Having completed this work, she was engaged by the states of Pará and Amazonas to explore a number of other rivers in the vast territory known as Amazonia. This commission involved the most arduous and dangerous kind of labor and was a task which few men would have been willing to undertake. It is doubtful if any other woman would have ventured on such an expedition, and it is quite certain that no other one could have been found that was so well equipped for this herculean undertaking or who would have carried it to a more successful issue.
Mme. Coudreau was in the service of Amazonia, in the capacity of official explorer, from 1899 to 1906. Most of this time she spent in a canoe on the affluents of the Amazon, or in her tent in the dense forests under the equator. Her only companions were negroes, or Indians, or Brazilian halfbreeds who served her as porters, cooks and boatmen. Frequently they were in the forest wilds for many months at a time and far away from every vestige of civilized life. As it was impossible to take sufficient provisions with them to last them during the whole of their journey, they had to depend on wild fruits and such fish and game as they were able to secure. Often they were forced to live for weeks at a time on an unchanging diet of manioc and tapir meat.
But their sufferings were not confined to hunger and disagreeable—often indigestible—food. There were the heavy steaming atmosphere and the broiling rays of a superheated sun, especially when reflected from the mirror-like surface of lake or river, which were so debilitating and exhausting that physical exertion of any kind was at times almost impossible. There were also the torrential and incessant rains—making it impossible for them to cook their food or dry their clothing—which added to their miseries whether in camp or in their canoe.
Great, however, as were their trials on the river, they were trifling in comparison with those in the woods. Here locomotion was impeded by tangled undergrowth which was bound together by strands of lianas and thorny vines which constituted an impenetrable barrier until a passage was hewn through it with a machete. Under foot was a yielding morass which threatened to absorb them. Overhead were countless chigoes, garapatas and fire-ants which infested the body or buried themselves in the flesh. Or there were clouds of mosquitoes which gave no rest day or night. And worst of all was the ever-present danger of fever and dysentery, not to speak of the dread diseases so common in certain sections of the equatorial regions. It was then that Mme. Coudreau had to act the part of a physician, as well as of a leader, even though she was at the time such a sufferer herself that she was barely able to stand.
To make matters still more difficult for Mme. Coudreau, her employees at times, especially when under the influence of liquor which they contrived to obtain some way or other, became mutinous and refused to accompany her to the end of her journey. At other times the expedition was halted by their fear of wild beasts or savage Indians, or by imaginary evils of many kinds, suggested to them by their superstitious minds. On such occasions Mme. Coudreau never failed to show herself a born leader of men, for she invariably—alone as she was with a crew who were often half savages—was successful in suppressing incipient rebellion and in restoring obedience and order.[177]
Continually confronted, as she was, by such trials and difficulties, privations and dangers, one would imagine that the delicately reared Frenchwoman would have sought immediate release from an engagement that necessitated so much exposure and suffering and sought surcease of sorrow in the distractions and gaieties of pleasure-loving Paris.
Nothing, however, was farther from her thoughts. Intrepid and resourceful, she feared no danger and hesitated before no difficulty, however great. As an explorer she was as venturesome as Crevaux and as conscientious as La Condamine. Like them, who were both her countrymen, she spent many years of her life in the equinoctial regions, and, like them, she contributed immensely to our knowledge of the Land of the Southern Cross.
Never did the tropics have a greater fascination for anyone than for Mme. Coudreau. During the twelve years she spent there, exploring its rivers and traversing its interminable forests, the spell of Amazonia was ever upon her and was never broken, even for a moment.
"I have," she writes, "loved everything in Amazonia, the great majestic woodland and the mysterious virgin forest, the beautiful rivers with their traitorous waters and thundering cataracts, the suffocating air and the perfumed breeze, the burning sun and the sweet freshness of night, the impressive voice of the wind among the trees and the torrential rain. And, contrary to the usual custom of man of bringing everything under his domination, it is I who have become a captive of this savage life which I love, and have permitted it to take possession of all my soul and all my will."[178]