Roland Thaxter (1858-1932), according to Carroll William Dodge (1895-1988), had been curious about the area of Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia from a very young age. Much of this interest stemmed from an early reading of Darwin's account of the region during his travels on the H.M.S. Beagle. Finally, during his sabatical year of 1905-1906, he made arrangements to study and collect in this region. A boyhood dream was about to come true.

Of course things did not go as smoothly as he had hoped. Because there was no direct passenger service to Brazil, Thaxter was forced to sail to Liverpool and leave from there. An epidemic of bubonic plague and smallbox forced him to change his entire schedule at the last minute. The trip itself was fraught with upsets; from small matters such as rude accomidations to the unexpected death of his son back home.

On his return home, in May of 1906, Thaxter planned to produce a comprehensive work on the fungus flora of Chile but, besides a small paper for the Botanical Gazette in 1910, his exploration and collections went largely unstudied for quite a few years. Thaxter did however keep a journal to record the details of his trip. He had a wonderful gift for written description, inherited from his father, that provides insights into how difficult a trip this was, both physically and mentally. This journal, when read in combination with Thaxter's correspondence to Farlow illuminates the joys and horrors of botanical exploration at the turn of the last century

Thaxter left Boston on August 17, 1905 for Liverpool, England. He arrived on August 26th and there he gained passage on the Pacific St. Navigation Company's S.S. Orissa bound for Brazil. The ship left Liverpool on Thursday August 31, 1905. His journal entry for that day reads:

"Much dirt, disorder, and confusion not to mention fresh paint in various places ready for the unsuspecting passenger to lean against. Wretched looking 3rd class especially a wasted looking woman with two small children and a baby at the breast, whom I saw her feeding, later in the voyage, with boiled beans: the same being chewed first in the mother's mouth thence introduced by means of a spoon into that of the infant. Curious specimen's of humanity too in the first class, as for instance a Mr. Dobree of Puenta Arenas (with two boys by a former wife) and a second wife very elaborately powdered and painted, with a large wig, trim figure, regular features, and a look that (when she thought herself unobserved) was ghastly to a degree and suggested a past as well as a present filled with miscellaneous horrors. I learned later Dobree was reputed, at least, to have been one of the men who was with the Frence Prince imperial when he was left to be killed in a sudden raid in the Zulu war. Bull necked, red faced, with two small pig eyes close together. I also learned that Mrs. D. came out to Puentas Arenas with him a few years ago as his "niece", that they had lived together and kept a shop, and that they were now returning as "Mr. & Mrs." from a visit to England."

The voyage was not started out as Thaxter had expected. The conditions on the ship were unsanitary and too many people were forced into too small of a space. He describes the boat as being seaworthy but not well suited for travel in the tropics. There is poor ventilation and, as he indicates in the passage below, it is unwise to leave the port hole open!

"My stateroom especially being very minute and the ventilation except when the port hole was open, coming (for the whole first class cabin) through a skylight opening on the 3rd class deck where hundrids of dirty Spanish and Portuguese emigrants steamed and stunk in the hot weather and sang _____ lengthed and pounded on the decks above our heads almost continuously, continually too, emptying unmentionable remains of food and water coffee dirt ______over the side and into the first cabin ports if they were open, at the moment any roll of draft favored. I was once completely deluged by stale coffee and grounds which were sucked in over me while I was taking my morning bath. On another occassion a shovel full of emigrant sweepings thrown over the side were sucked in and completely covered everything in the room including both beds which were black with unspeakable gurry."

Thaxter's original plan was to arrive in Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile. From there he would make his way down the Chilean coast to Magellanes then stop off on one of the larger islands of Tierra del Fuego. He soon found out that was not to be. At lunch one day, early on in the voyage, Thaxter was informed by the first officer that there was a very fatal type of "black" small pox raging in Chile, especially in Valparaiso, where the bodies were being piled in the streets. Thaxter writes in his diary that his first few days are spent in "considerable mental disturbance" trying to decide what to do. On September 3rd he writes to Farlow, telling him of the health issues and the numerous quarentines in South America. He has changed his plans and now will spend "six weeks in the Argentine...,six weeks or two months in the Faulklands, two weeks or a month at Puenta Arenas which, with the necessary voyaging, will get me back to the Argentine in February...Then Petropolos by the end of May and through June and Tijuca in July sailing to Rio August 1."

While in Buenos Aires Thaxter used the letters of introduction he had brought with him from many associates and collegues to introduce himself to curators and officials in the area, obtain permission to collect and study, as well as to study the insect collections housed at the Museo National .

During this time Thaxter's health has begun to suffer. In a letter to Farlow dated October 11th, 1905 he writes that his digestion went "out of business completely" and reports that he has lost fourteen pounds since he left Liverpool On August 31st. This weak stomach was a problem that would plague Thaxter on and off throughout most of his journey.

