Percy Fawcett

Percy Harrison Fawcett in 1911 in the Peruvian city of Juliaca

Percival Harrison Fawcett (born August 31, 1867 in Torquay ; lost and probably † in the summer of 1925 on the upper reaches of the Rio Xingu ) was a British explorer , adventurer and ethnologist . He was initially a soldier in the British Army and with the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) he learned the skill of surveying . His expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century took him to South America several times . Posterity will remember him mainly because he disappeared without a trace together with his older son during his last research trip through the Brazilian jungle, which gave rise to much speculation in Great Britain about his whereabouts. On the other hand, his successful earlier trips have almost been forgotten.

While his first expeditions took him officially into the tropical rainforest to measure international borders and rivers, he turned his attention on later journeys - on the basis of various indications - to the search for a city allegedly submerged in the Brazilian rainforest (by him Called "Z").

Biographical overview

Fawcett's hometown of Torquay

Percy Fawcett was born in 1867 to the Indian- born Edward B. Fawcett and his wife Myra Fawcett in Torquay, a small town in the southern English county of Devon . He himself later described his childhood as devoid of parental love. This explains why he tried at an early age to escape the constraints of the family and become independent. Fawcett attended Newton Abbot School . His father was a member of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and tried to interest his son in this topic from an early age. However, this initially joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery after graduating from school in 1886 , for which he was stationed in Trincomalee , Sri Lanka . There he met his future wife Nina, the daughter of a judge. Although Fawcett generally accepted military service, he viewed it more as a means to the end of making money. In the decade from 1893 to 1903 he was posted frequently, for example to England and Malta . Then Fawcett , who had meanwhile risen to lieutenant colonel , worked for the Secret Intelligence Service in Morocco , where he learned the craft of land surveying . Another job change to Hong Kong followed before he was ordered back to Sri Lanka. Nina and Percy married there in 1901, and their first son Jack (1903–1925) was also born there. Brian was born in 1906 and died in 1984.

In addition to his job, Percy Fawcett maintained a close friendship with the authors Henry Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle . During World War I he served on the British side as a soldier on the Western Front in the trenches , and in 1916 the Royal Geographical Society awarded him a gold medal for his contributions to South America .

There are media reports that Fawcett and his family ran into financial hardship a year before his last mission. He and his family were forced to move to a hut with no electricity or running water. Selling your own furniture should improve the household budget. He also owed his three pound membership fee for the Royal Geographical Society.

The research trips

Around 1900 the rainforest plateau of Mato Grosso in South America was one of the last not yet fully surveyed areas on earth. There was a border dispute between Bolivia and Brazil , as important raw materials such as large rubber tree deposits were suspected in the region. In 1906, the Royal Geographical Society was the third party to arbitrate. The organization should measure and map the area and thus establish the definitive and recognized boundary line.

George Taubman Goldie , then President of the Society, selected Fawcett after a personal interview to head the surveying expedition, even though he had no experience of South America. The decisive factor for the choice was the fact that army comrades, also members of the RGS, had come to Taubman Goldie and spoken out in favor of Fawcett, who, in their opinion, had the neutrality and strength of character required for the expedition. Fawcett himself was enthusiastic about this news and was looking forward to the trip, as it seemed to him a welcome change from everyday life in the army. Several years later he announced:

“The secret of its vast, unexplored wilderness made the allure of South America irresistible to me. Fate determined that I should go. "

The trip was organized by the Royal Geographical Society, which both provided the equipment and recruited donors.

First journey

La Paz - Sorata - Mapiri - Rurrenabaque - Riberalta - Cobija - Xapuri - Villa Bella - Riberalta

After a long journey via New York City , the Panama Canal and Peru , the expedition team reached the Bolivian city of La Paz in June 1906 . At first it looked as if the trip would already end there, as Fawcett and the British government had not been able to agree on the costs of the trip and the latter demanded a clarification of the situation before a possible start. After the problems were resolved, the participants previously designated by the Royal Geographical Society - Fawcett, AJ Chalmers, Carlos Dunn and eight Tamupasa Indians - set out north on July 4th. Fawcett had chosen mules as pack animals .

The first stop of the expedition on the route set by the Royal Geographic Society was the small town of Sorata north of La Paz. From there it moved further northeast, following the Mapiri Trail , a toll path through the rainforest. The Richter family, who came from Germany, struck this in order to be able to transport the quinine obtained on their plantation for sale more quickly. From Mapiri , a city where the majority of the male population was drunk, which Fawcett very shocked, he continued the journey in boats, first downstream on the Río Mapiri and then on the resulting Río Beni .

Rurrenabaque - referred to by Fawcett as the "desolate heap"

Fourteen days after leaving La Paz, the group finally reached Rurrenabaque , which Fawcett later described as a “desolate dump” on the way into the rainforest and “a metropolis on the way out”. In the city, contrary to what had been agreed, the surveying instruments for the expedition were not ready, but the British were put off that this was the case in the downstream Riberalta . One day after arriving, they met two customs officers from La Paz who were supposed to bring several mail bags to Riberalta. Since everyone had a common goal, it was decided to continue together. After a stay of several days, the group went down the river on August 8th with Batelóns , simple wooden ships. A Batelón was about twelve meters long and three and a half meters wide and had a draft of about three feet.

The expedition members managed to overcome the dreaded Altamarani rapids unharmed. However, the boats leaked, so they had to go ashore after a journey of only 16 kilometers and repair them. The repair took only two days, and the rest of the river trip was uneventful. The researchers drifted downstream at about five kilometers per hour and ate monkey meat, fruit, turtle eggs and wild boar. Only bathing in the river was dangerous, as stingrays , electric eels and candirus could be found in it. There were no incidents. The newspapers and magazines from the mailbags that had been opened by the customs officers out of boredom served to pass the time.

Twenty days after leaving Rurrenabaque, on August 28, 1906, Fawcett and his men reached Riberalta . It was there that Fawcett actually found the instruments he needed and met knowledgeable officers who were informed about his expedition and its significance. Riberalta became the base camp for the expedition. Here she equipped herself to carry out the surveying job.

Together with a Jamaican cook and the Scotsman Urquhart, who lives in Bolivia, the group around Fawcett paddled from Riberalta up the Río Orthon and then its source river, the Río Tahuamanu , in a south-westerly direction upstream. Fawcett later reported on numerous wild animals, some of which were still unknown, which represented a previously underestimated danger for the expedition. For example, vampire bats ate the supplies, and two of the fingers of a companion who wanted to wash his blood-stained hands in the river were bitten off by piranhas . He could receive medical care. After a 43-day river cruise, the group arrived in the village of Porvenir . From there she moved overland and through the rainforest to the northern Bolivian city of Cobija . Problems quickly developed there in dealing with the residents. It turned out that many of the white people in the settlement were law breakers who had been deported to Bolivia from the wild west of the United States . The members of the expedition were embroiled in a few minor conflicts and once in an alcohol-fueled brawl. The tour group was forced to stay in Cobija over Christmas. Fawcett used this time to complete the measurement data for a railway line that was to connect Porvenir with Cobija.

Fawcett's first trip

In January 1907, the journey could be continued, and Fawcett and his companions drove up the Brazilian-Bolivian border river Río Acre by boat , the source of which had to be found. The village of Yorongas served as a stopover on the stage. Fawcett managed to locate the origin of the river and thus map the exact location of the stream. On the way back to Cobija the expedition met, if you believe Fawcett's statements, a Sucuriju gigante , a giant snake that locals had told Fawcett about a few weeks earlier. The animal wriggled towards the bank and Fawcett fired several rifle shots, hitting it three times below the head. Then he measured the body, which was still half in the water, with the simplest means and came to a length of 20.5 meters and a thickness of about 40 centimeters, which he entered in his expedition report (other sources speak of 19 meters in length and 30 centimeters in thickness or 18.9 meters in length). The description of this encounter brought him scorn and ridicule from the scientific community after his return home, as nobody wanted to believe in the existence of such long queues.

