The last of the great Victorian explorers was Percy Harrison Fawcett, renowned globally as "the David Livingston of the Amazon." In his repeated efforts to find the fabled, glittering kingdom of El Dorado?what Fawcett himself called "Z"?the explorer mapped a significant portion of Brazil. In his quest to find evidence of the lost civilization, he became certain it was somewhere in the primeval wilderness along a tributary of the Amazon River, an area larger than the continental United States. Quest isn't quite the correct term. Obsession fits better. Mania is most apropos. Somewhere, under the endless jungle canopy, amid vines, thorny plants, omnipresent mosquitoes, deadly frogs, "serpents as long as trees," highly venomous pit vipers, "kissing bugs," white-lipped wild pigs, leeches, sauba ants, red hairy chiggers, pumas, "eye-licker" sweat bees, invisible biting flies, cyanide-squirting millipedes, gnats, berne flies, polvorina, sweltering heat, suffocating humidity, drenching rain, in proximity to natives of prickly and occasional cannibalistic disposition, beside waters teeming with piranha, candiru and electric eels, and such other tourist inconveniences as yellow fever, elephantiasis, "bone-crusher" fever, malaria and starvation, Fawcett went missing in 1925. When and exactly where he disappeared (perished?) and how it happened have constituted a mystery that has been the quest/obsession/mania of a good number of people ("Fawcett freaks") since, including not a few who, in search of the explorer, also haven't been seen again.

The disappearance of no other 20^th century figure, including Amelia Earhart, George Mallory (found), D.B. Cooper, Amy Semple McPherson (found), Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Falcon Scott (found), arguably captured such worldwide attention and fascination. Fawcett's exit was regarded as "one of the most celebrated vanishing acts of modern times."?

El Dorado and the enigma of Percy Fawcett's fame and demise?tutelary benchmarks of fabulists' Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and the blockbuster Indiana Jones films?also ensnared the curiosity and imagination of David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z. Armed with some "treasure map" documents, journalist Grann resurrected and reconstructed the Fawcett search for Z. Grann became part of the search for Fwacett, travelling to England and, armed with extra life insurance, eventually to South America. The Fawcett history and Grann's quest cleverly and successfully alternate narratives in the 400-page book; most deals with Fawcett?his character, mania and the intrigues of his hardship treks into what he himself called "truly primitive" Amazonia.

Fawcett was driven. He was lauded by some contemporaries as "a man of indomitable will, infinite resource, fearless" and one who could "outwalk and outhike and outexplore anyone else." "Boundless imagination," said an admirer. "Extremely original man, absolutely fearless," said another. But he had his detractors, not least of all most of those who accompanied (were relentlessly driven by) him. " Moody," "lone wolf," "loner, too ambitious and headstrong," "audacious to the point of rashness," "dangerous compulsion" and "Nietzschian explorer?who spouted eugenic gibberish" were some of the unkind and probably accurate characterizations.???

Fawcett dabbled in the occult and had a brief plunge into a counterculture ascetic known as theosophy, including association with sciolist proselyte, a corpulent, ascetically fraudulent, Russian woman, one Helena Petrovna Blatvatsky. Ouija boards also figured oddly in the explorer's decision making. A Royal Geographic Society official remarked," I do not expect that his going in for spiritualism has improved his judgment." To this, Fawcett retorted, "Remember that I am a sane enthusiast and not an eccentric hunter of the Snark." Snark was reference to a make-believe character in the Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "The Hunting of the Snark," in which Snark hunters "of sudden vanish away/And never be met with again."?

Fawcett's final expedition was his seventh to South America. Capital for the adventure faltered when its chief fund-raiser's attention was diverted from the presumed promise of Z's gold, black gold (rubber trees), cinnamon trees, further fame and finally fortune, in favor of the tangibility of New York City's booze and trollops. But Fawcett prevailed enough to outfit his small party, including his son Jack and Jack's best friend. The lost city was not the only reason for seven journeys into a place of "no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and worst of all, continual Feare, and danger of violent death" according to English philosopher, author and wet blanket Thomas Hobbes. At least part of Fawcett's peripatetic motivation was, as he wrote, "Civilization has a precarious hold on us and there is an undoubted attraction is a life of absolute freedom once it has been tasted. The call o' the wild is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure."?

In March 2006, The River of Doubt was reviewed in this newsletter. That book told of Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing and very nearly fatal, 1913 survey trip of the Brazilian Amazon's River of Doubt. Fawcett was plagued by worry over better-healed competitors beating him to the prize of Z, but he rather dismissed the Roosevelt expedition as a "good journey for an elderly man." My guess is that he didn't say that to elderly man's ruddy face.?

Was Fawcett never to be met with again?? David Grann knows. His obsession, his research, his own travel to hostile Amazonia and his book record and track the sketchy evidence of Fawcett's surreptitious trail. But did the Snark prevail?? The book is very much worth reading to find out. It is authoritative, entertaining and at least a semi-spellbinder.

The Lost City of Z, originally published in 2009 by Doubleday, now is available in paperback (by Vintage Books) for $6.00 and up (it is recommended that you only pay full retail price for WMI titles).