s changing ground.”  No man has any business to go on such a trip as ours unless he will refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his associates by any delay caused by a weakness or ailment of his.  It is his duty to go forward, if necessary on all fours, until he drops.  Fortunately, I was put to no such test.  I remained in good shape until we had passed the last of the rapids of the chasms.  When my serious trouble came we had only canoe-riding ahead of us.  It is not ideal for a sick man to spend the hottest hours of the day stretched on the boxes in the bottom of a small open dugout, under the well-nigh intolerable heat of the torrid sun of the mid-tropics, varied by blinding, drenching downpours of rain, but I could not be sufficiently grateful for the chance.  Kermit and Cherrie took care of me as if they had been trained nurses; and Colonel Rondon and Lyra were no less thoughtful. [Footnote:  “Through the Brazilian Wilderness,” p. 319.]

It is known that his illness was more serious, and his conduct much more unselfish than he told in his book.  When he could not be moved, he asked the others to go forward for their own safety and leave him.  They refused, naturally, and he secretly resolved to shoot himself if his condition did not soon improve, rather than be a drag on the party.  In his report to the Brazilian Government, which had made the expedition possible by its aid, Mr. Roosevelt was able to say: 

“We have put on the map a river about 1500 kilometers in length running from just south of the 13th degree to north of the 5th degree and the biggest affluent of the Madeira.  Until now its upper course has been utterly unknown to every one, and its lower course, although known for years to the rubber men, utterly unknown to cartographers.”

The Brazilian Government renamed the river in his honor, first the Rio Roosevelt, later the Rio Teodoro.  Branches of it were named in honor of other members of the party, the Rio Kermit and the Rio Cherrie,—­the latter for the American naturalist, Mr. George K. Cherrie.

CHAPTER XV

THE MAN

What did Theodore Roosevelt do during his life that raised him above other men?  What were his achievements?  Why are memorials and monuments raised in his honor, books written about him?  Why do people visit his grave, and care to preserve the house where he was born?