The Lost City of Z (42 page)

121
“Murray is”:
Fawcett to Keltie, Dec. 31, 1911, RGS.

123
“I understand that”:
Keltie to Fawcett, June 11, 1912, RGS.

123
“Everything that could”:
Fawcett to Keltie, March 2, 1912, RGS.

123
“did not neglect”:
Keltie to Hugh Mill, March 1, 1912, RGS.

123
“I am sure”:
Keltie to Fawcett, June 1, 1912, RGS.

123
“So far they”:
Fawcett to Keltie, May 10, 1912, RGS.

124
“What a dreadful”:
Keltie to Fawcett, March 7, 1912, RGS.

124
“It's hell”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 153.

124
“He and Costin”:
Ibid., p. 154.

124
in June 1913:
On Murray's disappearance, see Niven,
Ice Master.

129
In 1910:
Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Further Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 387.

129
“The moment”:
Carvajal,
Discovery of the Amazon,
p. 438.

129
“Retire! Retire!”:
Percy Harrison Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 3, p. 552.

130
“One of these”:
Costin to daughter Mary, n.d., Costin Family Papers.

130
Over the years:
Costin's and Fawcett's recollections differ in some minor details.

130 Fawcett, for instance, remembered one of his colleagues eventually taking him across the river in a canoe.

130
“The Major made”:
Costin to daughter Mary, n.d., Costin Family Papers.

130
“On climbing the opposite”:
Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 3, p. 552.

130
“[Fawcett] disappeared”:
Costin to daughter Mary, n.d., Costin Family Papers.

131
“[They] helped us”:
Fawcett, “Further Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 388. 131
“The men are”:
Ibid.

131
“After a few minutes”:
Costin to daughter Mary, n.d., Costin Family Papers. 131
“a most intelligent”:
Fawcett, “Further Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 388.

131
“There are problems”:
Fawcett to RGS, Oct. 15, 1909, RGS.

132
“Without any hesitation”:
Costin to daughter Mary, Nov. 10, 1946, Costin Family Papers.

132
“Whenever he came”:
Costin,
Daily Chronicle
(London), Aug. 27, 1928.

132
“I know, from persons”:
Suarez, Lembcke, and Fawcett, “Further Explorations in Bolivia,” p. 397.

132
“standing deliberately”:
Nina to Keltie, 1909, RGS.

133
“His encounter with”:
Nina Fawcett to John Scott Keltie, Jan. 11, 1911, RGS. 133
There was, however:
Costin,
Daily Chronicle
(London), Aug. 27, 1928.

133
“He did not wish”:
Ibid.

133
“we could see”:
Ibid.

134
“Food problems”:
Percy Harrison Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 171. 134
“[The Echojas] would”:
Ibid., p. 149.

134
“I sucked, whistled”:
Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 2, p. 495.

134
“With illness and disease”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
pp. 168–69.

135
“In 99 cases”:
Fawcett, “In the Heart of South America,” pt. 4, p. 92.

135
Though some of the first:
For details on the first encounter between Native Americans and Europeans and on the Las Casas and Sepúlveda debate, see Huddleston,
Origins of the American Indians;
Todorov,
Conquest of America;
Pagden,
European Encounters with the New World;
and Greenblatt,
Marvelous Possessions.

135
“The Spanish have”:
Quoted in Columbia University,
Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,
pp. 526–27.

135
“Are these not men?”:
Quoted in Pagden,
European Encounters with the New World,
p. 71.

135
“pretending to be”:
Las Casas,
Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,
p. 12.

135
“the simplest people”:
Ibid., pp. 9–10.

136
“Is there any notable”:
British Association for the Advancement of Science,
Notes and Queries on Anthropology,
pp. 10–13. These racist views toward Native Americans were by no means limited to the Victorians. In 1909, the scientific director of the São Paulo Museum, Dr. Hermann von Ihering, contended that because Indians contribute “neither to labour nor to progress,” Brazil had “no alternative but to exterminate them.”

136
many Victorians now:
For my descriptions of Victorian attitudes on race, I've drawn on several excellent books. They include Stocking,
Victorian Anthropology;
Kuklick,
Savage Within;
Stepan,
Idea of Race in Science;
and Kennedy,
Highly Civilized Man.

136
“ quasi-gorillahood”:
Quoted in Kennedy,
Highly Civilized Man,
p. 133.

137
“ sub-species”:
Ibid., p. 143.

137
“these poor wretches”:
Quoted in Stocking,
Victorian Anthropology,
p. 105.

137
“firmness”:
Quoted in A. N. Wilson,
Victorians,
pp. 104–5.

137
eugenics, which once:
Victoria Glendinning,
Leonard Woof: A Biography
(New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 149.

137
“children in mind”:
Quoted in Stocking,
Victorian Anthropology,
p. 157.

137
lost tribes of Israel:
According to the Bible, in 722
B.C.,
the Assyrian army carried away and dispersed ten tribes from the northern Israelite kingdom. What happened to them has long mystified scholars. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Antonio de Montezinos, a Sephardic Jew who had escaped the Inquisition, claimed that he had found the descendants of the tribes in the Amazon jungle—that land “where never mankind dwelt.” Some of the Indians, he reported, had said to him in Hebrew, “Hear O Israel! The Lord Our God the Lord is One.” The influential European rabbi and scholar Menasseh ben Israel later endorsed Montezinos's account, and many believed that the Indians of America, whose origins had long confounded Westerners, were in fact Jews. In 1683, the Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania,
William Penn, said that he was “ready to believe” that the Indians were indeed “of the stock of the Ten Tribes.”