The expedition then returned to Cobija and turned north towards the Brazilian city of Xapuri . Fawcett then led the small group to the northeastern Copatara and a little later met the Río Rappirao, which the expedition traveled a little downstream in Batelóns, before reaching the confluence of the Río Abuná . The scientists paddled this river, which has not yet been shown on any map, upstream and thus practically back again in the direction from which they had come. Fawcett was the first European to find the origin of this river. He then traveled the Río Rappirao downstream to the confluence with the Rio Madeira , into which he also swung in an upstream direction. After a few days, Fawcett's expedition reached the small settlement of Villa Bella .

Finally, the group led by the British returned to Riberalta on May 20, 1907. From there, however, an onward journey to La Paz was initially not possible because of transport difficulties. Only after a waiting period of several weeks was it possible to set off for Rurrenabaque. Fawcett later described the following ride as one of the toughest he had ever made. They did not arrive in Rurrenabaque until 45 days later, on September 24th (the journey there took less than half the time to cover the same distance), and four porters had since died of yellow fever . In addition, a short trip to the Río Madidi would almost have resulted in a fatal accident. There were unexpectedly powerful rapids behind a ledge. While the raft crew was able to steer ashore just in time, Fawcett got caught in the current. The river was too deep at this point to steer with the pole, so that the raft drove into the cataracts without a guide . The group lost most of their equipment, but there were no injuries, which is all the happier when you consider Fawcett's remarks about the incident:

"[...] The raft seemed to balance there for a moment before it fell away from us. Rolling over two or three times as it shot through the air, the balsa crashed down into the black depths. Looking back, we saw where we got through. The waterfall was about six meters high, and where the river fell the gorge narrowed to a gap only ten feet wide; the enormous volume of water rushed through this bottle neck with unbelievable force; thundered down into a wave of brown foam and black-tipped rocks. It seemed unbelievable that we could have survived this maelstrom. "

After the hardships of the return journey, the town of Rurrenabaque actually had "the amenities of a town" in the eyes of Percy Fawcett. The expedition group did not stay long in the city and traveled on as quickly as possible. Via Sorata one reached the arduous ascent to the plateaus of the Andes . On October 17, 1907, he entered La Paz as a “bearded ruffian, almost burned black by the hot sun”.

Percy Fawcett's first trip was successful. Although the results of his work did not meet Bolivia's expectations, they were accepted by both countries involved in the border dispute. Bolivia had speculated on a larger share of the rubber tree-growing areas, but saw that the arbitration by the Royal Geographical Society had been honest and impartial and therefore decided to resolve the diplomatic conflict.

The lost city of Z

During the trip, a chief of the Nhambiquara Indians told Fawcett the legend of the legendary city of Manoa, which the Indians described as a stone city or a black city . This ruined city is said to be hidden on a plain in Mato Grosso near the Rio Xingu and surrounded by dense rainforest and blue mountains. According to the chief, the city has trenches, statues, roads and cobbled streets and is guarded by a wild Indian tribe, the Suya . In addition, according to the chief, huge unknown animals have been sighted at lakes in the area in which the city is said to be. At the end of the conversation he is said to have given the European researcher a small and very old stone on which the image of a man wearing a Roman toga and sandals was engraved.

After completing the expedition, Fawcett drove back to the coast in Rio de Janeiro . There he discovered in the State Archives a document dated 1753 about Portuguese sailors and adventurers who had set out inland in 1743 to explore the rainforest for gold and silver mines. Instead of the natural resources, they supposedly found something else. The report told of one

"Hidden and great old city, with no inhabitants, that was discovered in the Amazon."

The ruined city should therefore be in the Serra do Roncador near the Rio Xingu in Mato Grosso , Brazil . Fawcett was convinced that this report confirmed the legend of the Indians. At first he only called the city “Z”.

The Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine was one of the first magazines in which Percy Fawcett its views to the town Z expounded publicly

The thought of the sunken city should never leave him. In addition to his professional activity, he continuously researched and put forward a multitude of hypotheses. In many cases he developed the thoughts of other scientists. For example, he based himself on the considerations of the Danish zoologist and paleontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund , went on to explain them and came to the conclusion that the city must be on the Brazilian rainforest plateau. He also researched the writings of Christian missionaries and Spanish conquerors and said that the blue-eyed Toltecs migrated south from Mexico. He tried to make his ideas public at meetings of the Royal Geographical Society and said at a lecture in 1910:

“I've met half a dozen men who swore they saw white Indians with red hair. Such communication, as there has been in some parts with the wild Indians, confirms the existence of such a race with blue eyes. A lot of people inside have heard of them. "

Fawcett took the view that these European-looking Indians, who had never had contact with Europeans, were the descendants of a lost high culture that inhabited Z. He called this ancient people of origin Tapuyas . At another famous lecture to the Royal Geographical Society the following year, he argued:

“I alluded to the stories that await the researcher should he leave the rivers and move away from the rubber districts and into the more remote forests. You are not exaggerating. There are strange animals and bizarre insects for the naturalists and reasons of every kind not to dismiss the existence of mysterious, white Indians as a myth. There are rumors of forest pygmies and ancient ruins. Nothing at all is known of the land a few hundred yards across the river. There are tracks of strange animals, huge and unknown, in the mud of the banks of these lakes behind the unknown forests of the Bolivian Caupolican. [...] I could tickle the romantics' appetite with more; but it is not definitely enough to justify such a reputation in front of the incredulous people who sit at home and think they know all there is to know about the world based on a traveler's stories. […] The Tapuyas are decent like the British. They have hands and feet that are small and delicate. You can find them in the east of Brazil. They are refugees from an older and very large civilization. Their features are of great beauty and their hair is white, gold, and golden brown. Their gold processing and gem cutting skills are of a high degree. They wore diamonds and jade ornaments. "

According to Fawcett, the Inca were descendants of the Tapuyas too. In the British magazine Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , he announced a little too hastily that he expected the discovery of ruins that were even older than the Egyptian pyramids .

Rio Verde intermediate expedition

Asunción - Corumbá - Puerto Suárez - San Matías - Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade

After completing the first expedition, Fawcett returned to his native Britain. At first he was happy to be back with his family, but soon he felt wanderlust. In later conversations he said that the tune of a gramophone record reminded him of the course of the Río Acre and further encouraged him to go back to South America:

“[...] slow flow like liquid gold in the glow of the sunset. The menacing dark green walls of the forest came up. Inexplicable - amazing - I knew I loved this hell. Your devilish grip had caught me. "

Fawcett volunteered to measure the exact border between Bolivia and Brazil in the region around Lago Caceres for the Royal Geographical Society . On March 6, 1908, he left the English port city of Southampton by ship together with the British officer and member of the border determination commission FG Fisher .

They docked in Buenos Aires and arrived in the Paraguayan capital Asunción . From there, Fawcett and his companion drove up the Río Paraguay on boats . Finally he reached Corumbá in the Pantanal wetland , from where the tours to the lake - for example to the nearby Bolivian village of Puerto Suárez in the west - should begin. Fawcett was surprised at the enormous economic gap between Bolivia and Brazil and was pleased with the civilized nature of the Brazilian settlements compared to those “god-forgotten cities” on the other bank of the river.

