23 “a corpse piece”: Quoted in Millard, River of Doubt, p. 168.
CHAPTER 3: THE SEARCH BEGINS
29 many archaeologists and geographers: For a much more detailed discussion of the academic debate over advanced civilizations in the Amazon, see Mann's 1491.
30 “counterfeit paradise”: See Meggers, Amazonia.
30 “cultural substitutes”: Ibid., p. 104.
30 “This is the jungle”: Cowell, Tribe That Hides from Man, p. 66.
30 As Charles Mann notes: Mann, 1491, p. 9.
30 “the most culturally”: Holmberg, Nomads of the Long Bow, p. 17.
30 “No records”: Ibid., p. 122.
30 “concept of romantic”: Ibid., p. 161.
30 “man in the”: Ibid., p. 261.
30 a more sophisticated: Mann, 1491, p. 328.
CHAPTER 4: BURIED TREASURE
33 “the callowest”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Passing of Trinco,” p. 110.
34 “Beneath these rocks”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Gold Bricks at Badulla,” p. 223. 34 “As an impecunious”: Ibid., p. 232.
34 “possessed great abilities”: From a self-published article by Timothy Paterson, “Douglas Fawcett and Imaginism,” p. 2.
35 “Her unhappy married”: Ibid.
35 “hateful”: Fawcett to Doyle, March 26, 1919, HRC.
35 “Perhaps it was all”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 15.
35 “did nothing to”: Ibid., p. 16.
35 notion of a gentleman: For details on the Victorian customs and ethos, see the 1865 manual The Habits of Good Society; Campbell, Etiquette of Good Society; and Bristow, Vice and Vigilance.
35 “the memorable horror”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 211.
36 “craving for sensual”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Obsession,” p. 476. 36 “a natural leader”: Girouard, Return to Camelot, p. 260.
36 “it takes something”: From a newspaper article in Fawcett's scrapbook, Fawcett Family Papers. 36
36 Royal Military Academy at Woolwich: See Guggisberg, Shop.
36 “The fashion of torture”: Ibid., p. 57.
36 “to regard the risk”: Hankey, Student in Arms, p. 87.
37 Now, as Fawcett: Details of Sri Lanka in the 1890s come from various books of the time, including Ferguson, Ceylon in 1893; Willis, Ceylon; and Cave, Golden Tips.
37 “Dear me”: Twain, Following the Equator, p. 336.
38 “I'm afraid”: Fawcett, “Gold Bricks at Badulla,” p. 225. 38 “Did the hound”: Ibid., p. 231.
38 “Ceylon is a very”: Ibid., p. 232.
39 “He obviously did”: Williams, introduction to AmaZonia, p. 16.
39 “the way the ladies”: Quotation from a newspaper article found in Fawcett's scrap-book, Fawcett Family Papers.
39 “the only one”: Curieux, Sept. 26, 1951.
39 “she always had”: Williams, introduction to AmaZonia, p. 18.
40 “I was very happy”: Curieux, Sept. 26, 1951. 40 “My life would”: Ibid.
40 “a silly old”: Fawcett to Doyle, March 26, 1919, HRC.
40 “You are not”: Williams, introduction to AmaZonia, p. 3.
40 “It took me”: Curieux, Sept. 26, 1951.
40 “Destiny cruelly”: Ibid.
40 “Go … and marry”: Williams, introduction to AmaZonia, p. 3. A similar account can be found in Hambloch, Here and There.
40 “begged her to”: My interview with Fawcett's granddaughter, Rolette.
40 “I thought I had”: Curieux, Sept. 26, 1951.
41 “A particularly beautiful”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, letter to the editor, Occult Review, Feb. 1913, p. 80.
41 “lone wolf”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 16.
41 Madame Blavatsky: See Meade, Madame Blavatsky; Washington, Madame Blavatsky's Baboon; and Oppenheim, Other World.
41 “a genius”: Meade, Madame Blavatsky, p. 40.
42 “She weighed more”: Ibid., p. 8.
42 “the most human”: Kelly, Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, p. 164.
42 “addicted to table-rapping”: Oppenheim, Other World, p. 28.
42 “I suppose I am”: Stashower, Teller of Tales, p. 405.
43 “For those who”: Oppenheim, Other World, p. 184.
43 “The ceremony commenced”: Dublin Review, July– Oct. 1890, p. 56.
