In 1854, Leiutenant Isaac G Strain, an ambitious American explorer and U S Naval officer, was given command of Cyane, the first ship to voyage to the Darien Gap. Strain was a natural born leader, a wild-haired, wiry-strong frontiersman who had travelled extensively throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Greatly admired, Strain was expected to successfully cross the ithsmus of Central America through the Darien Gap. However, the expedition would prove to be perilous. Armed with fraudulent information about the areas rugged terrain, phony maps and only a small supply of food, Strain and his team of 29 men ventured far from their ship and became lost in this mountainous, steep-banked jungle, full of unfriendly natives that attacked the party. Beaten down by intense heat and days of walking, some of Strain's men contracted lurid mystery diseases, while others, despite the lush vegetation, were slowly starving to death. The situation was grim and Strain beleived that their best bet for survival was for him to force his way down river in search of help. When he did not return after 21 days, the detachment decided to back track and left Strain for dead. But Strain made it back to his men with help, though nine had perished and the rest were delirious. He managed to lead his enfeebled party nearly 200 miles to safety.
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Todd Balf provides a thorough review of the 1854 U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition, led by navy lieutenant Issac Strain, charting its failures and successes in equal parts. Additionally it provides a biography of its main players, and also explains the previous, and subsequent expeditions on a similar theme.
At the time the British and the Americans were both competing to chart a route for a canal to join the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. Disingenuous behaviour, personal agendas and blatant breaking of agreements lead to various expeditions - some authorised and some not, all occurring within a few years of each other. Even some rescue attempts are really just further attempts at route finding. Perhaps worst were the falsified reports of crossings and falsified maps, which only led the explorers astray.
For the main part of the book we follow Strain's expedition. It turns out to be a real ordeal of survival. Food - always problematic, climate, insects, a lack of game to hunt, navigation and misinformation on maps, and untrustworthy Indians are all contributing factors to the trouble the expedition found them selves in. Really, leadership was not a fault - which must be quite uncommon in these types of disaster stories.
Without too many spoilers - there were numerous deaths on the expedition - mostly of starvation and illness. However being able to reach to the coast, and raise a rescue party for those left behind was really a triumph in this situation.
The book shares, as noted above, the details of various expeditions. It covers in most detail the Strain expedition, and the subsequent lives of the expedition party. The final chapter details the authors attempt in 2001, to follow a route similar to Sprain. It is not the most flowing read. I found the various competing expeditions confusing, and the maps poor. They didn't offer as must visual support to the routes as I would have liked.
I had, the whole time while reading this book to find a chapter at the end dedicated to the final route of the canal - some vital statistics, some main points, even some comparison the the routes explored, but this book was strangely silent on the canal.
For me this was 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
Recommend only for those with a particular interest.
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