Percy HarrisonFawcett - INTREPID TRAVELLER - Duncan JD Smith
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INTREPID TRAVELLER
Percy HarrisonFawcett
In 1925 renowned British explorer Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison
Fawcett headed into the Amazon jungle. Searching for a lost city, he
was never heard from again. Travel writer Duncan J.D. Smith picks up
the trail of one of the 20th century’s greatest adventure mysteries.
W
ith the new action
adventure film
The Lost City of Z
recently released Later in 1901, whilst working for he embarked on no less than seven
(2017), now is the British Secret Service in Morocco, South American mapping commissions
the time to celebrate its enigmatic and Fawcett brushed up on his surveying, a contributing much to the Society’s
reluctant hero, Lieutenant Colonel Percy skill he had first taken up at the Royal ongoing mission to map the world.
Harrison Fawcett. A fearless geographer Geographical Society on London’s Savile Fawcett was appalled, however, by the
and rogue archaeologist, his daredevil Row. This was to prove invaluable when way in which some plantation owners
exploits inspired Conan Doyle’s The Lost in 1906 he travelled to Amazonia at the treated the Indians of Amazonia. By
World and more recently the adventures contrast he appears to have got along
of Indiana Jones. His unexplained well with them, using his patience,
disappearance in the Amazon Jungle has courteousness, and, of course, gifts to
become the stuff of Boy’s Own legend. A fearless geographer and good effect. During one survey exploring
rogue archaeologist, his the Heath River in Bolivia, for example,
The Making of an Adventurer daredevil exploits inspired his expedition was attacked by Indians
Percival Harrison Fawcett was born in of the Guarayos tribe firing 7-foot-long
Conan Doyle’s The Lost
1867 in Torquay in the English county of arrows. Rather than returning fire one
Devon. His Indian-born father, Edward, World and more recently of Fawcett’s men played an accordion
was something of a rake, an equerry to the adventures of Indiana and, when the attack was halted, Fawcett
the Prince of Wales, and a drinker. Young Jones. His unexplained addressed the Indians in their native
Percy undoubtedly inherited his father’s disappearance in the tongue. The Indians were so impressed
sense of adventure but from an early age that they helped the party set up camp
Amazon Jungle has become
he disproved of his racy lifestyle. Instead and even sent word up river to safeguard
he became a serious and academic loner. the stuff of Boy’s Own legend their passage.
Aged nineteen, and against his will, The herculean efforts Fawcett made in
he took up a commission in the Royal mapping the region in the years before
Artillery and was posted to Trincomalee Society’s behest to map the jungle border World War I, however, have all too often
in Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). He served between the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso been overshadowed by his eventual
brilliantly and it was there that he met his and Bolivia. The area was rich in rubber disappearance. It therefore should not
future wife, Nina. But it was how he filled plantations and without accurate borders be forgotten that he received the Royal
his leisure time that was to really set the it was feared dangerous disputes would Geographical Society’s Founder’s Gold
tone for the rest of his life. Leaving his result over their exploitation. With the mass Medal in 1916 and the Society also saw
fellow officers to their drinking, gambling, production of automobiles in full swing, the fit to publish several of his articles. Both
and fraternising with the locals, he would demand for rubber was enormous. were considerable accolades.
