The Lost City of Z

Independent, an American weekly newspaper, marveled, “Perhaps if there were a sufficient number of jungles available and enough expeditions to go round, we would see the spectacle of our whole population marching off in search of lost explorers, ancient civilizations, and something which it vaguely felt was missing in its life.” Nina told the RGS that the outpouring was a “great compliment” to the enduring reputation of Colonel Fawcett.

One of those who applied to join the expedition was Roger Rimell,

Raleigh’s brother, who was now thirty years old. “I am most anxious naturally,” he informed Dyott, “and do consider I am as entitled to go as much as anyone.” Elsie Rimell was so desperate to find Raleigh that she consented, saying, “I know of no greater help I can give them than to offer the services of my one remaining son.”

Dyott, however, not wanting to take someone with so little experience, politely declined. Several adventurous ladies also applied, but Dyott said, “I can’t take a woman.” In the end, he chose four hardened out-doorsmen who could operate a wireless radio and a movie camera in the jungle.

Dyott had strictly enforced a ban on married men, insisting that they were accustomed to “creature comforts” and “always thinking about their wives.” But, on the eve of the party’s departure from New York, he violated his own edict and married a woman nearly half his age, Persis Stevens Wright, whom the newspapers portrayed as a “Long Island society girl.” The couple planned to honeymoon during the expedition’s voyage to Rio. New York City’s mayor, Jimmy Walker, who came to bid the expedition farewell, told Dyott that his bride’s consent to his risking his life in order to save the lives of others was “a display of unselfish courage of which the whole nation should be proud.”

On February 18, 1928, in the midst of a blizzard, Dyott and his party drove to the same piers in Hoboken, New Jersey, where Fawcett had departed with Jack and Raleigh three years earlier. Dyott’s group was preparing to board the SS Voltaire when an anxious middle-aged woman appeared, bundled against the storm. It was Elsie Rimell. She had flown from California to meet with Dyott, whose expedition, she said, “fills me with new hope and courage.” She handed him a small package-a present for her son Raleigh.

During the voyage to Brazil, the ship’s crew dubbed the explorers the “Knights of the Round Table.” A banquet was held in their honor, and special menus were printed that listed each of the explorers by nicknames, such as “King Arthur” and “Sir Galahad.” The ship’s purser declared, “On behalf of your noble band of knights allow me to wish you Cheerio, good luck and Godspeed.”

After the Voltaire reached Rio, Dyott bade his wife farewell and headed with his men to the frontier. There he recruited a small army of Brazilian helpers and Indian guides, and the party soon grew to twenty-six members and required seventy-four oxen and mules to transport more than three tons of food and gear. A reporter later described the party as a “Cecil B. DeMille safari.” Brazilians began to refer to it as the “suicide club.”

In June, the expedition arrived at Bakairi Post, where a group of Kayapos had recently attacked and killed several inhabitants. (Dyott described the outpost as “the dregs of civilization mixing with the scum of the wilds.”) While camping there, Dyott made what he considered a breakthrough: he met an Indian named Bernardino, who said that he had served as Fawcett’s guide down the Kurisevo River, one of the headwaters of the Xingu. In exchange for gifts, Bernardino agreed to lead Dyott as far as he had taken Fawcett’s party, and, shortly after they departed, Dyott spotted Y-shaped marks carved into the trunks of trees-a possible sign of Fawcett’s former presence. “Fawcett’s trail loomed largely before us and, like a pack of hounds on the scent, we were in full cry,” Dyott wrote.

At night, Dyott sent his dispatches over the radio, and they were often passed on to NANA by the Radio Relay League, a network of amateur operators in the United States. Each new item was trumpeted in international bulletins: “Dyott Nearing Jungle Ordeal;” “Dyott Picks Up Fawcett Trail;” “Dyott Finds New Clew.” John J. Whitehead, a member of the expedition, wrote in his diary, “How different would the story of Stanley and Livingstone been written, if they had possessed radio.” Many people around the world tuned in, mesmerized. “I first heard of [the ex pedition] on my crystal set when I was only eleven years old,” Loren McIntyre, an American who went on to become an acclaimed Amazon explorer himself, later recalled.

