“Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Percy Fawcett; abundant game, big and small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS; highest references expected and given. Write: Box 1150, The Times, EC4.”
So ran an advertisement in the personal columns of The Times on April 14, 1932, inviting readers to help to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the age: the disappearance, seven years earlier, of the explorer Percy Fawcett. It was answered by Peter Fleming, the elder brother of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, who was promptly dispatched to the Amazon as special correspondent for this paper.
Fawcett’s doomed expedition to find a lost Amazonian civilisation is given the