wander off into the jungle interior of the Renowned for his remarkable stamina
island, seeking out ancient ruins and and resistance to disease, Fawcett was Lost Worlds
recording mysterious inscriptions. in his element. Between 1906 and 1921 Very much his own man and certainly
34 Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017
INTREPID TRAVELLER Right: Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett in 1911 no idle dreamer, Fawcett was still a man bound by his times. His writings show that despite being relatively enlightened, he could never quite escape what has been called “the mental maze of race”. Additionally during the 1890s, like many of his intellectual contemporaries, he fell under the spell of Helena Blavatsky, the Russian aristocratic mystic and founder of the so-called Theosophical Society. Blavatsky’s belief that the world was ruled by mysterious white-skinned Elders from secret locations fuelled Fawcett’s own growing interest in a lost Amazonian civilisation, one once peopled by an Atlantean super-race from the Mediterranean. In turn Fawcett influenced others, most notably the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Fawcett maintained that Doyle’s popular book The Lost World was conjured up after the author attended one of his lectures in 1911. During the lecture Fawcett recounted seeing the abrupt precipices of the Ricardo Franco Hills, a part of the Huanchaca Plateau in northeast Bolivia. Such a remote high plateau lies at the heart of Doyle’s book (although others have claimed that Doyle was inspired by the equally impressive Mount Roraima in the Pacaraima Mountains of Guyana). During this gruelling foray into uncharted wilderness Fawcett survived on palm tops to assert that “the connection of Atlantis conclusions he drew from them were and hard chonta nuts, and was repeatedly with parts of what is now Brazil is not sometimes based on ill-founded, dogged ravaged by inch-long poisonous ants. to be dismissed contemptuously, and belief – and they would cost him dearly. With all this in mind it is perhaps no belief in it – with or without scientific That the idol came from one of these surprise that Fawcett was encouraged in corroboration – affords explanations lost South American cities Fawcett was his work when the adventure story writer for many problems which otherwise in no doubt. Indeed, it could have hailed Sir H. Rider Haggard presented him are unsolved mysteries.” Whilst Fawcett from one whose existence he had already with a curious black basalt idol. Reputed would indeed go on to find evidence read about. The evidence for it lay in to have come from a lost city in Brazil, for lost and hitherto unrecorded pre- the log of a Portuguese gold mining Fawcett took it to be incontrovertible Columbian societies in Amazonia in the expedition from 1753 (Manuscript No. 512 proof of his belief “that amazing ruins form of causeways, canals and pottery, in the Rio de Janeiro National Library). of ancient cities – ruins incomparably all lost beneath rampant vegetation after The expedition’s report sent by Indian older than those in Egypt – exist in the far their inhabitants had succumbed either runner to the Viceroy in Bahía told of interior of the Mato Grosso.” He went on to conquest or disease, the sweeping an abrupt range of mountains in the Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017 35
INTREPID TRAVELLER
Fawcett had always preferred small finish up on the coast at the capital,
expeditions that could live off the land, Salvador.
believing that such a group would look On May 29th, 1925, Fawcett sent a
less like an invasion to indigenous message to his wife indicating that the
tribes and would therefore less likely expedition was crossing the Upper Xingu,
be attacked. No novice in exploration, and was now poised to enter territory
Fawcett planned the expedition hitherto unexplored by Europeans. “Our
meticulously yet prior to departure two guides go back from here,” he wrote
previously unexplored north of Mato issued an ominous instruction to those “they are more and more nervous as we
Grosso, on the top of which lay a vast he was leaving behind: “I don’t want push further into the Indian country.”
ruined city, with the promise of gold. rescue parties coming to look for us. It’s Carrying only minimal provisions (as well
Inspired by the report Fawcett now gave too risky. If with all my experience we as Rider Haggard’s curious idol) Fawcett
his own imagined city an enigmatic can’t make it, there’s not much hope reassured his wife with these final words:
name – “Z” – which he claimed was “for for others. That’s one reason why I’m “You need have no fear of failure...”. The
the sake of convenience” but was more not telling exactly where we’re going. three members of the Fawcett expedition
likely to protect its location from possible Whether we get through, and emerge then disappeared into the jungle never to
competitors (the British polar explorer again, or leave our bones to rot in there, be heard from again.
Robert Falcon Scott had around the same one thing’s certain. The answer to the
time been beaten to the South Pole by his enigma of ancient South America – and
Norwegian competitor Roald Amundsen). perhaps of the prehistoric world – may
Fawcett was now determined to locate his be found when those old cities are
“Z” for real – and to re-write the history located and opened up to scientific
books in the process. research. That the cities exist, I know.”