The Rio Verde intermediate expedition

The work on Lago Caceres was finished relatively quickly in July, which was mainly due to the fact that there were no difficulties or weather-related interruptions. For this reason, Fawcett was recruited to also measure the Rio Verde, a small border river between Bolivia and Brazil. This was incorrectly drawn in the maps of 1873 on suspicion after its mouth had been found. Nobody had followed his run, however. Fawcett found the assignment a welcome change from the sober assigned work and believed that a real expedition would be far more appealing. A British consul warned:

“It will never be explored on foot. Many expeditions went there just to get lost ",

but Fawcett was not dissuaded from his plan and began the expedition with Fisher, Urquhart and six native porters from the Parecis tribe.

First, the group traveled up the Río Paraguay to Descalvados, from where they continued to move overland to the northwest. Via San Matías in Bolivia, Fawcett reached the village of Casal Vasco, located on a tributary of the Rio Guaporé . From now on, the expedition progressed more quickly because it could navigate the river downstream, and soon it was on the Rio Guaporé itself. After a several-day stop in Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade , the expedition continued their journey in dugouts on the river and drove to the left confluence of the Rio Verde. There the group set up camp for the first time. Parallel to the Rio Guaporé, the Ricardo Franco Hills stretched between Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade and the Rio Verde, a 120-kilometer-long table mountain range , the peaks of which were so flat that they “could have been cut by a giant's cheese knife”.

Fawcett was fascinated by the table mountains and mused in his travelogue:

“Time and man's feet hadn't touched these peaks. They stood like a lost world, wooded to their tops, and the imagination was able to imagine the remains of a long-gone age there. "

Originally, Fawcett had planned to navigate the river upstream. It had to be rescheduled, however, as the expedition was faced with several rapids over which the boats could not be pulled. Therefore these had to be given up. The researchers were forced to minimize their burdens, so Fawcett decided to bury much of his equipment, as well as 60 sovereigns worth about $ 300, in metal boxes. (Several years later, the Briton learned that these buried boxes were known as the Green Treasure . In public tales, the number of sovereigns quickly grew to 60,000, and Fawcett was amused that nowhere was it reported that he'd bought the boxes after the Research had unearthed again, but he did not disclose this fact, since he thought the story could animate treasure hunters.)

The nine participants in the expedition set out from camp on September 15, 1908 and followed the watercourse upstream. Eight days later, on September 23rd, the landscape changed. The river water, which had previously been clear and palatable, turned green and took on a bitter taste. Using samples, Fawcett found that the color was caused by increased algae growth. It can be assumed that the river got its name because of this coloring. There were almost no more fish in the algae water, and the wild animals that still lived in large numbers on its banks in the lower reaches of the Rio Verde and were hunted by the group disappeared. After a short time, the researchers' food supplies were used up. For ten days they only fed on honey, palm nuts and bird eggs before they were able to locate the source of the river on October 3rd and thus the destination of their journey. They measured and mapped the place.

For the way back to Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade, Fawcett chose a shorter and more direct route that led in an easterly direction over the table mountains, since he believed that the expedition members would not survive walking the entire river down the river to the camp without food have to. When he arrived on the mountain plateau, however, he found that it was almost impossible to go back down on the east side because the mountains were too steep. The flanks were criss-crossed by gorges and canyons, all of which ended in dead ends after a few hundred meters. So the group was forced to stay on the table mountains for several days. At night Fawcett could see the glow of local fires in the distance from the hills.

The dogs brought along were the first victims of the food shortage. One by one they starved to death. After a few days, one of the local porters left the group and lay down on the ground to die. Fawcett's only one forceful push between his ribs with the hunting knife made him stand up and walk on. After thirteen days without regular solid food, the group discovered a large mammal. Fawcett later described it as a deer; However, deer are not found in the entire American continent. The expedition leader shot the animal and the researchers ate it almost completely. Strengthened and with renewed hope, they began again to look for a safe way to descend and were successful. They followed the small watercourses and finally actually reached a small valley running parallel to the Rio Verde, in which the wildlife population was at normal levels and the drinking water was of good quality. On November 19, 1908, the Vila Bela da Santíssima group entered Trindade. A congratulatory telegram from General Pando (* 1848, † 1917), Prefect of the Bolivian Beni Department for Fawcett, was already there . He supervised all of the Briton's expeditions, and there was a high level of mutual respect between the two men, which was exemplified by the following statement by Fawcett about the general:

“A man of impressive appearance and great ability. He probably knew more about the country than any of his countrymen. He was the first official I met who really knew what work was needed for the commission. "

While Fisher was recovering, Fawcett rode a horse into the Parecis Indian camp to tell them that five of the six porters had died on the voyage and only one named Pacheco had survived. It was very important to the researcher to deliver this news personally, as he felt responsible for the participants in the expedition. He also thanked the locals for their valuable support.

Returning to Corumbá , Fawcett, Fisher, and Urquhart were hailed like heroes, and the expedition leader promised to return the following year to confirm the results. On November 18, 1908, the Rio Verde intermediate expedition finally ended in Asunción. Upon arrival in England, his companions praised Fawcett's leadership skills and announced that without his firm character, energy and perseverance, the entire expedition would have starved to death.

As agreed, Fawcett traveled the route again with Fisher in 1909. They started on June 13th and met in Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade with the Brazilian surveying commission. This time it only took them sixteen days to get from the mouth of the Rio Verde to its source. During the journey on the river or the hike on the bank, they measured and marked the boundary again with the result that Fawcett's calculations from the previous year showed hardly any deviations despite the adverse circumstances. Fawcett was astonished by the abundance of wildlife in contrast to the previous year and was the first to reach the spring together with the Brazilian Lemenha. He instructed him to wait for the other members of the commission and Fisher while he climbed the Ricardo Franco Hills again. In a good mood, he described in his travel report the great view from the plateau, which he hardly noticed in 1908, when he was hungry and in need. A little later he received the news that the overloaded commission boat had sunk and a participant drowned in the process, which led him to complain that this was "an undignified appearance for an international border-setting commission".

The Rio Verde intermediate expedition ran through the area of ​​what is now the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park in the Santa Cruz Department in the north-west of the country. After returning to Europe, Fawcett described the landscape with the table mountains at the aforementioned conference of the Royal Geographical Society in 1911 in such detail that his friend and author Conan Doyle, sitting in the audience, made it one of the main scenes of his novel The Forgotten World a year later made. The title resembled the impression that the researcher had when looking at the mountains.

It was not until the 1940s that it became apparent that Fawcett had been wrong in determining the source of the Rio Verde. In 1946 Colonel Bandeira found another arm of the river that leads to the actual origin. Nevertheless, Fawcett's results were left on the map as a sign of good friendship , as the deviations were minimal. At the same time, this is now seen as a tribute to Fawcett by the Bolivian government for being the first explorer to successfully explore the river.

Second trip

La Paz - Astillero - Puerto Maldonado - Astillero

In the spring of 1910, the Bolivian President Eliodoro Villazón Montaño (* 1849, † 1939) ordered Fawcett to the capital of his country. This trip, which took the British through the Falkland Islands as a stopover, initially went differently than planned, because he and his companions were briefly detained by rebels in Paraguay . When he finally arrived in La Paz, Villazón asked Fawcett to measure the border region between Bolivia and Peru north of Lake Titicaca and thus resolve the long simmering border conflict between the two countries. Villazón chose Fawcett because he was very excited about his work in previous years. In addition, he was of the opinion that the Briton now had sufficient background knowledge of the diplomatic situation in this area of ​​South America and therefore preferred Fawcett to other researchers.

The reason for this was the unclear course of the 226-kilometer-long Heath River (named after the natural scientist, researcher and humanist Edwin R. Heath ), which was previously not shown on any map . A map from 1810 did not show the region very accurately. Argentina had already been asked in 1902 to mediate on the matter. Neither party, however, was satisfied with the outcome of the mediation, and so Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Buenos Aires until December 1910.

