Product Description

The French scientific expedition that set off for Peru in 1735 did not have much luck. Five of its members died or went insane before their seven years' work was completed, but Jean Godin, the youngest member of the team, fell in love with and married a local girl - Isabela, the daughter of the local Spanish governor. After a few years, Godin crossed the Andes and travelled the Amazon to test whether it was a route suitable for his family. Unfortunately, having safely reached Cayenne in French Guiana, he discovered the political situation prevented his return: neither the Spanish nor the Portuguese would allow his passage back upriver. After almost 20 years, during which Jean waited on in Guiana, the King of Portugal sent a boat to retrieve the family. Isabela at last set off with her children, her brothers and her servants, over the Andes and down the Amazon, but the journey was to prove worse than the waiting. Smallpox, starvation, the torrential river and the horrors of the jungle beset the travellers. Some drowned, some ran away, others died of hunger. In the end, Isabela alone survived of the 42 who set off - she was found wandering in the jungle sick and half-crazed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #525165 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Anthony Smith flew with the RAF, trained as a zoologist, worked in Africa and South America and is an author with many books to his credit, among them Explorers of the Amazon, Mato Grosso, High Street Africa, and Ballooning.

Customer Reviews

A true story which is stranger than fiction
'The lost lady of the Amazon' is certainly a remarkable and unforgettable story and the way Anthony Smith tells it is also remarkable.
As I read the story of Isabela Godin, particularly the chapters on her epic journey, I felt as though I was following her on the donkeys down the Peruvian cordilleras, that I was being transported in a dug-out canoe or on a makeshift raft being swirled around in the torrent of endless Amazon water. I could smell the jungle and the decaying bodies.
Smith's description of the moment she emerged from the jungle and saw the two Indians, and the way he conveyed her feelings (her desperation to be saved, yet her reticence at revealing herself), though fleeting, was a true cameo of Isabela's personal conflict.
For me the whole scene came alive - yet the events portrayed happened in 1769.
We cannot return to the days of these brave voyagers but by reading books such as this, we can wind the clock back.
'The Lost Lady of the Amazon' is indeed an epic story.
Perhaps it was never told because it was not originally written down in English, or because the main character was a woman.
Whatever the reason, my thanks to Anthony Smith for telling it now.