Luckily in Buenes Aires the collecting was good. Thaxter reports finding many Cryptobia, Staphilinids, carabids, and anthicids and "good Laboulbenias". On October 16th he writes:

"Went early, a fine warm day, to my dump at the Parque Febrero and gathered a large harvest both in the dump and my traps under the willows. I found that by raking up moist leaves where they lay thick under the willows and throwing them quickly on my sheet that I could get a good many things not otherwise obtainable --Antistorus, Chivina, Hydrophilids, a dityscia, and numerous Cryptobia. Found also a Tuber apparently sitophilum hardly distinguishable from the accompanying Hymenogaster. Many nice Laboulbenias on this gathering of beetles."

View of Buenes Aires from Thaxter's window at the Hotel Phoenix

On, Saturday, October 21st Thaxter left Buenas Aires on the "Venus" heading to Chile On Sunday he reached Montevido where switched to the tug the "Oropesa". In a letter to Farlow dated Monday, October 23rd, 1905 Thaxter writes about the sucessof of the trip so far. "I have been able to gather in a good many Laboulbenias and I would think among them not less than 30 new species and half a dozen new genera as far as I can see"

On Thursday, October 26th, while on board a ship heading to Coronel, Chile Thaxter began to feel sick, he caught a cold that didn't leave him until after his return from Conception (around December 1st). The ship finally docked in Coronel on Thursday, November 2nd, 1905. Thaxter writes in his journal:

"The impression of a first landing in Chile are not pleasing, the general dirt, delapidation, and squalor, a great contrast to ones first impression of the Argentine as gained from Buenes Aires and looking at the people one feels as if he were landed in a paradise of cutthroats and does not wonder that the traveler is almost universally advised to carry a revolver."

During the period of November 4th, 1905 and January 17th, 1906 Thaxter's journal entries are missing. Using his correspondence to Farlow from that time it becomes apparent that he was plagued by ill health and poor weather.

Entrance to Heun's Woods near Conception, Chile

In a letter dated November 25th, sent from Conception, Chile Thaxter reveals that he is having digestive troubles again and is seriously considering going home. The weather there has been VERY dry for two months so there is not much fungi to collect. He is about to sail to Corral but tells Farlow that "small pox seems at its height here now. Saw a boy the first time I went out with his face covered with unhealed pustules, as if he had a charge of buckshot, running loose in the streets!"

Thaxter arrives in Corral around December 1st and, in a letter to Farlow from December 26th, 1905 he mentions that he is still feeling poorly and the weather is becoming a problem. When he first arrived there were many days of rain and conditions were good for collecting then the rain dried up and it has been hot and dry for the past two weeks.

"we have been having a protracted drought which dried things up in a very few days so that you would hardly have known that the woods were the same woods with all of their filmy hepatics and lichen fixtures shrunken out of sight. It is very remarkable how quickly this transformation occurs..."

Thaxter became very ill early in January, 1906. He tells Farlow of traveling to Valdivia twice to see a doctor. Unfortunately the doctor wasn't sure what was wrong. He debates returning home and, in a letter dated January 4th states that he is too sick to undertake such a journey "for, with the exception of brief periods of respite this journey has been nothing but an endurance from begining to end and I fear the returns obtained are trivial"

Thaxter decides to stay but is not sure why he feels so ill. He wonders if he is sick from a poisonous lobelia that he handles frequently. While putting it in a beetle trap he might easily have gotten juice in mouth or cut. He describes his symptoms to Farlow, hoping that someone there might help to diagnose him.

"My troubles began with about a week of constant headache and tightness in the back or the head, chilliness, lassitude and depression with some abdominal pain and disturbances but nothing that I should otherwise have minded; then began the death of my extremeties, with chilly feelings in the body starting in the late-afternoon and becoming worse as night progressed, the numbness creeping up about the knees and elbows with a sensation of deadly cold in the body, but with no chill: the pulse very weak somewhat irregular at 63-64 which is about l8 below my normal pulse: more or less hot flushing but never more than a degree of temperature, if any, while I was worse a disagreeable tendency to gape: the whole associated with much weakness giddiness and continual headache or tightness in the head."

On Thursday, January 18th, 1906 Thaxter left Corral on the steamer Eedfu. During much of his time on board Thaxter felt very sick. He woke often with his arms and legs asleep. He was seen by the ships doctor who gave a diagnosis of "Vasomotor neurasthenia" and told him not to strain his heart. In A Handbook of Practical Treatment (1912) the symptoms of neurasthenia or chronic fatigue as it is then thought be be are described as:

"When we come to study the symptoms of neurasthenia, we find that they are essentially those of chronic fatigue. On the surface they appear to be hopelessly multiple and complex, but it soon becomes evident that they possess unequal value. This indeed was recognized years ago by Charcot, who separated a group of symptoms which he spoke of as the cardinal symptoms. He grouped them roughly as follows: Headache, sleep disturbances, rachialgia, spinal hyperesthesia, muscular weakness, dyspepsia, genital and psychic disturbances."