However, the British Army was not ready to give Fawcett permission for another expedition in the service of Bolivia, and so the researcher was forced to choose between the expeditions in South America and the routine army life in Europe. Angry about the - in his eyes - ignorance and inflexibility of the army, he resigned from the service without further ado.

A few weeks later, Fawcett and his expedition team returned to La Paz on June 10, 1910. Among his companions were HC Costin and H. Leigh, (two NCOs of a British infantry regiment), Captain Vargas, Captain Riquelme, a British army captain, a doctor and an elderly soldier who all just called "Gunner Todd".

Fawcett's second trip

First, on June 11, the group took a train to the east bank of Lake Titicaca and boarded a ship there. After crossing more than 150 kilometers, she took another train and headed northwest to Tirapata . During the voyage, she had passed the Bolivian-Peruvian border. From now on, the expedition should only run on Peruvian territory.

From Tirapata, Fawcett turned slightly to the northeast and crossed the Cordillera Apolobamba in an arduous and sometimes very dangerous hike . He then traveled north via Santo Domingo on the Río Inambari to Astillero on the Río Tambopata. There the researchers received warnings from two officials regarding the allegedly violent Indian tribes on the Heath River. The men suspected that their reactions to the arrival of strangers were probably so hostile mainly because they believed the white men were coming to fetch slaves. Although slavery was already illegal in Bolivia and Peru, many rubber tree plantation owners often organized tours into the rainforest with the intention of kidnapping the indigenous people as slaves and using them as cheap labor on the plantations. However, Fawcett ignored the advice to better turn around and instead drove in boats down the Río Tambopata to its confluence with the Madre de Dios . There was the city of Puerto Maldonado , where the expedition members paused for several days. Then they let themselves be carried by this river downstream to the northeast and after 75 kilometers reached the confluence of the Heath River near the village of Puerto Pardo.

There a major in the army was informed about the expedition's plans, but also warned them about the locals:

"To venture out into their midst is pure madness."

But Fawcett was of the opinion that the Indians would be friendly if he and his companions did so, and so under his guidance they began to navigate the Heath River with canoes upstream and carry out the surveys. The river, which today forms the state border between the Peruvian regions of Madre de Dios and Puno on one side and the Bolivian department of La Paz on the other, rises 25 kilometers northeast of the Peruvian settlement of Marte.

After seven days in which the researchers had devoted themselves to their work, the expedition group encountered an Indian camp of the Echoca on a sandbank in the river, as predicted by the warners. But instead of reacting hostile, the locals were initially only extremely scared by the strangers. This is evident from Fawcett's entry in his research report:

"Dogs barked, men called, women shouted and grabbed their children."

But when the scientists pulled their canoes ashore, the Indians, who had since fled into the treetops, shot several arrows as a warning. Fawcett tried to placate her with a few words in the language he had learned, but his efforts failed. He then ordered that “Gunner Todd” should play the accordion he was carrying while he himself wanted to make music with his flageolet . Todd did as he was told and sang the songs A Bicycle Made for Two , Suwannee River and Onward Christian Soldiers . After a few more pieces of music, he sang to the tune of the song he was playing:

"They-have-all-stopped-shooting-at-us",

which of course the Indians could not understand. The Indians, apparently deprived of their fear, climbed down from the trees. Fawcett greeted them and gave them small gifts as a token of friendship. So he gave the chief his Stetson hat. He urged the other participants of the expedition to be patient - like him - and to behave in an exemplary manner. In this way he managed to overcome fear, aggressiveness and language barriers. In return for the gifts, some of the Indians joined the expedition, which was beneficial in that they had a much better local knowledge.

On September 14, Percy Fawcett was able to complete the map of the Heath River at its source. From San Carlos, a nearby village, one followed downstream in a north-westerly direction the course of the Río Tambopata via Marte back to Astillero. From there the expedition got back to La Paz without rushing on the same route as on the way there.

Third trip

La Paz - Puno - Juliaca - Apolo

Neither Peru nor Bolivia agreed to recognize the results of the Fawcett expedition. Bolivia felt disadvantaged, as large-scale territorial gains had been expected, but this did not materialize, and the Peruvian politicians were of the opinion that a group equipped and financed only by Bolivia would of course measure in the interests of its supporters. However, it was agreed to organize a tandem expedition with representatives from both countries, consisting of one research group from each country.

Fawcett was the second leader of the Bolivian group, which consisted of significantly more members than were listed in the official expedition report:

Surname	nationality	job	task	Official expedition member
Lino Romero			ladder	Yes
Percy Fawcett		Lieutenant colonel	Deputy	Yes
Gabriel Andrade			assistant	Yes
NN Costin			assistant	Yes
H. Leigh		Sergeant	assistant	Yes
Constantino Mariscal			assistant	Yes
Andrés Salinas			assistant	Yes
Mr. Edwards		captain	assistant
Mr. Gibbs			assistant
Caspar Gonzales		official	assistant
Manley		Sergeant	assistant
Riquelme			assistant
Mr. Simpson			assistant
Sr. Vargas		captain	assistant
Mr. Wilson			assistant
		doctor	doctor

They started in La Paz in early April 1911 and moved west to Lake Titicaca. This was crossed by ship and landed in the Peruvian city of Puno . Then the group hiked in a north-northwest direction to the nearby town of Juliaca . There she met the six-person Peruvian survey team on June 2nd.

In the following three months, the two expeditions systematically worked their way north-east into the high mountains of the Andes and applied the principle of triangulation to their measurements . Fawcett had used this technique on his first two trips. Via Huancané one reached the border town of Cojata , which is still in Bolivia . Fawcett and the other scientists and researchers were enthusiastic about the snow-capped peaks of the high mountains, but at the same time suffered from the cold, sunburns and altitude sickness . In Cojata, a correspondent for the Bolivian daily newspaper El Diario joined the two surveying teams. His reports largely confirmed Fawcett's descriptions of a diplomatic quagmire that consisted of a refusal to cooperate and mutual mistrust. For example, the reporter wrote:

“Our technical team has mapped from Palomani Peak to Huaycho while, as Fawcett confirms, the Peruvians did little, if anything. Fawcett performed accurate triangulations on nearly 50 leugas . In three months, the Peruvian Commission covered seven. "

or

"I have to announce that for no moment the commissions have worked in agreement or together."

In the search valley there was an open dispute between Fawcett and Joseph A. Woodroffe, the leader of the Peruvian group. Fawcett accused him of unlawful border manipulation. For example, he accused him of destroying some of the numbered piles of stones that he had previously built. In a letter, Fawcett criticized:

"As an English officer, he shouldn't be led into such an incorrect procedure."

Woodroffe replied that the piles of stones had only been made provisionally anyway and argued:

"The Bolivian Indians enjoyed clearing away our piles of stones as soon as we piled them up - destroyed with the tacit tolerance of the other commission."

The reports of the newspaper correspondent about these conflicts worsened the diplomatic climate between the two states instead of improving, which was actually the aim of the cross-border survey.

Tired of the ongoing debate, Percy Fawcett decided to move across the border to the Bolivian settlement of Pelechuco . The Peruvians agreed, and so the steep Cordillera Apolobamba was crossed by about the same path that Fawcett had used the previous year. In Pelechuco, a German-Bolivian named Carlos Franck, who lived there, invited all members of both surveying expeditions - at least 24 people - to relax on his estate . The offer was accepted and Franck's guest stayed for a few days.