The three men began their journey on
The Quest for Z the coast at São Paulo from where they
The story of the fate of Colonel Fawcett’s took the train to Corumbá, a frontier
last expedition is an oft-told one, being town near the Bolivian border. From
cited as the original inspiration for all there a boat took them along the River
classic tales of jungle adventure. Paraguay to Cuiabá, the capital of Mato
After active service in the trenches Grosso, which Raleigh described as “a
of France during the Great War, where God forsaken hole”. This was the stepping
he was promoted to lieutenant colonel off point for what Fawcett called “the
for his bravery in holding his position, attainment of the great purpose”.
Fawcett returned to Brazil in 1921 for On 20th April, 1925 the party struck out
another expedition, to explore the western northwards to the impoverished village
region of the country. Once again Fawcett of Bakairí Post. From there the plan was
returned from the jungle alive but he had to eventually turn eastwards through the
failed to find evidence for “Z”. Now in his great uncharted wilderness between the
late 50s but still remarkably fit, he was Tapajós and Xingu Rivers (both south-
adamant that his eighth expedition would eastern tributaries of the Amazon) and
be the one to provide the evidence he was the Araguaia River. Somewhere east of
looking for. With funding in place from a the Xingu, in the mysterious Serra do
London group of financiers known as ‘The Roncador (‘Snoring Mountains’), Fawcett
Glove’, the expedition finally came together hoped to find “Z”. Thereafter the party
in 1925, and consisted of Fawcett, his eldest would cross the Rio São Francisco into
son Jack, a would-be Hollywood actor, and Bahía state to explore the ruined city
Jack’s best friend Raleigh Rimmell. described in the 1753 manuscript, and
36 Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017
INTREPID TRAVELLER
Left: Map showing the Mato Grosso
area in South America. Below left: Percy
Fawcett fishing in the Upper Madidi,
Bolivia, 1913-1914 (Image: RGS:IBG)
Below: Cover of Brazilian Adventure
written by Peter Fleming in 1934 and
Peter Fleming himself
The Hunt for Colonel Fawcett Hunting in the Jungle – Being the Story of With Fleming onboard as official
Despite the Colonel’s wishes, more a Search for Three Explorers Lost in the correspondent, the expedition organised
than a dozen expeditions subsequently Brazilian Wilds (1930), which received by Robert Churchward embarked for São
set out to discover the fate of the lost the silver screen treatment in 1958 as Paulo. From there it travelled overland to
expedition. Allegedly claiming the lives Manhunt in the Jungle. the Araguaia River and then headed for
of up to a hundred men, they generated A very different story emerged from the Upper Xingu and ‘Dead Horse Camp’,
little useful evidence of Fawcett’s fate. the jungle four years later courtesy of a the last reported position of the Fawcett
For some, ‘looking for Fawcett’ became Swiss traveller called Stefan Rattin. He expedition (the camp was so-named
an obsession, even a profession of sorts, had travelled into Mato Grosso along because Fawcett had shot a sick pack
offering exactly the type of the Rio Arinos, where he claimed horse there on an earlier expedition).
adventure Fawcett himself found Riven by internal disagreements from
so addictive. And there was the start, however, Fleming soon formed
commercial gain to be had, too, a breakaway party to look for Fawcett
whether in the form of book independently. Both made slow progress
deals and newspaper articles for for several days before finally admitting
those leading rescue parties, defeat.
