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Z: Beyond the Xingu by Diana Ashley

PERCY HARRISON FAWCETT

Searching for Z: Beyond the Xingu

This website concerns an Amazon explorer who vanished in Brazil in 1925, searching for lost, ancient cities said to be protected by a tribe of elusive Amazonian Indians. Possibly the prototype for Indiana Jones, this extraordinary man may yet be vindicated by archaelogical discoveries that are currently unfolding. The last chapter of his story is yet to be written.

Colonel Fawcett was a British Army officer posted to South America in the early 1900s to delimit national boundaries during the rubber conflicts among Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil. His need for personal challenge drove him to leave behind a beloved wife, Nina, and their children.

He couldn’t have foreseen the seductive spell of the wilderness, and all its beauty and danger. While on the Beni and Acre rivers he first encountered intriguing tales of “white Indians” and pre-Incan ruins, and was exposed to the mysticism of South American culture that penetrated far beneath mere superstition. Years passed and Fawcett continued mapping the wild rivers, increasingly intrigued by rumors and evidence of hidden ruins, and even living remnants of an advanced civilization deep in the forests. Eventually he quit the Army to pursue his quest for the hidden city he called “Z”.

In trek after trek he was hampered by a frustrating string of companions who lacked the hardiness of body and spirit needed for the rigors of exploration. In 1925, Fawcett at long last had the ideal comrade: his son Jack, a powerful, dedicated young man of twenty-one. With Jack’s friend, Raleigh, the three vanished into the wilderness, leaving behind an enduring mystery, purported messages to a psychic, rumors of Fawcett-sightings, and numerous would-be rescuers.

Was Fawcett a man of unusual insight, or was he obsessed, even mad?