Fawcett's third trip

From Pelechuco you turned south and climbed again into the Cordillera de Apolobamba to reach the small village of Curva near the border. After the survey work there was completed, Fawcett, who was now the unofficial leader of the expedition, turned around, walked north again and began the slow descent, using the same route as for the way there. The village of Queara, north of Pelechuco, was reached. From there one traveled northeast to Mojos. The nearest settlement to the east was Plata.

From Plata, the two groups set off to the southeast via Santa Cruz del Valle Ameno on a sloping route that Fawcett considered the worst of Bolivia's numerous miserable roads. He later explained that it was only chosen because it represented the shortest connection. Twelve of the entrained as beasts of burden mules died on the slopes. In the valley was the old missionary town of Apolo , which presented itself to the researchers as poor, neglected and plagued by a fever, which did nothing to improve Fawcett's impression of tropical Bolivia. (However, there are sources that describe Apolo at the time much more prosperous and busier than Fawcett did.) In Apolo, Fawcett and the others lived with the English native Henry Flower, who like Carlos Francks and his family from the rubber boom Profit struck. On October 12, 1911, a fire broke out in the city, which, fanned by the dry high wind, quickly developed into a major fire and within a week destroyed all the wooden houses of the indigenous population, destroyed the harvest and killed many livestock. When a schnapps distillery exploded, the flames blazed up to 30 meters high into the sky. The only buildings that survived the conflagration were the stone houses of the Europeans, and soon those affected accused Flower of having started the fire, which he denied. However, the rumors persisted for many years. A large part of the population of Apolo moved to Pelechuco or La Paz in the prospect of better future opportunities.

British sergeant Manley, one of the assistants of the Bolivian surveying group, decided to return to Santa Cruz del Valle Ameno with some European naturalists. The others traveled northwest and after a long hike hampered by heavy and persistent rain via Boturo, Playa Paujl and Asuriama finally reached the source of the Heath River. The Peruvian group withdrew from drawing the border on the river, possibly because they feared attack by Indians.

The repeated measurement of the Heath River was carried out again only by a Bolivian expedition. However, the task could not be completed. The group only set up a single post at the mouth of the Río Colorado when

"The rugged relief and impenetrable forest led to the belief that this map was all that would ever be needed." And agreed that in 1910 Fawcett was not wrong. His card from then is still officially accepted today.

Originally, Fawcett had planned to travel east through the rainforest to Rurrenabaque after the work was completed, believing that some of the ruins of the sunken city would be in the vicinity. In San Carlos on the Heath River, however, a member of the expedition fell seriously ill. In his expedition reports, Percy Fawcett criticized the attending physician, who was a member of the expedition, in the strongest possible terms, but without naming him.

The return to La Paz marked the end of Percy Fawcett's collaboration with the Bolivian government. The President Eliodoro Villazón Montaño was forced to accept the British withdrawal with reluctance and regret, but showed understanding for his reluctance to work in such dangerous situations.

The result of this third Fawcett expedition was recognized by both Bolivia and Peru. For the latter state, this meant a loss of diplomatic face, as the Peruvian group had refused to measure the Heath River. In order to keep the incident as small as possible from an international point of view and not to show nakedness, the representatives from Peru agreed to accept the border treaty quickly and without causing a stir. The leader of the Peruvian expedition, Joseph A. Woodroffe, about whose behavior Fawcett was angry several times during the trip, was by the way an employee of Julio Cesar Arana , a notorious Peruvian rubber baron. He enslaved members of the Huitoto tribe on his plantations and was charged with torture. In order to expand the cultivation areas, he is likely to have had an interest in drawing the wrong line in favor of Peru. In 1915 Woodroffe published the book The rubber Industry of the Amazon .

Although Fawcett disliked the routine work of surveying, which in his eyes was boring, he was disappointed with what he considered to be an unsatisfactory conclusion of the expedition. He blamed himself and was also frustrated that, as in the army, again the "intransigent chains of bureaucracy" and the unsatisfactory performance of his colleagues had prevented him from following his own convictions and the Heath River still - how the year before - to measure its entire length, which in his opinion would have been possible.

In the first days of the new year 1912 he sailed back to England and was anxious to undertake a private expedition to South America in the near future, for which he did not have to lay righteousness in front of anyone and which should only take place on his own behalf.

Fourth trip

La Paz - Rurrenabaque - Santa Ana del Yacuma - Santa Cruz de la Sierra - La Paz - San Ignacio de Velasco - Santa Cruz de la Sierra - Cochabamba

Remaining true to his plans, Fawcett set off again for South America in early 1913. He was accompanied by Costin and "Gunner Todd". Fawcett's intention was to look for the remains of the alleged Inca city of Paititi in the Andes . His ambition was mainly fueled by the fact that the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham had discovered Machu Picchu two years earlier .

On this trip, Fawcett did not follow a predetermined route, but rather spontaneous inspirations, considerations and tips from the population. Although this expedition was primarily devoted to archaeological goals, it can also be described as an adventure trip and Fawcett finally fulfilled his long-cherished dream of going his own easy way. Since he was not traveling on an official basis, he met different types of people than before. While on previous expeditions he had mainly come into contact with government officials or villagers, as a “free man” he now had eyes for other sections of the population.

During this trip, Fawcett was fascinated by the lifestyle of the European settlers, often living as hermits , who had renounced all comforts and the “artificial life of civilization” and preferred “extreme simplicity” in the wilderness. In his opinion, the British were able to take this step more quickly, especially if they came from a cultured social circle. As the best example of the freedom he cherished in America and which he himself wanted to achieve with this expedition, he listed an outcast Texan who "had made his way through Mexico and South America in a veil of gun smoke".

Fawcett's fourth trip

Upon arriving in La Paz , Fawcett traveled to Rurrenabaque . The town where Texas- born prospector Ross joined the group was as busy as Fawcett remembered, but the rubber boom was showing signs of subsiding . When news arrived in Rurrenabaque that several diamonds had been found in Tumupasa , a northwestern village of the Tacana Indians, the expedition set out to document the beginning diamond rush. The reports turned out to be misinformation, as it turned out in Tumupasa.

From Tumupasa, the group then hiked in a south-westerly direction in the mountains to Santa Cruz del Valle Ameno, the place Fawcett was already familiar with from his previous surveying company. To move faster, Fawcett decided to navigate the Río Tuichi , a left tributary of the Río Beni . In doing so, he ignored the advice of the locals - as he has often done before - about what turned out to be a mistake this time. Like a few years before, the Brit had an accident in his boat, in which Costin was also sitting, on a rapids and only survived with luck. Nevertheless, he continued the journey on the river, which describes a wide arc and 19 kilometers south of Rurrenabaque flows into the Río Beni. Since the city was the next stopover, they started again.

After a few days the group left the place and traveled west into the Andes to the plateau around the village of Mojos. However, this tour was canceled soon afterwards because the expedition members, who were traveling on an ox cart , were attacked by a herd of bulls near the village of Potrero. The researchers managed to escape after shooting a bull and wounding two others.

After this incident, Fawcett advocated moving in the opposite direction. His suggestion was followed by the rest of the group, Costin, Gunner Todd, and Ross. They crossed the Río Beni in an easterly direction and came to the Río Yacuma , which was driven downstream to its confluence with the Río Mamoré near the city of Santa Ana del Yacuma . The journey was continued upstream on the Río Mamoré and thus in a south-easterly direction.

South of the village of El Combate, the expedition left the main stream and turned into one of its left tributaries, the Río Piraí , which led them to the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra .

The adventurers and explorers who had not yet found a usable reference to a lost Inca city spent Christmas in 1913 in La Paz . After the holidays ended, Fawcett became seriously ill with typhus . He resented his own weakness as it prevented the group from moving on. In the course of the unplanned long stay in the Bolivian capital, "Gunner Todd" decided to leave the expedition, apparently out of frustration at the lack of results. He was replaced by Manley, the British non-commissioned officer who had been a member of the Bolivian surveying group in 1911.