or rewards for those Indians The return to civilization became a
willing to reveal evidence, closely-fought race between the two
however spurious, of the lost parties, the prize being the privilege of
explorers. Over time, finding reporting home first, and gaining the
evidence of Fawcett became a upper hand in the inevitable squabbles
more lucrative business than over blame, squandered finances and
finding his fabulous lost city. book contracts. Fleming’s party narrowly
The Fawcett expedition won, returning to England in November
was not expected back until 1932. His tale of the fiasco, Brazilian
1927 but when it failed to return to have met an elderly Adventure (1934), is now considered a
the rumours started flying. The first white man with a long beard held captive minor classic of travel writing, in which
major rescue party set out a year later in by Indians. The man allegedly revealed Fleming, on the subject of Fawcett,
earnest, led by Commander George Miller himself as Colonel Fawcett and showed remarked that “enough legend has grown
Dyott, a man familiar with the Brazilian him a signet ring, which he asked Rattin up around the subject to form a new and
hinterland. Despite being dubbed “The to report upon his return to São Paulo. separate branch of folk-lore”. By contrast,
Suicide Club” it attracted a huge number Fawcett’s wife Nina said she recognised Robert Churchward’s wonderfully-
of volunteers looking for adventure. immediately the description of the ring, titled Wilderness of Fools – An Account
Dyott picked up Fawcett’s trail in the stirring up enough interest for further of the Adventures in Search of Lieut.-
village of Bakairí Post, and followed it rescue expeditions to be mounted. Colonel P. H. Fawcett (1936) vanished as
across the wilderness of Central Brazil One of the more successful expeditions mysteriously as its subject.
into the Amazon forest but was eventually was notable for the presence of Peter
driven back by hostile Indians and lack Fleming, brother of James Bond creator Fawcett Fever
of supplies. From what Dyott could glean Ian Fleming, who in April 1932 replied to Except for the brass name plate recovered
from the Kalapalo tribe of the Upper an advertisement in the personal columns by Dyott in 1928 and a theodolite compass
Xingu, and the discovery of a brass plate of The Times: “Exploring and sporting recovered in 1933 (probably jettisoned
around the neck of an Indian bearing the expedition under experienced guidance during an earlier expedition), nothing
name of the company that had supplied leaving England June to explore rivers tangible had ever emerged from the
Fawcett’s gear, the Colonel and the others Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate jungle since the Colonel’s disappearance
had most likely been murdered. Colonel Fawcett; abundant game, big and in 1925. Most likely the expedition had
These sketchy findings were detailed small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO been murdered either by hostile Indians
in Dyott’s extravagantly-titled book Man MORE GUNS.” (perhaps the Xavante, Suyás or Kayapós,
Timeless Travels • Autumn 201737
Left: Cover of Brian Fawcett’s book, Right: Arthur Abbott, Consul General,
Ruins in the Sky São Paulo interviewing Stefan Rattin.
Below: Jack Fawcett and Raleigh Far right: Jack Fawcett on the 1925
Rimmell, 1925. expedition to Brazil (All images:
RGS:IBG)
whose territory Fawcett was unwisely anthropologist by the name of Ehrmann two others is as much of a mystery as it
entering) or else friendlier ones, like the had seen Fawcett’s shrunken head in ever was. Is it possible that the riddle may
Kalapalo, who were probably the last a village in the Upper Xingu in 1932. never be solved?”
to see the men alive and subsequently Apparently the Colonel had died Colonel Fawcett’s interest in the occult
reported that the two younger members defending his son Jack, who had broken also ensured a steady flow of more
were lame. Or they might have been some sort of tribal taboo. So the rumours esoteric accounts. Chief among them was
murdered for their rifles by renegade kept coming. Geraldine Dorothy Cummins’ The Fate of
soldiers roaming the forest in the wake Into the story now steps Fawcett’s other Colonel Fawcett: A Narrative of His last
of a recent revolution in the area. Disease son, Brian. Too young to have participated Expedition (1955), based on her supposed
or some accident might also have been in his father’s fateful expedition, he had psychic contacts with the Colonel up until
to blame, although starvation seems made a life for himself as a draughtsman 1948, when she claims he reported his
less likely given Fawcett’s longstanding on the Peruvian railways. To set the record own death to her. As late as 1934 Fawcett’s
expertise in living off the land. It is also straight once and for all he compiled his wife Nina also claimed to have received
unlikely that the expedition got lost. father’s reports and letters into a book telepathic messages from her husband,
In 1948 another expedition, the Xingu- (according to Fawcett, the manuscript of and the family are said to have employed
Roncador Expedition, was laying out his own planned book to be called Travel a medium to analyse a scarf once worn by
airfields in the territory of the Kalapalo and Mystery in South America was lost in the colonel: in a trance the medium clearly
Indians. They won the confidence of 1924, whilst doing the rounds of potential saw the party murdered and their bodies
Kalapalo Chief Ixarari, who claimed American publishers). The result was the dumped in a lake.
