by David Grann
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Percy Harrison Fawcett was considered “the last of the individualist explorers”—those who ventured into blank spots on the map with little more than a machete, a compass, and an almost divine sense of purpose. He is seen here in 1911, the year of his fourth major Amazon expedition.
Copyright © R. de Montet-Guerin
Fawcett mapping the frontier between Brazil and Bolivia in 1908.
Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
At the age of eighteen Fawcett graduated from Britain's Royal Military Academy, where he learned to be “a natural leader of men fearless.”
Sandhurst Collection, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Nina, whom Fawcett met in Ceylon and married in 1901, once compared her situation to that of a sailor's wife: “very uncertain and lonely” and “miserably poor.”
Copyright © R. de Montet-Guerin
E. A. Reeves, the Royal Geographical Society's map curator, was charged with turning Fawcett into a gentleman explorer. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
For centuries Europeans viewed the Amazon as a mythical landscape where Indians might have heads in the middle of their chests, as this sixteenth-century drawing illustrates. Courtesy of The Hispanic Society of America, New York
The legendary kingdom of El Dorado depicted in a sixteenth-century illustration printed in Germany. Courtesy of The Hispanic Society of America, New York
Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice, Fawcett's main rival, was a multimillionaire “as much at home in the elegant swirl of Newport society as in the steaming jungles of Brazil.” Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
“How long could we carry on” was the vital question: Fawcett (foreground right) and his men facing starvation during their search for the source of the Rio Verde in 1908. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
(Above) A member of Dr. Rice's 1919–20 expedition deploys a wireless telegraphy set—an early radio— allowing the party to receive news from the outside world. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
(Right) Dr. Rice's 1924–25 expedition included a machine that would revolutionize exploration: the airplane. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
(Above) Fawcett's younger son, Brian, pored over his father's diaries and drew illustrations depicting his adventures. The drawings, like this one, were published in Exploration Fawcett in 1953 and further fueled Percy Fawcett's legend. Copyright © R. de Montet-Guerin
Fawcett's longtime assistant Henry Costin posing, in 1914, with an Amazonian tribe that had never before seen a white man. Courtesy of Michael Costin
Acclaimed biologist James Murray was a member of Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition and later joined Fawcett on a horrific journey in the Amazon. Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
An Indian in the Xingu fishes with bow and arrow in 1937. Many scientists believed the Amazon could not provide sufficient food to sustain a large, complex civilization. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
Fawcett's older son, Jack, who dreamed of being a movie star, accompanied his father on his deadly quest for Z. Copyright © R. de Montet-Guerin
“Strong as horses and keen as mustard”: Jack Fawcett and his best friend, Raleigh Rimell, on the 1925 expedition. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
Percy Fawcett with Raleigh Rimell and one of their guides shortly before the expedition vanished. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
“I have never felt so well,” Jack Fawcett wrote his mother during the fateful expedition. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
In 1928 Commander George M. Dyott launched the first major mission to rescue Fawcett. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society
A news story about Albert de Winton, the Hollywood actor who, in 1933, had vowed to find Fawcett dead or alive. From “Deep in the Fearful Amazon Jungle, Savages Seize Movie Actor Seeking to Rescue Fawcett,” Washington Post, September 30, 1934
(Below) Brian Fawcett, who had been left behind on the 1925 expedition, was eventually drawn into the jungle himself. Bettmann/Corbis
(Above) The Brazilian journalist Edmar Morel with Dulipé—the “White God of the Xingu”—who, in the 1940s, became a central figure in the Fawcett mystery. From “The Strange C
ase of Colonel Fawcett,” Life, April 30, 1951
In 1951 Orlando Villas Boas, the revered Brazilian pioneer, thought that he had found proof of Fawcett's fate. Photo by Edward A. Gourley, reproduced with permission from Douglas A. Gourley
The Kalapalo Indians—including these, photographed by a missionary in 1937—were believed to know what really happened to Fawcett and his party. Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society (Below) James Lynch and his sixteen-year-old son, James, Jr., set out into the jungle in 1996, in the hopes of finally solving the Fawcett mystery. Courtesy of James Lynch
(Below) James Lynch and his sixteen-year-old son, James, Jr., set out into the jungle in 1996, in the hopes of finally solving the Fawcett mystery. Courtesy of James Lynch
Paolo Pinage (left), who guided the author into the Amazon, rests in the house of a Bakairí Indian during our trip. Courtesy of Paolo Pinage
The author (front) treks with Bakairí Indians through the jungle along the same route that Fawcett followed eighty years earlier. Courtesy of Paolo Pinage
Two Kuikuro Indians dance in celebration of the “whirlwind” spirit. Courtesy of Michael Heckenberger
Kuikuro Indians participate in one of their most sacred rituals, the Kuarup, which honors the dead. Courtesy of Michael Heckenberger
The archaeologist Michael Heckenberger chats with Afukaká, the chief of the Kuikuro Indians. Courtesy of Michael Heckenberger
An aerial shot of the Kuikuro settlement with its circular plaza and domed houses along the perimeter. Courtesy of Michael Heckenberger