After Percy Fawcett recovered from his illness, he traveled northeast to San Ignacio de Velasco , an old missionary settlement that lies at the transition from the plains to the rainforest. In the following weeks he and his companions crossed the country eastwards to get to the Rio Guaporé on the border with Brazil. During a trip on one of its tributaries, the Rio Mequéns , there was a historic meeting with the Swedish ethnologist and anthropologist Erland Nordenskiöld , who was accompanied by his wife Olga and was deeply impressed by Fawcett's achievements and zeal.

The bullock cart was the most common means of transport overland on this trip - unless one hiked.

Three days after meeting the Swede, the men around Fawcett met the Maxubi Indians living on the bank . It is now widely believed that Percy Fawcett was the first white man to find this tribe. Again the Brit showed respect and admiration for the locals, as he had done with the Echoca, and found the Indians to be very noble, hospitable and dignified. In his expedition reports he also noted that the Indian settlements were very well maintained and organized, in contrast to the often shabby settlements of the white settlers. Fawcett showed compassion for the Indians and made statements about the brutal manner in which the rubber companies were treating the tribes. He left no doubt that he saw the indigenous groups who had fled up the waterways into the rainforest from the slave traders and rubber barons as superior to those who had become “tame and docile” part of modern civilization. Although he was familiar with modern medicine and his basic medical knowledge was often required during the expeditions, he was fascinated by the uses of natural medicine that the Indians practiced and was surprised by the good healing properties of plant extracts, for example.

After several months, Fawcett and his companions had to flee the area hastily after they were attacked by members of the Maricoxi tribe when Fawcett wanted to meet their chief. So the expedition traveled back to the missionary station in September 1914, where they learned that the First World War had broken out in Europe . The conflict between the great powers also expressed itself in the way the European settlers in South America deal with one another. On his return to Santa Cruz de la Sierra , Fawcett observed deep tensions between German and British settlers who had lived in peaceful neighborhoods when he first visited the city.

Fawcett himself had broken with army life because he could not come to terms with its rules and regulations, but felt, especially as a lieutenant colonel , still committed to the fatherland, i.e. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , and was eager for it to fight this at the front. Together with his companions, he traveled to the city of Cochabamba, west of Santa Cruz de la Sierra . There the group met again on Nordenskiöld, who also wanted to return home. Percy Fawcett decided to cross the Pacific and signed up for the British Army in January 1915.

From a scientific point of view, Fawcett's fourth trip, which had taken him and his team all over Bolivia for about two years, was highly unsatisfactory, as he had found neither an unknown Inca city nor any evidence of one. For Percy Fawcett, however, the expedition had been worth the effort, despite the apparent failure, as he had proven that he was able to lead a research team over a long period of time even without an official assignment. In addition, he had only followed his own wishes and hadn't let anyone guide him, which he considered a great success for his self-esteem.

In addition, the expedition members saw a red-haired boy in one of the Maxubi villages. Since it is unlikely that whites have explored this area before, Fawcett felt confirmed in his thesis that there must have been a disappeared higher-ranking Indian people. In his eyes, the physically impressive and progressive Maxubi were descendants of this civilization.

Fifth trip

Percy Fawcett returned from the war deeply disaffected. He had expected a quick end to the fighting and a clear victory for Great Britain. Instead, he found himself a trench war and a grave war against the not corresponded to his idea of a struggle between states. Fawcett had reckoned with the traditional war of movement with open fronts, which however was made impossible by the new weapons technologies and the resulting material battles. He had also not expected that his homeland would suffer such severe losses (950,000 dead). In his view, all the nations involved had lost in the conflict.

In a 1924 pamphlet, he described the years after the war as the most miserable of his life. In his eyes, Britain was in decline, and the only continent he saw hope in was America. For this reason he moved with his family via Jamaica to California in the United States in order to enable his children to get an education in the "lively atmosphere of the New World".

Immediately after the war ended, Fawcett began soliciting funders for another expedition. The trip was to take him to the Gongugy Basin in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which he believed was the origin of the stories about a sunken rainforest city. However, the expedition had to be aborted after a short time due to floods that made progress difficult.

Fawcett's sixth trip

Sixth trip

Salvador da Bahia - Canavieiras

The following expedition was not a good star either. The route of the group around Fawcett led from February 1920 from Salvador da Bahia on the east coast of Brazil to the south. The course of the Rio das Contas was followed a little upstream before it was possible to cross it. Then Fawcett hiked the appropriate distance on the other bank back down the river until he met the original path. The trip ended at the end of 1921 in Canavieiras , a small town at the mouth of the Rio Pardo . Since the participants - six relatively young and inexperienced researchers who were also members of the Royal Geographical Society - were not up to the unexpected hardships, the expedition had to be terminated prematurely. During this expedition, Fawcett never penetrated as deeply into the rainforest as he had hoped to find the sunken city.

Seventh and final trip

Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo - Cuiabá - Salvador da Bahia

In the mid-1920s, Fawcett planned another expedition to the Mato Grosso. On this he hoped to finally discover the sunken city Z, which he alternatively called Manoa. For what is now the seventh expedition to South America, he initially had difficulty finding sponsors. Eventually, however, he again won the Royal Geographical Society as well as the London-based group The Glove and the North American Newspaper Alliance as supporters. Fawcett announced that he had learned that the sunken city and its statues were made entirely of quartz , which earned the place the nickname Crystal City in later writings .

He only wanted to travel with a small group, as he had made the experience that the Indians were more friendly to such a group than large travel groups that invaded their territory. For this reason, Fawcett chose his son Jack (* 1903) and his friend Raleigh Rimmel, a newspaper photographer, as companions. He wanted to slowly introduce his son to the work of a surveyor, as his own father had already done with him. Before they left, he wrote a brief note for the Royal Geographical Society in which he advised them not to equip a rescue expedition in the event that the group disappeared, as it might suffer the same fate.

Fawcett's seventh trip

From Rio de Janeiro , Fawcett led the group in a slight coastal arc in a westerly direction to São Paulo and then continued the journey from there with boats, with which one sailed the Rio Tietê downstream. After its confluence with the Río Paraná , the researchers crossed the latter and hiked in a north-westerly direction parallel to the Rio Verde, a right tributary of the Río Paraná, until they reached the source of the Rio Araguaia . On this they drove for several days with the current to the settlement of Ponte Branca. There they left the river and moved overland to Cuiabá in the west, the capital of the Mato Grosso district, which was to serve as the starting point for the actual expedition. Fawcett had already said the following about this city five years earlier, in the year of his failed sixth trip, following a brief visit:

“This city seems impoverished and backward to us […] The population was made up of mulattos and looked very poor; mainly because the traders exploited them. The little money she had was stolen from the congregation and the church. […] Here, as in Diamantino in the north, the prospectors exploit the rivers, but the business no longer triggered the costs, and the wave of prosperity fell off again and left this city in hardly better condition than a ghost town. "

On April 20, 1925, the three participants left the city surrounded by rainforest and began their expedition. Fawcett planned to advance north to a tributary of the Rio Tocantins , the Paranatinga. The group wanted to navigate this with a canoe up to about ten degrees south latitude downstream, in order to then cross the rainforest eastwards towards Rio São Francisco . The trip should end in Salvador da Bahia , a large coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean. They packed provisions for a good three weeks.

However, the three researchers never arrived at their destination. On May 29, 1925, Fawcett telegraphed from Dead Horse Camp ( 11 ° 43 ′  S , 54 ° 35 ′  W ) in a letter to his wife:

“Our two guides go back from here. They are getting more and more nervous and we are advancing further into Indian land. You don't need to be afraid of failure. "

This was his last sign of life. At the time of his disappearance, Percy Harrison Fawcett was 57 years old.

