The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Chapter 8

Into the Amazon

• Before going to the Amazon, Fawcett is enlisted by the British government to be a Moroccan spy.
• Chatting with Moroccan officials, Fawcett works his way into the royal court to spy on the sultan.
• Fawcett returns to England without incident. Mission: Impossible, this isn't.
• Back in foggy London, Fawcett attracts the attention of George Taubman Goldie, the president of the Royal Geographic Society.
• Goldie recruits Fawcett to map the border between Bolivia and Brazil.
• Fawcett says yes. He believes this is his destiny.
• Off Fawcett goes in 1906, leaving behind his pregnant wife and three-year-old son.
• With a surveyor named Arthur John Chivers, Fawcett descends the Andes toward the jungle.
• The altitude sickness is rough, especially for the mules, who sometimes fall right over the cliffs.
• The dudes eventually abandon their pack animals and continue alone.
• Fawcett and Chivers travel from one isolated little town to another, shocked at how the rubber industry treats the native people.
• Many indigenous people are forced into slavery by rubber barons.
• Fawcett and his men scour nearly six hundred miles of jungle, battling electric eels, piranhas, and anacondas.
• Worse than the big creatures are the little critters: gnats, millipedes, worms, and mosquitoes.
• Many of Fawcett's men get sick with yellow fever or malaria.
• To top it all off, some of the Amazon tribes, like the Guayaki, are known to be cannibals.
• On one memorable night, Fawcett and his men must flee downriver from "savages" (8.39) throwing spears.
• In 1907, Fawcett, who appears to be impervious to snakes, spears, and diseases, emerges victorious from the jungle. And he did it a year ahead of schedule.
• Someone get this guy to edit James Cameron's next film.