to have killed Fawcett and his two bestselling Exploration Fawcett (1953).
companions after Jack Fawcett had This thrilling and highly readable re- Ruins in the Sky
fathered a child with a local girl. This telling of his father’s jungle adventures Prompted by the discovery of the alleged
bolstered rumours circulating since the is peppered with Brian’s own expertly skeleton of his father by Villas Bôas, Brian
mid-1930s of a young pale-faced Indian drawn maps and illustrations. Yet still no Fawcett embarked on two of his own
seen in the area (another expedition had answer was provided as to the fate of the expeditions into the Mato Grosso, in an
recently returned with an albino boy expedition: “Up to the time of writing attempt to solve the mystery for himself.
named Dulipé, who its leader insisted was these words the fate of my father and the He bore a striking physical resemblance
Jack’s son). The chief went on to say that
the three bodies were then weighted with
stones and thrown into the Tanguro River.
Fearing detection, however, he claimed
the bodies were later retrieved and left on
the bank to be scavenged, after which the
bones were dispersed.
In 1951 Brazilian activist Villas Bôas
produced a skeleton said to be that of
Fawcett but subsequent bone analysis
disproved his claim. By bringing closure
to the story albeit spuriously Villas Bôas
wanted to protect the Indians from
further external intrusions.
With so little to go on Fawcett rumour-
mongering continued unabated. Author
Harold T. Wilkins in his extraordinary
book Secret Cities of Old South America
(1950) related how an anonymous
informant had told him that a German
38 Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017
INTREPID TRAVELLER to his father and was a tough traveller in important. Was good quality writing (and his own right. The result was his book a little healthy debunking) perhaps a way Ruins in the Sky (1958). of getting even with them by achieving Although once again no answer was something neither of them were now given to the fate of his father, Brian did able to do? Or was there something more called Misha Williams informed the press manage to throw some much-needed light sinister at play? that the Fawcett family had granted him on the lost city of “Z”. Using the reported exclusive access to their archives. What he sighting of a lost city by one Colonel The Colonel comes of age claimed to uncover was a revelation. Brian Francisco Barros Fournier in the Review Fast forward forty years and the Fawcett Fawcett, it seems, in collusion with the of the American Geographical Society story was in the news once again. In 1996 rest of the Fawcett family had deliberately for 1938, he was able to fly over an area a television expedition put together by obscured his father’s tracks in the book six kilometres west of Pedra da Baliza a Brazilian banker, James Lynch, set off Exploration Fawcett by including false in the Brazilian state of Goiás, which is into the Mato Grosso to search for any coordinates for Fawcett’s last known sandwiched between Mato Grosso and remaining traces of the Fawcett party. It position (Dead Horse Camp). The reason Bahía. Fournier’s walls and towers were didn’t get far. Kalapolo Indians stopped for this, Williams claimed, was that the nothing more than a naturally eroded the group and held them hostage for family had always known that Fawcett series of ridges, exactly like those of the several days, only releasing them after never intended to return and instead Sete Cidades, a group of seven alleged ‘lost confiscating $30,000 worth of equipment. hoped to set up a Utopian commune deep cities’ Brian had visited in the far north of Rather more successful was a one-man in the jungle, part of what he called his Piauí state. Might “Z” therefore have been expedition undertaken two years later by “Great Scheme”. And why not? After all, nothing more than a geological formation maverick adventurer and anthropologist “The English go native very easily,” the glimpsed fleetingly by his father? Benedict Allen, who filmed his progress Colonel once wrote, “there is no disgrace In his book Brian wrote sceptically as part of the BBC’s Video Diaries series. in it.” of reports that his father and brother In exchange for an outboard motor he This new society, according to Jack were