137 These theories were also picked up by the Mormons, who believed the Indians had originated, in part, from a migration of Jews. 137
“There are all sorts”:
Los Angeles Times,
April 16, 1925.

137
“jolly children”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
pp. 170, 201.

138
“savages of”:
Ibid., p. 215. 138
“My experience”:
Ibid., p. 49.

138
“roasted over”:
Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Bolivian Exploration, 1913–1914,” p. 225.

138
“elaborate ritual”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 203.

138
“plain proof”:
Ibid., p. 170.

138
“He knew the Indians”:
Thomas Charles Bridges,
Pictorial Weekly,
n.d.

138
“He understood them”:
Costin,
Daily Chronicle
(London), Aug. 27, 1928.

138
“mental maze”:
Kennedy,
Highly Civilized Man,
p. 143.

138
“There are three”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 95.

139
“white as we”:
Quoted in Babcock, “Early Observations in American Physical Anthropology,” p. 309.

139
“men, women and”:
Quoted in Woolf, “Albinism (OCA2) in Amerindians,” p. 121.

139
“very white”:
Carvajal,
Discovery of the Amazon,
p. 214.

139
“Nietzschean explorer”:
Hemming,
Die If You Must,
p. 78.

140
“Probably none of us”:
Fawcett, “Bolivian Exploration, 1913–1914,” p. 222. 140
“They slipped in”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
pp. 199–200.

140
“Don't move!”:
Costin,
Daily Chronicle
(London), Aug. 27, 1928.

140
“I myself made”:
Ibid.

140
“Our friendship”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 199.

141
They had befriended:
The renowned Swedish anthropologist Baron Erland Nor-denskiöld later reported that Fawcett had “discovered an important indigenous tribe that … has never been visited by the white man.”

141
“We do not”:
Bowman, “Remarkable Discoveries in Bolivia,” p. 440.

141
“Perhaps this is why”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 173.

141
“The tribe is also”:
Fawcett, “Bolivian Exploration, 1913–1914,” p. 224.

141
“intractable, hopelessly brutal”:
Ibid., p. 228.

141
“brave and intelligent”:
Fawcett,
Exploration Fawcett,
p. 200.

142
“Wherever there are”:
Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Memorandum Regarding the Region of South America Which It Is Intended to Explore” (proposal), 1920, RGS.

142
“roads” and “causeways”:
Ibid.

142
There was, for instance:
For details on Henry Savage Landor, see Hopkirk's
Trespassers on the Roof of the World
and Landor's
Everywhere
and
Across Unknown South America.

142
“I did not masquerade”:
Landor,
Across Unknown South America,
vol. 1, p. 14.

143
“In Xanadu”:
Quoted in Millard,
River of Doubt,
p. 3.

143
“I am going very slowly”:
Church, “Dr. Rice's Exploration in the North-Western Valley of the Amazon,” pp. 309–10.

143
“We look upon”:
H.E., “The Rio Negro, the Casiquiare Canal, and the Upper Orinoco,” p. 343.

144
“probably the first surgical”:
Royal Geographical Society, “Monthly Record,” June 1913, p. 590.

144
one occasion they mutinied:
New York Times,
Sept. 7, 1913.

144
“He is a medical”:
Keltie to Fawcett, Jan. 29, 1914, RGS.

144
“as much at home”:
New York Times,
July 24, 1956.

144
“Explorers are not”:
Fawcett to RGS, Jan. 24, 1922, RGS.

145
“Keep your ears open”:
Keltie to Fawcett, March 10, 1911, RGS.

145
“I see he even”:
Quoted in Millard,
River of Doubt,
p. 338.

145
“a pure fake”:
Ibid., p. 339.

145
“no mountaineer
can”:
Quoted in Hopkirk,
Trespassers on the Roof of the World,
p. 135.

145
“unintelligible”:
New York Times,
Oct. 6, 1915.

145
“for an elderly man”:
Fawcett to Keltie, Feb. 3, 1915, RGS.

145
“I do not wish”:
Fawcett to Keltie, April 15, 1924, RGS.

145
“a humbug from”:
Fawcett to Keltie, Sept. 27, 1912, RGS.

146
“counted in with”:
Fawcett to Keltie, April 9, 1915, RGS.

146
In 1900, Rondon:
Millard,
River of Doubt,
p. 77.

146
“gentlemen, owing to”:
Percy Harrison Fawcett, “Case for an Expedition in the Amazon Basin” (proposal), April 13, 1924, RGS.

146
“the idea of”:
Brian Fawcett,
Ruins in the Sky,
p. 231.

146
“I think you worry”:
Keltie to Fawcett, Jan. 29, 1914, RGS.

146
“sure to go out”:
Ibid.

147
“prove to be”:
Bingham, introduction to
Lost City of the Incas,
pp. 17–18.

147
“the pin-up of”:
Hugh Thomson,
Independent
(London), July 21, 2001.

148
“The great lord”:
Quoted in Hemming,
Search for El Dorado,
p. 97.

149
So, according to:
For details, see Hemming's definitive account,
The Search for El Dorado.
Also see Wood,
Conquistadors;
Smith,
Explorers of the Amazon;
and St. Clair,
Mighty, Mighty Amazon.

149
“gleaming like”:
Quoted in Hemming,
Search for El Dorado,
p. 101.

149
As fanciful as these:
The theologian Sepúlveda would later dismiss the “ingenuity” of the Indians, such as the Aztecs and the Incas, by saying “animals, birds, and spiders” can also make “certain structures which no human accomplishment can competently imitate.”

149
“Some of our soldiers”:
Quoted in Hemming,
Search for El Dorado,
p. 7.