Rescue attempts

The Royal Geographical Society waited many months for the return of the three researchers, at Fawcett's request. Only after a frigate captain of the United States Navy had spotted Indians in the rainforest in 1927 who wore a brooch name tag from a box of Fawcett's was an official search expedition equipped. Hundreds of volunteers signed up to take part in this mission. Since their number was too large, they set out in small, private groups, some of them at their own risk, to save Fawcett and his companions. Not a single one of these ventures was successful.

The main expedition, led by Commander George M. Dyott - also a member of the Royal Geographical Society - started north of Cuiabá in May 1928 . A good three months later, Vasco Abren, who ran an amateur station in Rio de Janeiro, received a wireless message from the expedition:

“I am sorry to report that the Fawcett expedition died by hostile Indians in July 1925, five days after crossing the Kuluene, a tributary of the Xingu. We followed Fawcett's footsteps successfully, even though we were handicapped as we lost a lot of food in the rapids. The Indians who had gone with Fawcett agreed to show us the remains of the three explorers in the jungle, but complications with another tribe prevented us from migrating to the area. Our situation is critical. We have suffered a lot and our resources are dwindling. We can't even take the time to wirelessly send more details. We must follow the Xingu without delay, or we ourselves will be captured. We have had serious problems with the Indians and have only been able to avert a conflict with cunning. Sending this message took us a lot of effort, but tell our friends we're on our way out before it's too late. We hope to reach Pará in early October. Dyott "

After receiving the message, Abren returned a request as to whether there would be any further communications and received the answer:

"This will be the last wireless message as we are forced to leave the device behind because of its unbearable load."

He then passed the font on to the North American Newspaper Alliance, which published it on August 19. Dyott's group managed to safely return to Great Britain in late November 1928.

Speculation about Fawcett's whereabouts

Immediately after the publication of this message, the first rumors of the whereabouts of the British expedition developed, which were not least fueled by Fawcett's search for the mysterious city and his warning and by many regarded as forward-looking communication to the Royal Geographical Society in April 1925.

In 1931, a Swiss rainforest hunter reported that he had met a tall, older man with blue eyes and a long beard who had identified himself as a colonel in the British Army, among the Indians in northwestern Mato Grosso. Immediately before he was taken away again by the Indians, the man, who was apparently a prisoner, gave the Swiss a signet ring. Nina Fawcett later identified this as her husband's property. Following this report of success, the Swiss organized his own small expedition to free Fawcett, but failed. At the place where he had met the colonel, he did not meet either the colonel or the locals. In the weeks that followed, he explored the surrounding area without receiving any further information. Eventually, he was forced to abandon his plan due to a lack of food.

Two years later, in April 1933, a theodolite was found near a settlement of the Bacaari Indians in Mato Grosso , which was verifiably part of the equipment of the last tour group Fawcett's. The device was still of very good quality - eight years after the group disappeared - which confirmed Nina Fawcett in her belief that her husband and son were still alive. In February 1940 she wrote in a letter:

“This is why I believe Colonel Fawcett was still alive and working with his surveying instruments - in the Mato Grosso Rainforest - until April 1933. So my husband was still alive and working and probably had a certain something Degree of freedom, albeit under the constant supervision of the Indian tribe who, I believe, captured him around 1926 or 1927 and whose people he has to endure. "

In 1949, after returning from a research trip to Mato Grosso, which had nothing to do with Fawcett's disappearance , the German anthropologist and metallurgist Ehrmann claimed that he had met a tribal chief in the rainforest who had shown him a shrunken head . This would have had the characteristic features of Fawcett. The chief had told him, Ehrmann went on, that the Briton had been killed because he had tried to defend his son Jack, who had violated a taboo of the tribe.

Orlando Villas Bôas (center) with the bones found in 1951

In 1951, the Brazilian Indian activist Orlando Villas Bôas received a skeleton from the Mato Grosso. According to the analyzes carried out, the bones could be assigned to Fawcett without any doubt, but his youngest son Brian did not accept the tests. Villas Bôas then accused him of being only interested in selling books dealing with the disappearance of his father. Later studies by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland found that it was clearly not Fawcett's bones.

In 1991 the Danish researcher Arne Falk-Rønne published a book about the possible fate of Fawcett. In this he declared that he had been informed about the alleged fate of the Fawcett expedition of 1925 by Orlando Villas Bôas in the 1960s. Accordingly, the Brazilian claimed that the small group had been murdered. He learned this from the local residents involved. Fawcett and his companions had broken down on a river trip and lost the majority of the gifts they wanted to give to the local population. When they met the Kalapalo Indians, they were extremely angry about the impolite behavior of the Europeans not to give them presents and saw this as a violation of their honor. They then killed the British. The bodies of Jack Fawcett and Raleigh Rimmel are said to have been thrown into the river. Percy Fawcett, who was considered higher up as an older man, received a funeral. After receiving this information, Falk-Rønne made his own trip to the Mato Grosso and reported in his book that members of the Kalapalo Indians had confirmed the version of Villas Bôas.

Five years after Arne Falk-Rønne's book was published, the Kalapalo Indians took hostage twelve members of a 16-man expedition led by a New York banker and a Brazilian businessman to search for traces of Fawcett. The adventurers survived the captivity unscathed and were released a few days after they had agreed to give the Indians their equipment as well as their boats and jeeps.

In 1998, the British researcher Benedict Allen claimed that he had found and recovered the real remains of the Fawcett expedition by finding a few bones. At the same time, Vajuvi, the chief of the Kalapalo Indians, allegedly confirmed that the bones found by Villas Bôas were not those of Fawcetts. He also added that his tribe had nothing to do with the disappearance of the British.

To date, a total of 13 expeditions, in which around 100 participants lost their lives, have tried to clarify the fate of the two Fawcetts and Rimmels. Since this has not yet been achieved with absolute certainty, various legends continue to surround their whereabouts. There are speculations that Percy Fawcett was declared chief by an indigenous group or that he actually found the sunken city and lived happily in it to an old age. Some of the search expeditions also reported that they had seen blue-eyed Indians in Mato Grosso. This could suggest that Fawcett and his companions fathered children with local women. This view is very controversial, however, as Fawcett wasn't the only blue-eyed researcher to explore the rainforest.

Most likely, there are still the assumptions that the members of the expedition were attacked by wild animals and fatally wounded or that they died of disease. As an indication of the latter, many cite the fact that Jack Fawcett and Raleigh Rimmel looked weak and sickly when they were last seen.

personality

Percy Fawcett was generally regarded by the population as a dreamer and fantasist due to his adherence to the belief in the sunken rainforest city, but was known in the scientific circles of Great Britain for being a militarily accurate observer, who never turns out to be in his descriptions and stories Exaggerated.

His fellow human beings always described him as a "naturally lonely wolf" with obviously great self-control. This is also evident from the fact that Fawcett preferred to be relatively celibate and neither drank nor smoked. With an intrepid determination, pride, and quick and proactive mind, he was open-minded and forward-thinking, which benefited him on his expeditions and, in the opinion of his travel companions, made him a logical and natural leader of the groups.

The researcher himself once said that although his married life helped him to shed the reticence and shyness that he still possessed as a young man - he was a lonely person who would rather mark his own path through life than take conventional paths .

In his private life, Percy Fawcett was, according to his wife Nina, a loving family man. In addition to his work, he was interested in ink drawings, among other things. As a keen athlete, he also had an affinity for sailing and cricket - two sports that he was very good at.

