David Grann - The Lost City of Z - A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

Murray gathered from his manner that Costin and the others expected him to die-that they would never see him again. The men loaded him onto the mule. His limbs, like his knee, had begun to discharge foul matter. “It is surprising the quantity that comes from both arm and knee,” Murray wrote. “The matter from the arm is very inflammatory and makes the whole forearm red flesh and very painful. The discharge from the knee is more copious; it runs down in streams from half-a-dozen holes and saturates my stockings.” He could barely sit up on the mule. “Feel more ill than ever I did, knee very bad, heel very bad, kidneys upset, whether from food or poison and must pass water frequently.” He prepared to die: “Lie awake all night wondering how the end will be, and whether it is justifiable to make it easier, with drugs or otherwise”-an apparent allusion to suicide. He continued, “Cannot say afraid of the end itself, but wonder if it will be very difficult.”

Fawcett, Manley, and Costin, meanwhile, trudged on, trying to complete at least part of the mission. A month later, when they left the jungle in Cojata, Peru, there was no word of Murray. He had vanished. Later, in La Paz, Fawcett sent off a letter to the Royal Geographical So ciety:

Murray is, I regret to say, missing… The Govt. of Peru is instituting searching enquiries, but I fear he must have received some accident on the dangerous Cordillera trails, or have died en route of gangrene. The British Minister has his case in hand and his family will not be communicated with unless there is definite news of some kind or all hopes of his existence are abandoned.

Pointing out that Manley had almost died as well, Fawcett concluded, “I am well and fit myself but want a rest.”

Then, miraculously, Murray emerged from the forest. It turned out that, after more than a week, he had made it on the mule with the settler to Tambopata, a frontier outpost on the border of Bolivia and Peru that consisted of a single house; there a man named Sardon and his family had nursed him for weeks. They slowly squeezed out “a good many dead maggots, big fat fellows,” drained the pus from his sores, and fed him. When he was strong enough, they put him on a mule and sent him to La Paz. Along the way, he “read enquires about Senor Murray, supposed dead in this region.” He reached La Paz in the beginning of 1912. His arrival shocked authorities, who discovered that he was not only alive but furious.

Murray accused Fawcett of all but trying to murder him, and was incensed that Fawcett had insinuated that he was a coward. Keltie informed Fawcett, “I understand that there is a possibility that the matter may be put into the hands of a well known solicitor. James Murray has got powerful and wealthy friends behind him.” Fawcett insisted, “Everything that could humanely speaking be done for him was done… Strictly speaking, he owed his condition to unsanitary habits, insatiability for food, and excessive partiality for strong liquor-all of which are suicidal in such places.” Fawcett added, “I have little sympathy with him. He knew to a detail what he would have to put up with and that on such journeys of a pioneering character illness and accidents cannot be allowed to jeopardize the safety of the party. Everyone who goes with me understands that much clearly before hand. It was only that he and Mr. Manley both were sick which compelled me to abandon the journey projected. That he was rushed rather mercilessly… was a matter of food supply and the necessity of saving his life, of which he himself was inclined to be pessimistic.” Costin was willing to testify on Fawcett's behalf, as was Manley. The Royal Geographical Society, examining the initial evidence, suspected that Fawcett “did not ne glect Murray, but did his best for him under the circumstances.” Nevertheless, the Society pleaded with Fawcett to quietly put the matter to rest before it became a national scandal. “I am sure you don't want to do Murray any injury and now you are both in a temperate climate I think you might take steps to come to an understanding,” Keltie said.

Whether Fawcett extended an apology to Murray or vice versa is not clear, but the full details of the feud were never made public, including how close Fawcett had come to deserting his countryman in the jungle. Costin, meanwhile, was now the one on the verge of death. His espundia was rapidly growing worse, and was compounded by other possible infections. “So far they have been unable to cure him,” Fawcett informed Keltie. “But he is undergoing a fresh and peculiarly painful course of treatment at the School of Tropical Medicine [in London]. I sincerely hope he will recover.” After an official from the RGS visited Costin, he told Fawcett in a letter, “What a dreadful sight he is poor man.” Gradually, Costin recovered his health, and when Fawcett announced that he planned to return to the Amazon he decided to accompany him. As he put it, “It's hell all right, but one kind of likes it.” Manley, too, despite his brush with death, pledged to go with Fawcett. “He and Costin were the only assistants I could ever call completely reliable and fully adaptable, and never have I wished for better company,” Fawcett said.

Murray, for his part, had had enough of the tropics. He longed for the familiar bleakness of ice and snow, and in June 1913 joined a Canadian scientific expedition to the Arctic. Six weeks later, the ship he was on, the Karluk, became embedded in the ice and eventually had to be abandoned. This time Murray helped to lead a mutiny against the captain, and with a breakaway faction he escaped with sleds across the barren snow. The captain was able to rescue his party. Murray and his party, however, were never seen again.

When I landed in São Paulo, Brazil, I went to see the person who I was sure could assist me on my expedition: James Lynch. He was the Brazilian explorer who, in 1996, had led the last major expedition to uncover evidence of Fawcett's missing party and who, along with his sixteen-year-old son and ten other explorers, had been abducted by Indians. I had heard that, after Lynch had managed to escape from captivity and returned to São Paulo, he had left his job at Chase Bank and started a financial consulting firm. (Part of its name was, aptly, Phoenix.) When I phoned him, he agreed to meet me at his office, which was situated in a skyscraper downtown. He seemed older and gentler than the figure I had conjured in my imagination. He wore an elegant suit, and his blond hair was neatly combed. He led me into his office, on the ninth floor, and peered out the window. “São Paulo makes New York City seem almost small, doesn't it?” he said, noting that the metropolitan area had eighteen million people. He shook his head with wonder and sat down at his desk. “So how can I help you?”

I told him about my plans to trace Fawcett's route.

“You got the Fawcett bug, huh?” he said.

By then, I had it more than I cared to admit, and I said simply, “It seems like an interesting story.”

“Oh, that it is. That it is.”

When I asked how he had escaped from captivity, he stiffened slightly in his chair. He explained that, after he and his group were transported up-river, the Indians had forced them out of the boats and up a massive clay embankment. At the top, the Indians posted guards and set up a makeshift camp. Lynch said that he had tried to make a note of everything and everyone-to find a weak spot-but darkness soon enveloped them, and he could distinguish his captors only by their voices. Strange noises emanated from the forest. “Have you ever heard the sound of a jungle?” Lynch asked. I shook my head. “It's not what you imagine,” he went on. “It's not really loud or anything like that. But it's always talking.”