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

To Fawcett, though, there was only one piece of news that mattered: his rival had not found Z.

BOUNDING OUT OF the hotel one April morning, Fawcett felt the blazing sun on his face. The dry season had arrived. After nightfall on April 19, he led Raleigh and Jack through the city, where outlaws carrying Winchester.44 rifles often lingered in the doorways of dimly lit canti nas. Bandits had earlier attacked a group of diamond prospectors staying in the same hotel as Fawcett and his party. “[A prospector] and one of the bandits were killed, and two others seriously wounded,” Jack told his mother. “The police went to work on the case after a few days, and over a cup of coffee asked the murderers why they did it! Nothing more has happened.”

The explorers stopped at the house of John Ahrens, a German diplomat in the region whom they had befriended. Ahrens offered his guests tea and biscuits. Fawcett asked the diplomat if he would relay to Nina and the rest of the world any letters or other news from the expedition that emerged from the jungle. Ahrens indicated that he was pleased to do so, and he later wrote Nina to say that her husband's conversations about Z were so rare and interesting that he had never been happier.

The next morning, under Fawcett's watchful eye, Jack and Raleigh put on their explorer outfits, including lightweight, tear-proof pants and Stetsons. They loaded their.30-caliber rifles and armed themselves with eighteen-inch machetes, which Fawcett had had designed by the best steelmaker in England. A report sent out by NANA was headlined “Unique Outfit for Explorer… Product of Years' Experience in Jungle Research. Weight of Utensils Reduced to Last Ounce.”

Fawcett hired two native porters and guides to accompany the expedition until the more dangerous terrain, about a hundred miles north. On April 20, a crowd gathered to see the party off. At the crack of whips, the caravan jolted forward, Jack and Raleigh as proud as could be. Ahrens accompanied the explorers for about an hour on his own horse. Then, as he told Nina, he watched them march northward “into a world so far completely uncivilised and unknown by people.”

The expedition crossed the cerrado, or “dry forest,” which was the least difficult part of the journey-the terrain consisted mostly of short, twisting trees and savanna-like grass, where a few ranchers and prospectors had established settlements. Yet, as Fawcett told his wife in a letter, it was “an excellent initiation” for Jack and Raleigh, who picked their way slowly, unaccustomed to the rocky ground and the heat. It was so hot, Fawcett wrote in a particularly fervid dispatch, that in the Cuiabá River “fish were literally cooked alive.”

By twilight, they had trekked seven miles, and Fawcett signaled to set up camp. Jack and Raleigh learned that this meant a race, before darkness enveloped them and the mosquitoes devoured their flesh, to string their hammocks, clean their cuts to prevent infections, collect firewood, and secure the pack animals. Dinner was sardines, rice, and biscuits-a feast compared with what they would eat once they had to survive off the land.

That night, as they slept in their hammocks, Raleigh felt something brushing against him. He awoke in a panic, as if he were being attacked by a jaguar, but it was only one of the mules, which had broken free. After he tied it up, he tried to fall asleep again, but before long dawn broke and Fawcett was shouting for everyone to move out, each person wolfing down a bowl of porridge and half a cup of condensed milk, his rations until supper; then the men were off again, racing to keep up with their leader.

Fawcett increased the pace from seven miles a day to ten miles, then to fifteen. One afternoon, as the explorers approached the Manso River, some forty miles north of Cuiabá, the rest of the expedition became separated from Fawcett. As Jack later wrote to his mother, “Daddy had gone on ahead at such a speed that we lost sight of him altogether.” It was just as Costin had feared: there was no one to stop Fawcett. The trail forked, and the Brazilian guides didn't know which way Fawcett had turned. Eventually, Jack noticed indentations from hooves on one of the trails, and gave the order to follow them. Darkness was descending, and the men had to be careful not to lose each other as well. They could hear a sustained roar in the distance. With each step it grew louder, and suddenly the men discerned the rush of water. They had reached the Manso River. Still, Fawcett was nowhere to be found. Jack, assuming command of the party, told Raleigh and one of the guides to fire their rifles in the air. There was no reply. “Daddy,” Jack yelled, but all he could hear was the screeching of the forest.

Jack and Raleigh hung their hammocks and made a fire, fearing that Fawcett had been seized by the Kayapó Indians, who inserted large round disks in their lower lips and attacked their enemies with wooden clubs. The Brazilian guides, who recalled vivid accounts of Indian raids, did nothing to calm Jack's and Raleigh's nerves. The men lay awake, listening to the jungle. When the sun rose, Jack ordered everyone to fire more gunshots and to search the surrounding area. Then, as the explorers were eating breakfast, Fawcett appeared on his horse. While looking for rock paintings, he had lost track of the group and had slept on the ground, using his saddle for a pillow. When Nina heard what had happened, she feared how “anxious” they all must have been. She had received a photograph of Jack looking unusually somber, which she had shown to Large. “[Jack] has evidently been thinking about the big job before him,” Large told her. She noted later that Jack's pride would keep him going, for he would say to himself, “My father chose me for this.”

Fawcett let the expedition remain in camp another day to recover from the ordeal. Huddling under his mosquito net, he composed his dispatches, which from that point on would be “relayed to civilization by Indian runners over a long and perilous route,” as editors' notes later explained.

Fawcett described the area as “the tickiest place in the world;” the insects swarmed over everything, like black rain. Several bit Raleigh on his foot, and the irritated flesh became infected-“poisoned,” in Jack's phrase. As they pressed on the next day, Raleigh grew more and more gloomy. “It is a saying that one only knows a man well when in the wilds with him,” Fawcett told Nina. “Raleigh in place of being gay and energetic, is sleepy and silent.”

Jack, in contrast, was gaining in ardor. Nina was right: he seemed to have inherited Fawcett's freakish constitution. Jack wrote that he had packed on several pounds of muscle, “in spite of far less food. Raleigh has lost more than I gained, and it is he who seems to feel most the effects of the journey.”

Upon hearing about Jack from her husband, Nina told Large, “I think you will rejoice with me in the knowledge that Jack is turning out so capable, and keeping strong and well. I can see his father is very pleased with him, and needless to say so am I!”

Because of Raleigh's condition and the weakened animals, Fawcett, who was more careful not to get too far ahead again, stopped for several days at a cattle-breeding ranch owned by Hermenegildo Galvão, one of the most ruthless farmers in Mato Grosso. Galvão had pushed farther into the frontier than most Brazilians and reportedly had a posse of bugueiros, “savage hunters,” who were charged with killing Indians who threatened his feudal empire. Galvão was not accustomed to visitors, but he welcomed the explorers into his large red-brick home. “It was quite obvious from his manners that Colonel Fawcett was a gentleman and a man of engaging personality,” Galvão later told a reporter.