Public work

Percy Fawcett never put much emphasis on educating the public about his work in South America or getting them excited about it. He did not publish any books about his travels and was generally averse to interview offers. If he nevertheless published one of his rare articles in specialist journals, it mostly dealt with Fawcett's thoughts on the sunken city and not the expeditions. For the researcher it was only important to perform his scientific work for the client to a satisfactory extent, and in doing so he mostly adhered to the specifications of the survey. This means that he did not carry out any further studies, for example on flora and fauna , although he would have had the opportunity to do so and this might have brought him into the focus of other branches of science.

For him personally it was irrelevant what image the British people had of him. However, he soon realized that from time to time he could not avoid informing people about his work. This was especially important in connection with attracting new donors for further expeditions. In the months between expeditions, Fawcett occasionally traveled around the country to present his results, if his military service permitted, and gave lectures at academies and universities. As already mentioned, he spoke several times before the Royal Geographical Society, but also, for example, before the Royal Society and at major congresses.

In 1921 Fawcett wrote a detailed report on his five expeditions to date and described in great detail the experiences and events in the rainforest and in the mountains in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. It can no longer be proven today whether he ever planned to publish this report and thus make himself known to a wider public. 28 years after his father's disappearance, Brian Fawcett prepared the text for literary purposes and published it as a book in 1953 under the title Lost trails, Lost Cities . In the same year he brought out another literary work with Exploration Fawcett . To do this, he used his father's manuscripts, letters, logs and logbooks as a guide. So his travels found a large audience.

Fawcett as a symbol of entertainment culture

As mentioned, Percy Harrison Fawcett's report of his second trip to South America served as a template for Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Forgotten World . In addition, it is likely that the literary figure of the big game hunter Lord John Roxton, who appears for the first time in this first book in the five-part Professor Challenger series, and who accompanies the professor on his journey into the forgotten world, is also based on Fawcett. However, some literary scholars are of the opinion that Roger Casement , a close friend of Doyle's, was the model.

It is also believed that George Lucas chose his famous feature film character Dr. Henry Jones Jr., better known as Indiana Jones , was inspired by Fawcett.

In 2003, a Russian television stations beamed the documentary Проклятье золота инков / Экспедиция Перси Фоссета в Амазонку ( de .: The curse of the gold of the Incas / Expedition of Percy Fawcett to the Amazon ) as part of the series Тайны века ( de .: secrets of the century ) out. He dealt with Oleg Aliyev's recently completed trip to the place where Percy Fawcett was supposedly last seen and explained its results as well as Aliyev's impressions and his assumptions about the fate of the Briton. The film has now also been released on DVD .

In 2009, David Grann published the non-fiction book The Sunken City Z , in which the US journalist summarized his impressions of the trip to the Kalapalo tribe and the current state of research in the Fawcett case. Based on this book, the US movie Die versunkene Stadt Z was made , which was released in Germany, Switzerland and Austria at the end of March 2017. James Gray wrote the script and directed. The leading roles are played by Charlie Hunnam and Tom Holland as Percy and Jack Fawcett.

The computer game Shadow of the Tomb Raider , released in 2018 , in which the protagonist Lara Croft et al. a. explores the Peruvian jungle, thematizes the mysteries of the whereabouts of Fawcett's research group in a side story.

literature

Publications

• Percy Harrison Fawcett (Ed.), Brian Fawcett (Ed.): Exploration Fawcett . Hutchinson, 1953. (Original edition in English)

• Exploration Fawcett . Weidenfeld & Nicolson History, 2001, ISBN 978-1-84212-468-0 . (new version in English)

• Percy Harrison Fawcett (Ed.), Brian Fawcett (Ed.): Lost trails, Lost Cities . Funk & Wagnalls, 1953. (Original edition in English)

• Percy Harrison Fawcett (Ed.), Brian Fawcett (Ed.), Heinrich Pleticha (Ed.): Secrets in the Brazilian jungle . Edition Erdmann, 1996, ISBN 978-3-86503-229-4 . (German translation)

Secondary literature and reception

• George M. Dyott, Man Hunting in the Jungle: Being the Story of a Search for Three Explorers Lost in the Brazilian Wilds . Bobbs-Merril Company, 1930
• Peter Fleming: Brazilian Adventure . Scribner's, 1933, Northwestern University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8101-6065-X
  • In German: Brazilian adventure . Piper adventure. Vol. 1436. Piper, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-492-11436-9
• Robert Churchward: Wilderness of Fools. An account of the Adventures in Search of Lieut.-Colonel PH Fawcett . Routledge, 1936.
• Robert Churchward: Explorer . Thomas Nelson, 1957.
• Karen Farrington: Historical Atlas of Expeditions . Checkmark Books, 2000. ISBN 0-8160-4432-5 (English language original edition)
  • In German: Atlas of Expeditions . Tosa, 2001 ISBN 3-85492-469-0
• David Grann: The Lost City of Z. Simon & Schuster, London 2009. ISBN 1-84737-436-0
  • In German: The sunken city Z. Expedition of no return - the secret of the Amazon. Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Cologne 2010 ISBN 3-462-04199-1 ; as TB Goldmann Verlag , Munich 2011 ISBN 978-3-442-15666-5
• Percy Fawcett - Un monument de l'Exploration et de l'Aventure en Amérique Latine - Expédition du Rio Verde - bilingue français espagnol. La Gazette des Français du Paraguay, № 6, Année 1, Asunción
• Tim Healey, Andreas Held (translator): Discoverer and adventurer. Row: Our 20th Century. Verlag Reader's Digest - Das Beste, Stuttgart 1999 ISBN 3-87070-830-1 (with numerous illustrations - translated from English)

Web links

Commons : Percy Fawcett  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Frank Thadeusz: Amazon Expedition 1925. Lost in the rain forest ; someday. Contemporary stories on SpiegelOnline
• Newspaper article about Percy Fawcett in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Farrington (2001), p. 136
2. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009, Frank Thadeusz, http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/amazonas-expedition-1925-a-948459.html
3. ^ ^{A b c d} Information brochure of the Royal Geographical Society dated August 31, 1967 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Percy Fawcett
4. ^ Fawcett (1953), 38
5. ^ ^{A b} Adrian Cowell: The heart of the forest , Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1960, p. 17
6. ↑ Article in The Times, December 22, 1908
7. ↑ In 1949, Jorge Escobari Cusicanqui confirmed that the main source of the Rio Verde is in a different position than that established by Fawcett in 1909. Nevertheless, his information can still be found on maps published after 1958.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Fawcett (1953), p. 96
9. ^ Report from Pelechuco. The report appeared in El Diario on July 11, 1911
10. ^ Report of June 11, 1911. The report appeared in El Diario on July 23, 1911
11. ↑ ^{a b} Fleming (1933), page 91
12. ↑ Machicado Gamez, Cesar Augusto: Historia de Apolo y de la Provincia Franz Tamayo . Producciones Cima, La Paz (1990), 130
13. ↑ Gamez, Augusto (1990), pp. 138-139
14. ↑ In fact, a French survey group tried to complete Fawcett's confirmation expedition, but refused to do so because of the violence of the locals.
15. ↑ Fleming (1933), page 93
16. ^ The Geographical Journal, Volume 72, Number 5 (November 1928), pp. 443–448
17. ↑ Churchward (1957), p. 17
18. ↑ Ricardo Centeno: Imágenes del Auge de la Goma , La Paz, 1998, page 59
19. ↑ Encyclopedia entry about Professor George Edward Challenger ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
20. ^ Georges Wyrsch: Raiders of the Lost City . In: Berner Zeitung, Berner Zeitung . March 30, 2017, ISSN  1424-1021 ( bernerzeitung.ch [accessed April 18, 2017]).