Thaxter finally arrives in Puenta Arenas on Monday, January 22nd, 1906. He writes to Farlow that the climate here is cooler and agrees with him. Lots of algae loose on shore among the "dead cats which stretch for a couple of miles". Thaxter is staying at a small boarding house and one of the other guests, an Englishman named Smith goes collecting with him some days. Smith isn't interested in collecting as much as getting out and walking around. On one trip Thaxter is finding quite a few good specimens and Smith becomes bored and wants to return home. Thaxter later wrote in his diary "The heart of Smith, poor man, could not beat in unison with the sensation of a botanist at the moment of his first contact with a wholly strange flora."

Puenta Arenas Ravine, below mine. Section of beeches on distant bank.

During this period Thaxter's health seems to be improving, the weather is cooperating (daily temps 54-60, bad wind and rain), and he is finding quite a bit of material. There is a good section of woods above a coal mine, about two hours from the boarding house where he finds more than he expected. In his journal he writes:

The clouds black and lowering with patters of rain and an icy cold wind roaring down from the Otway whence seems to come most bad weather in these parts and most high winds at least in this season, the North wind usually bringing a rise in temperature and more continuous rain. The east wind almost never blowing and the south, cold and high, seldom. I could not shake off a certain sense of awe on entering this forest for the first time, the elements combining to make me feel as if I had no business here and were a trespasser in the domains of some ancient wind god. Meantime I soon began to "find things." The trees were covered with lichens showing at their best from the rain; several fruiting Stictas, a monstrous Nephroma, the commonest of the large foliaceous form some Parmelia like ____, long strands of sterile Usnea which grows more luxuriantly in the higher woods and is used in P. Arenas for making mattresses, a smaller Usnea much like barbata, a few crustaceous forms one with orange apothecia, and a very abundant form with a radiate tubular thallus beset with holes and almost never bearing its apothecia.

Soon though Thaxter makes the most gruesome discovery of his travels. On Thursday February 1st, 1906 while out collecting "... I saw a gruesome object lying in the sun, the hair dark and bristly, the arms extended. A new pair of shoes and clothes but little worne [sic]. After all the varied assortment of dumpage I had traversed among which dead dogs, cats, sheep, hens, and calves were copiously distributed, I seemed to take this last item almost as a matter of course, and after a cursory examination I continued my way to the turn of the point and then struck across inland over the flat rather sterile region which characterizes this spit of land in order to join Reid". Thaxter is advised by the other boards to say nothing of his find to the authorities because it will only cause him trouble. Thaxter does end up giving a deposition at the police station and the matter goes no further.

Unfortunately Thaxter's heath began a steady downward slide again in mid-February. While gathering algae Thaxter often had to submerge his hands in icy water for long periods of time. One of his fingers began to hurt, so much so that he was forced to stop collecting for a few days.

On March 12th Thaxter sailed on the Oravia to Montevideo. For the first time on his journey he had a comfortable cabin and no roommate. His finger was acting up again; swollen, throbbing, and very painful and, if that wasn't enough, he suffered from a bad tooth that caused him a considerable amount of pain. Thaxter arrived in Montevideo on March 17th and headed out to Buenes Aires that same day. As soon as he arrived he saw a dentist but unfortunately, not even 10 days later he had to go back because the tooth was bothering him again. This time he did not even get a ten day respite, by Sunday April 1st his toothache was back and he was having trouble sleeping. Unfortunately the collecting was bad as well. The temperatures were in the 80 degree range each day and there was no rain.

Soon a new heath problem popped up. In the diary entry for April 25th Thaxter states that his left ear is really bothering him so he went to an ear specialist "Dr Mackern, brother of Mrs. Smiles. Very good looking and said to be painfully aware of the fact. Looked into my ear, ran in a swab and nearly killed me said the ear was absolutely healthy and charged me ten dollars." The ear continued to bother him the next few days as he began to pack for the next leg of his journey, the trip to Rio. Unfortunately the worst problem of his trip was yet to come.

On April 29th, 1906 Thaxter received a cable "Eliot ill come home". His eldest son Eliot had become sick. Thaxter hurridly changed his plans but was able to leave that day. The next day he received a second cable that read "physicians given up all hope" instead of what was intended "physicians are hopefull". Thaxter booked passage on a ship and on May 4th he received the corrected cable.

On May 18th Thaxter reached Lisbon. There he received a cable stating that Eliot had died on May 5th. His diary entries for that period state:

Unfortunately, Thaxter never wrote much about the rich collections that he had gathered on this 10 month voyage. Not too long after returning, at a Botanical Society of America meeting he gave a talk on the trip and the materials he collected. Besides this only a short paper was printed in the Botanical Gazette in 1910 titled Notes on Chilean Fungi. In later years Thaxter was much pressed for time because of other obligations and poor heath and this may be why a more full treatment of this material was never completed.

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