Achilles Daunt, A Story of Travel and Adventure in The Forests of Venezuela: A Book For Boys

Achilles Daunt, born in Owlpen, Gloucestershire, is the author of A Story of Travel and Adventure In The Forests of Venezuela: A Book for Boys. This book follows his point of view while he embarks on a mission to Venezuela with his log-time friend George Harrison. Though published in 1884, I estimate that Daunt traveled to Venezuela in the mid to late 1850’s based on the timeline from his personal recollection in the first chapter. During this time, Julian Castro had just taken the presidency where the population of caudillos was exponentially growing. This resulted in the Great War of the Caudillos breaking out after they were exiled by Castro. Severely underprepared for this war, Venezuela was taken over by Juan Crisostomo Falcon, the leader of the caudillo war. While Venezuela was in a state of unrest culturally and politically, many of these problems are not reflected in the book as Daunt was secluded from them due to his traveles in remote areas. The scope of the book covers his adventure into the treacherous forests of Venezuela as he recounts events such as the “suffocating heat”, “irritation caused by the mosquitoes” (vii), “moonlit forest and beach” (vii) and more. We get additional recounting of encounters with animals such as monkeys, turtles, jaguars, alligators, and dolphins, to name a few.

The depiction of Venezuela is very biased ad Daunt reflects on the country based on his own biased emotions. In chapter 8, Daunt describes the experience of traveling down the Orinoco River. He immaculately describes the scenery, comparing the mountains to castles and the river to a mirror that perfectly reflects they rays from the sun (p. 219). With this description, his narration is extremely positive and portrays the attitude and belief that this is something everyone should experience. Contradictorily, a few pages later he describes the worst night he had ever endured as he could not sleep in his hammock due to the terrain as was “rendered considerable by mosquitoes and bats” as well as ” exposed to a deluge of rain which lasted until morning, which I might almost say, wet us to the bone” (p. 220). We can see that his depiction of this country is solely reliant on how well the terrain and view pleases him. Anything that negatively impacts him physically, mentally, or emotionally is met with a bleak over exaggeration of his circumstance, almost as a warning to stay away. Besides the physical descriptions, Daunt also explains that he would walk around the river bend while his crew, made up of locals from the area, would clean up the camp site and prepare breakfast for him everyday, an obvious and disgusting use of the power he thinks is rightfully his.

Though I cannot relate this experience to that of Venezuela’s history, one can still clearly see that the contradictory description of the land is present in Daunts work. I believe that this book is a clear example the foreigners of Latin America primarily come with the expectation of seeing beautiful terrain and creatures, without taking into consideration varying elements that are present in a different geographical location. Additionally, his attitude conveyed throughout the book about the local population is highly degrading, adding another element of superiority that many outsiders also have about to Latin America.

Works Cited:

Daunt, Achilles. Frank Radcliffe: a Story of Travel and Adventure in the Forests of Venezuela. New York: T. Nelson, 1884.