Beyond the completion of a 3,000-mile journey, mostly under amusing conditions, through a little-known part of the world, and the discovery of one new tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon, nothing of importance was achieved.
Nothing indeed. In 1932, Peter Fleming, a literary editor, traded his pen for a pistol and took off as part of the celebrated search for missing English explorer Colonel P.H. Fawcett. With meager supplies, faulty maps, and packs of rival newspapermen on their trail, Fleming and his companions marched, canoed, and hacked through 3,000 miles of wilderness and alligator-ridden rivers in search of the fate of the lost explorer. One of the great adventure stories,Brazilian Adventureis as fresh a story today as it was when originally published in 1933.
In 1932, Peter Fleming, a literary editor, traded his pen for a pistol and took off as part of the celebrated search for missing English explorer Colonel P.H. Fawcett. With meager supplies, faulty maps, and packs of rival newspapermen on their trail, Fleming and his companions marched, canoed, and hacked through 3,000 miles of wilderness and alligator-ridden rivers in search of the fate of the lost explorer.
Peter Fleming (1907–1971), the brother of novelist Ian Fleming, wrote for theLondon Evening Standard, theSpectator, the BBC, and theTimesof London. His travels took him to Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China, Japan, Tibet, and Manchuria. He died in a hunting accident in Scotland.
Foreword
Part One: Through the Looking Glass
I. Signing On
II. The Mystery of Colonel Fawcett
III. No Nonsense
IV. Outlook Unsettled
V. Getaway
VI. Rolling Down
VII. Rio
VIII. Getting Warmer
IX. Snakes and a Revolution
X. False Start
XI. Frontier Interlude
XII. The Road Up Country
XIII. Assorted Encounters
XIV. Delays andlóÓ