44 “At the very time”: A. N. Wilson, Victorians, p. 551.
44 “I transgressed again”: Fawcett, “Passing of Trinco,” p. 116.
44 In the late 1860s: See Stanley, How I Found Livingstone; and Jeal, Livingstone.
45 “E. M. Forster once”: Pritchett, Tale Bearers, p. 25.
45 “ wild-man that eats”: Edward Douglas Fawcett, Swallowed by an Earthquake, p. 180.
45 “most venturesome”: Edward Douglas Fawcett, Secret of the Desert, p. 206.
46 “possibly thinking”: Ibid., p. 3.
46 “strange ruins”: Ibid., p. 49.
46 “we would-be”: Ibid., p. 146.
46 “I was overcome”: Ibid., p. 195.
46 “He won't”: Ibid., p. 237.
46 “Everywhere about me”: Fawcett, “Passing of Trinco,” p. 116.
47 “the city has vanished”: Walters, Palms and Pearls, p. 94.
47 “old Ceylon is”: Fawcett to Esther Windust, March 23, 1924, PHFP.
47 “a geography militant”: Conrad, “Geography and Some Explorers,” p. 6.
CHAPTER 5: BLANK SPOTS ON THE MAP
49 One person who: Steve Kemper's 1995 account, “Fawcett's Wake,” provided to author.
49 For ages, cartographers: Information on the history of maps and geography is drawn largely from Wilford, Mapmakers; Brown, Story of Maps; Sobel, Longitude; Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World; and De Camp and Ley, Lands Beyond.
50 “with every kind”: Quoted in Brehaut, Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages, p. 244.
50 “I, Prester John”: Quoted in Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World, p. 77.
50 “to the dearest son”: Quoted in De Camp and Ley, Lands Beyond, p. 148.
51 “the Discovery of”: Wilford, Mapmakers, p. 153.
51 Finally, in the nineteenth: For information on the history of the RGS, see Mill, Record of the Royal Geographical Society; Cameron, To the Farthest Ends of the Earth; and Keltie, “Thirty Years' Work of the Royal Geographical Society.”
52 “collect, digest”: Mill, Record of the Royal Geographical Society, p. 17.
52 “There was not”: Francis Younghusband, in “The Centenary Meeting: Addresses on the History of the Society,” Geographical Journal, Dec. 1930, p. 467.
52 “[It] was composed”: Keltie, “Thirty Years' Work of the Royal Geographical Society,” p. 350.
53 Richard Burton espoused: For information on Burton, see Kennedy, Highly Civilized Man; Farwell, Burton; and Lovell, Rage to Live.
53 “I protest vehemently”: Quoted in Farwell, Burton, p. 267. 53 “looked as if a tiger”: Quoted in Lovell, Rage to Live, p. 581.
53 “Explorers are not”: David Attenborough, foreword to Cameron, To the Farthest Ends of the Earth.
53 “What you can”: Quoted in Kennedy, Highly Civilized Man, p. 102.
54 “who sit in carpet slippers”: Ibid., p. 103. 54 “B is one of those men”: Ibid., p. 169. 54 “gladiatorial exhibition”: Ibid., p. 124.
54 “By God, he's killed”: Quoted in Moorehead, White Nile, pp. 74–75.
54 A cousin of Charles Darwin's: See Gillham, Life of Sir Francis Galton; Pickover, Strange Brains and Genius; and Brookes, Extreme Measures.
55 “no man expressed”: Quoted in Pickover, Strange Brains and Genius, p. 113.
55 “A passion for travel”: Ibid., p. 118.
55 “from north and south”: Quoted in Driver, Geography Militant, p. 3.
56 “So great is the heat”: Quoted in Cameron, To the Farthest Ends of the Earth, p. 53.
57 “There is very little”: Fawcett to Keltie, Dec. 14, 1921, RGS.
CHAPTER
6: THE DISCIPLE
58 It was February 4, 1900: The date was identified in a 1901 letter from the War Of fice to the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, while the location of the hotel was mentioned in Reeves's Recollections of a Geographer, p. 96.
58 Billboard men: For descriptions of London at the turn of the century, see Cook, Highways and Byways in London; Burke, Streets of London Through the Centuries; Sims, Living London; Flanders, Inside the Victorian Home; and Larson, Thunderstruck.