Listeners vicariously faced the sudden terrors that confronted the party. One night Dyott reported:

We came across tracks in the soft ground, tracks of human feet. We stopped and examined them. There must have been thirty or forty persons in a single band. After a few moments one of our Bakairi Indians turned and said in an expressionless voice, “Kayapos.”

After trekking nearly a month northward from Bakairi Post, the party reached the settlement of the Nahukwa, one of many tribes that had sought sanctuary in the jungles around the Xingu. Dyott wrote of the Nahukwa, “These new denizens of the forest were as primitive as Adam and Eve.” Several in the tribe greeted Dyott and his men warmly, but the chief, Aloique, seemed hostile. “He regarded us impassively with his small eyes,” Dyott wrote. “Cunning and cruelty lurked behind their lids.”

Dyott was surrounded by Aloique’s children, and he noticed something tied to a piece of string around the neck of one boy-a small brass plate engraved with the words “W. S. Silver and Company.” It was the name of the British firm that had supplied Fawcett with gear. Slipping into the chiefs dark hut, Dyott lit a flare. In the corner, he spied a military-style metal trunk.

Without the benefit of translators, Dyott tried to interrogate Aloique, using elaborate sign language. Aloique, also gesturing, seemed to suggest that the trunk was a gift. He then indicated that he had guided three white men to a neighboring territory. Dyott was skeptical and urged Aloique and some of his men to take him along the same route. Aloique warned that a murderous tribe, the Suyas, lived in that direction. Each time the Nahukwas said the word “Suya,” they would motion to the backs of their heads, as if they were being decapitated. Dyott persisted and Aloique, in exchange for knives, agreed to guide them.

That night, as Dyott and his men slept among the Indians, many in the party were uneasy. “We cannot predict the actions of [the Indians] for we know nothing about them except-and this is important-from these regions the Fawcett party disappeared,” Whitehead wrote. He slept with a.38 Winchester and a machete under his blanket.

As the expedition pushed on through the forest the following day, Dyott continued to question Aloique, and before long the chief seemed to add a new element to his story. Fawcett and his men, he now intimated, had been killed by the Suyas. “Suyas! Bung-bung-bung!” the chief yelled, falling to the ground, as if he were dead. Aloique’s shifting explanations aroused Dyott’s suspicions. As he later wrote, “The finger of guilt seemed to point to Aloique.”

At one point, as Dyott was reporting his latest findings over the radio, the machine stopped working. “Jungle Cry Strangled,” a NANA bulletin declared. “Dyott Radio Cut Off in Crisis.” The prolonged silence unleashed dire speculation. “I am so afraid,” Dyott’s wife told reporters.

The expedition, meanwhile, was short of food and water, and some of the men were so ill that they could barely walk. Whitehead wrote that he “couldn’t eat, my fever is too bad.” The cook’s legs had swollen and were oozing a gangrenous pus. Dyott decided to press on with only two of his men, in the hope of finding Fawcett’s remains. “Remember,” Dyott told Whitehead, “if anything happens to me, all my effects go to my wife.”

The night before the small contingent left, one of the men in Dyott’s expedition party, an Indian, reported that he had overheard Aloique plotting with tribesmen to murder Dyott and steal his equipment. By then, Dyott had no doubt that he had found Fawcett’s killer. As a deterrent, Dyott told Aloique that he now intended to take his entire party with him. The next morning Aloique and his men had vanished.

Soon afterward, scores of Indians from various tribes in the Xingu region emerged from the forest, carrying bows and arrows, and demanding gifts. With every hour a new canoe arrived with more tribesmen. Some of the Indians wore striking jewelry and had in their possession exquisite pottery, which made Dyott think that Fawcett’s stories of an ancient sophisticated civilization might be true. But it was impossible to make further inquiries. As Whitehead put it, “Natives from tribes all over the territory, possibly two thousand of them, gradually were hemming us in from all sides.”

Dyott had exhausted his supply of gifts, and the Indians were growing hostile. He promised them that the next morning he would give each of them an ax and knives. After midnight, when the Indians appeared to be asleep, Dyott quietly gathered his men and set out in the expedition’s boats. The men pushed off and floated with the currents. No one dared to strike a paddle. A moment later, they heard a group of canoes upriver coming toward them with more Indians, apparently heading to their camp. Dyott signaled to his men to pull their boats to the side