Return of the Native - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 267

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Return of the Native
October 19, 1905, telegram to Baron Rio Branco:
I communicate to you our arrival in the city [Manaus], with the commission completed in all its essen-
tial points. I continued on to the valley of the Ucayali, crossing the varadouro of the Curiúja until we
completely depleted the supplies and the water, but with the most certain information about the small
area we did not cover. We mapped the river up to the headwaters twice, on the way up and on the re-
turn, rectifying many elements of the existing maps. We determined the principal coordinates. Except
for small discomforts, we all arrived well back in the city. 1
They had indeed made it back, though Euclides da Cunha was drastically sick and hal-
lucinating his “woman in white” through the fevers of malaria and malnutrition. He was
back at work after a few days, but as he wrote to Veríssimo, “I sense that those long days
of anguish, of misery and triumph, that I lived through at the headwaters of the Purús
have endangered my life. Misery and triumph—only face to face can I recount my ob-
scure and tragic battle with the wilderness—and anyway, one cannot discuss these things
when one's head aches from logarithms.” 2 His days were now taken up with detailing the
final maps and the reports that he and Buenaño had to develop, sending down the album
of more than one hundred photos (now unfortunately mostly lost) and lamenting the lack
of photos of the Brazilian hero of the Peruvian War, Antonio Ferreira de Araújo. 3 The
coordination of the elements of the maps was relatively harmonious, especially given the
delicacyofthecharge,theanimosities,andwhatwasatstake.“Thetopographicalsurveys
of the two commissions in various sections are of a surprising concordance,” 4 he wrote
to Rio Branco. In spite of the contretemps on the river, formality and courtesy returned as
the Brazilian and Peruvians labored quickly in order to return to the pleasures of Christ-
mas and to be quit of each other.
Euclides would find he was not going home to exactly the domestic situation he might
have wished. His was hardly a return to a faithful Penelope, fighting away suitors as she
ached forherhusband'shomecoming. Hiswife'steenage lover,Dilermando deAssis,de-
scribed da Cunha's arrival in this way:
In January of 1906, Saninha [Ana's nickname] was surprised one morning in her love nest 5 by a visit
from an employee of the “Bazaar America.” The proprietor, Bastista de Fonseca, was the agent for her
husband and supplied Ana with the necessary funds for her support. The clerk brought a telegram that
had been sent care of the firm. It said, “I'm in the bay on board the Tennyson . Send someone to fetch
me.” This was the end of the Idyll. That day, for the first time, the cadet and the writer would meet
eachother.Thinkingthatinthiswayhemightdispelsuspicions,Dilermando,Solon(daCunha'soldest
son), and some servants went to the quay to collect Euclides. 6