59 On the corner: For details about the RGS building on Savile Row, see Mill, Record of the Royal Geographical Society.
59 In his late thirties: My descriptions of Reeves and his course are drawn largely from his memoir, Recollections of a Geographer, and his published lectures, Maps and Map-Making.
60 “How well I”: Reeves, Recollections of a Geographer, p. 17.
60 “He had an innate”: Francis Younghusband, foreword to ibid., p. 11.
60 “the society of men”: Galton, Art of Travel, p. 2.
60 “If you could blindfold”: Reeves, Maps and Map-Making, p. 84.
61 “He was extremely”: Reeves, Recollections of a Geographer, p. 96.
61 what the Greeks called: Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World, p. 84.
61 There were two principal: For further information about the role that these manu als played in shaping Victorian attitudes, see Driver, Geography Militant, pp. 49–67.
61 “It is a loss”: Freshfield and Wharton, Hints to Travellers, p. 2.
61 “Remember that”: Ibid., p. 5.
“Had we lived”: New York Times, Feb. 11, 1913.
62 In 1896, Great Britain: McNiven and Russell, Appropriated Pasts, p. 66.
62 “savages, barbarians”: Freshfield and Wharton, Hints to Travellers, p. 435.
62 “the prejudices with”: Ibid., pp. 445–46.
62 “it is established”: Ibid., p. 422.
62 As with mapping: Information on the “tools” used by early anthropologists is derived largely from the 1893 edition of Hints to Travellers and the 1874 handbook prepared by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Notes and Queries on Anthropology.
62 “Where practicable”: Freshfield and Wharton, Hints to Travellers, p. 421.
62 “It is hardly safe”: Ibid.
62 “emotions are differently”: Ibid., p. 422.
63 “Notwithstanding his inveterate”: Ibid., p. 58.
63 “We, the undersigned”: Ibid., p. 6.
63 “Promote merriment”: Ibid., p. 309.
63 “A frank, joking”: Ibid., p. 308.
63 “constantly pushing and pulling”: Ibid., p. 17.
64 “Use soap-suds”: Ibid., p. 18.
64 “Afterwards burn out”: Ibid., p. 21.
64 “Pour boiling grease”: Ibid., p. 20.
64 “This can be done”: Ibid., p. 225.
64 “To prepare them”: Ibid., p. 201.
64 “take your knife”: Ibid., p. 317.
65 “If a man be lost”: Ibid., p. 321.
65 “Choose a well-marked”: Ibid.
65 “with great credit”: Ibid., p. 96.
65 “The R.G.S. bred me”: Fawcett to John Scott Keltie, Nov. 2, 1924, RGS.
CHAPTER 7: FREEZE-DRIED ICE CREAM AND ADRENALINE SOCKS
67 “There were the Prudent”: Fleming, Brazilian Adventure, p. 32.
68 More feared than piranhas: Millard, River of Doubt, pp. 164–65.
69 “Many deaths result”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 50.
70 “ hush-hush”: Brian Fawcett to Brigadier F. Percy Roe, March 15, 1977, RGS.
CHAPTER 8: INTO THE AMAZON
71 It was the perfect: Details of Fawcett's time working for the British Intelligence Office are drawn from his Morocco diary, 1901, Fawcett Family Papers.
71 “nature of trails”: Ibid.
71 In the nineteenth century: See Hefferman, “Geography, Cartography, and Military Intelligence,” pp. 505–6.
71 British authorities transformed: My information on the Survey of India Depart ment and its spies comes primarily from Hopkirk's books The Great Game and Tres passers on the Roof of the World.
72 “some sort of Moorish”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Journey to Morocco City,” p. 190.
72 “The Sultan is”: Fawcett, Morocco diary.
72 In early 1906: Percy Harrison Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, pp. 18–19.
72 Famous for his keen: See Flint, Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria; and Muffett, Empire Builder Extraordinary.
73 “[He] was lashed”: Muffett, Empire Builder Extraordinary, p. 19.
73 “bore holes”: Ibid., p. 22.
73 “Do you know”: For the conversation between Fawcett and Goldie, see Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, pp. 18–20.
74 “Destiny intended me”: Ibid., p. 20.
74 “toughs, would be”: Ibid.
74 a thirty-year-old: Fawcett used a pseudonym for Chivers in Exploration Fawcett, calling him Chalmers.