living in a secret underground was told by the chief of the Kalapalo Williams, would be founded on Madame city from where the world was ruled by that his tribe had nothing to do with the Blavatsky’s Theosophical principles, Madame Blavatsky’s superior Elders, expedition’s demise, and that Fawcett and which the Colonel had been busy a fantastical notion that still helps sell his two companions died four or five days perfecting over the years, with the help of esoteric books to this day. east of Kalapolo territory, at the hands a spirit entity he called “M”. The reason Of his father’s historical methodology of the aggressive Iaruna tribe. Allen was for the Fawcett family’s reluctance to he also casts some doubt, claiming to also told that the Villa Bôas skeleton was divulge the truth, Williams contended, have no idea “how much was based certainly not that of Fawcett but rather was that the world was not ready for such on research, how much on personal that of the chief’s own grandfather. sensational news. Just as soon as they knowledge, and how much on the With the start of a new millennium the heard from him, the remaining Fawcett babblings of clairvoyants.” Compared Fawcett legend came of age with probably family members would pack their bags with his older brother Jack, apparently his the most extraordinary twist yet in its very and join the Colonel and Jack. father’s favourite, Brian perhaps felt less long tale. In 2002 a Czech theatre director If Williams’ claims are true, it is little Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017 39
Image: Edmilson Sanches, CC BY-SA 3.0
INTREPID TRAVELLER
wonder that the missing expedition was respected writer for The New Yorker, some of the first white men the tribe had
never located since the rescue parties had Grann reports that the Kalapalo still ever encountered. The book’s greatest
been looking for Dead Horse Camp in the recall Fawcett in their oral history since revelation, however, is that a monumental
wrong place. Perhaps Fawcett had in fact the Colonel and his companions were civilization did actually once exist close to
found exactly what he was looking for and where Fawcett was looking. Its remains,
was just waiting for a chance to get word however, which were occupied between
back to his family? ...a documentary team 800 and 1600 AD, are not stone but
Cynics might say that such revelations rather earthen. Consisting of massive
tracked down the explorer’s
provided publicity for Williams, who at causeways, ditches and platforms, they
the time was promoting a play he had
granddaughter, Rolette are in the process of being revealed by
written about Fawcett called AmaZonia. de Montet-Guerin, She archaeologist Michael Heckenberger,
But in yet another twist to the tale, a confirmed the coordinates’ Associate Professor of Anthropology at
documentary team pursuing the Fawcett cover-up ...armed with the University of Florida.
trail subsequently tracked down the Far from being a ‘counterfeit paradise’,
Fawcett’s signet ring, which
explorer’s granddaughter, Rolette de as had long been claimed, the Amazon
Montet-Guerin. She confirmed the
had mysteriously turned up rain forest once supported civilizations
coordinates’ cover-up and gave her in a Brazilian market, they as complex and populous as those of
blessing for the team to pursue the finally identified the real the Inca and the Maya. This explains
correct ones. Armed with Fawcett’s signet Dead Horse Camp the great cities reported by the Spanish
ring, which had mysteriously turned up in conquistadors in their relentless search
a Brazilian market, they finally identified for El Dorado but which were swallowed
the real Dead Horse Camp but little up by the forest once their inhabitants
more. The result is an engaging piece of had succumbed to European disease.
documentary film making entitled Lost Colonel Fawcett’s lost city of “Z” it seems
in the Amazon, which has been screened had been there all along.
on PBS as part of the Emmy Award-
nominated Secrets of the Dead series.
In 2009 Fawcett fever returned one Above: The Mato Grosso in Brazil
more time with the publication of Left: Rolette de Montet-Guerin wearing
The Lost City of Z by David Grann. A Lt. Colonel Fawcett’s signet ring
40 Timeless Travels • Autumn 2017
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