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The Darkest Jungle tells the harrowing story
of America's first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece
of land in Central America called the Darién, 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. Darién 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 Darién 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 oceans.
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 followed was
an artery to the Pacific. 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 in 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
60 nightmarish
days. 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. In the desperate final days, in the throes of starvation,
the survivors flirted with cannibalism and the sickest men had
to be left behind.
The U.S. Darién Exploring Expedition’s 97-day
ordeal of starvation, exhaustion, and madness is one of the great
untold tales of human survival and exploration. Based on the vividly
detailed log entries of Strain and his junior officers, other
period sources, and Balf's own treks in the Darién Gap,
this is a rich and utterly compelling historical narrative that
will thrill readers who enjoyed In the Heart of the Sea,
Isaac's Storm, and other sagas of adventure at the limits
of human endurance.
Images from Harper's New Monthly,
1855
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