74 “They were all”: Ibid., p. 21.
74 Since the canal's: Enrique Chavas-Carballo, “Ancon Hospital: An American Hospital During the Construction of the Panama Canal, 1904–1914,” Military Medicine, Oct. 1999.
75 “How strange”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 26.
76 “a marvelous effect”: Freshfield and Wharton, Hints to Travellers, p. 12.
76 “A mule's load”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 159.
76 Christopher Columbus had: My descriptions of the Amazon rubber boom and the frontier come from several sources, including Furneaux, Amazon, pp. 144–66; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, pp. 271–75; and St. Clair, Mighty, Mighty Amazon, pp. 156–63.
76 In 1912, Brazil alone: Author's interview with Aldo Musacchio, co-author of “Brazil in the International Rubber Trade, 1870–1930,” which was published in From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000, ed. Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal, and Zephyr Frank (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006).
76 “No extravagance”: Furneaux, Amazon, p. 153.
77 “the most criminal”: Quoted in Hemming, Amazon Frontier, pp. 292–93.
77 “My heart sank”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 41.
78 “from ‘nowhere' ”: Ibid., p. 89.
78 “as proper as”: Price, Amazing Amazon, p. 147.
78 “Government? What”: Quoted in Fifer, Bolivia, p. 131.
78 “Here come”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, pp. 95–96.
78 In one instance: See Hardenburg, Putumayo.
78 “In some sections”: Ibid., p. 204.
79 “It is no exaggeration”: U.S. Department of State, Slavery in Peru, p. 120.
79 “so many of them”: Ibid., p. 69.
79 “the wretched policy”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Survey Work on the Frontier Between Bolivia and Brazil,” p. 185.
79 “the great dangers”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 515.
79 “He could smell”: Ibid., p. 64.
80 “He has his choice”: Percy Harrison Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 4, p. 91.
80 “the most ferocious”: Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, p. 40.
80 “there was an unpleasant”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 131.
80 In addition to piranhas: For descriptions of the animals and insects of the Amazon, see Forsyth and Miyata, Tropical Nature; Cutright, Great Naturalists Explore South America; Kricher, Neotropical Companion; and Millard, River of Doubt.
80 The German explorer-scientist: Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, pp. 112–16.
81 “One shock is sufficient”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 50.
81 “carry no hope”: Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 3, p. 498.
81 “It was one”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 84.
82 “We lived simply”: Costin t
o daughter Mary, Nov. 10, 1946, Costin Family Papers. 82 “Inactivity was what”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 94.
82 “Monkeys are looked”: Ibid., p. 47.
82 “is against man”: Ibid.
83 “[Mosquitoes] constitute”: Price, Amazing Amazon, p. 138.
83 “The piums settled”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 59.
83 “The Tabana came singly”: Ibid., p. 49.
83 “Attacked in hammocks”: Ernest Holt diary, Oct. 20, 1920, ADAH.
84 according to one estimate: Millard, River of Doubt, p. 250.
85 “a couple of crossed”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 89.
85 “When [the Kanichana]”: Métraux, Native Tribes of Eastern Bolivia and Western Matto Grosso, p. 80.
85 “The head and the intestines”: Clastres, “Guayaki Cannibalism,” pp. 313–15.
86 “court assassination”: C. Reginald Enock, letter to the editor, Geographical Journal, April 19, 1911, RGS.
87 “It was trying”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 73.
87 “Their bodies [were] painted”: Ibid., p. 87.
87 “One ripped through”: Ibid.
87 “I had observed”: Ibid., p. 83.
87 Still, two of the men: Fawcett, “Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 523.
87 “I was tempted”: Ibid., p. 43.
87 “Unless he had”: Keltie to Nina Fawcett, Dec. 1, 1913, RGS.
88 “the healthy person”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 55.
CHAPTER 9: THE SECRET PAPERS
91 “professional burglar”: Malcolm, Silent Woman, p. 9.
92 Many of the diaries: Quotations from diaries and logbooks come from the private papers of the Fawcett family.
CHAPTER 10: THE GREEN HELL
94 “Are you game?”: See Percy Harrison Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, pp. 116–22. For further information on the journey, see Fawcett's “Explorations in Bolivia” and his four-part series “In the Heart of South America.”
95 “When … the enterprising traveler”: Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 2, p. 491.
95 “Time and the foot”: Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett, p. 122.