It was Jack, however, who most yearned to be like his father. “By the look of it, my little son Jack is going to pass through the same phase as I did when he reaches early manhood,” Fawcett once remarked proudly. “Already he is fascinated by the stories we tell him of Galla-pita-Galla.” Fawcett wrote and illustrated stories for Jack, depicting him as a young adventurer, and when Fawcett was home the two did everything together-hiking, playing cricket, sailing. Jack was “the real apple of his eye,” one relative recalled.
In 1910, when Jack was heading off to boarding school along with Raleigh Rimell, Fawcett sent him a poem from “far away in the wild.” It was called “Jack Going to School” and read, in part:
Never forget us brave little man
Mother and father trust in you
Be brave as a lion, yet kind returning
Ready to fight and averse to wrong…
Never forget you're a gentleman
And never a fear you'll do.
Life is short and the world is wide
We're just a ripple on life's great pool
Enjoy your life to the best you can
All will help to enrich the span
But never forget you're a gentleman
And the time will come when we all with pride
Will think of your days at school.
In a separate letter to Nina, Fawcett spoke about his older son's character and future: “A leader of men, I think-possibly an orator-always an independent, loveable, erratic personality, which may go far… a bundle of nerves-inexhaustible nervous energy-a boy of boys-capable of extremes-sensitive and proud-the child we longed for, and, I think, born for some purpose as yet obscure.”
WORD OF FAWCETT'S feats as an explorer, meanwhile, was beginning to spread. Although his deeds lacked that single crystalline achievement, like reaching the North Pole or the top of Mount Everest-Amazonia defied such triumphs: no single person could ever conquer it-Fawcett, progressing inch by inch through the jungle, tracing rivers and mountains, cataloging exotic species, and researching the native inhabitants, had explored as much of the region as anyone. As one reporter later put it, “He was probably the world's foremost expert on South America.” William S. Barclay, a member of the RGS, said of Fawcett, “I have for years regarded him as one of the best of his class that ever lived.”
His feats came at a time when Britain, with the death of Queen Victoria and the rise of Germany, had grown anxious about its empire. These doubts were exacerbated by an English general's claim that 60 percent of the country's young men were unfit to meet the requirements of military service, and by a rash of apocalyptic novels-including Hartmann the Anarchist; or, The Doom of the Great City, by Fawcett's older brother, Edward. Published in 1893, the cult science-fiction novel detailed how an underground cell of anarchists (“a disease bred by an effete form of civilization”) invented an airplane prototype christened the Attila and, in a scene that presaged the Blitz of World War II, used it to bomb London. (“Of the Houses of Parliament pinnacles were collapsing and walls were being riven asunder as the shells burst within them.”) The public had grown so agitated over the state of Victorian manhood that the government created an investigative body called the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration.
The press seized upon Fawcett's accomplishments, portraying him like one of his childhood heroes and holding him up as the perfect counterpoint to the national crisis of confidence. One newspaper declared, “ ‘The lure of the wild' has not lost its power upon men of the fearless and resourceful type represented by Maj. Fawcett.” Another journal urged children to emulate him: “There is a true Scout for you to follow! He gives up all thought of his own safety or comfort, so that he may carry out the duty that has been given to him.”
In early 1911, at a lecture before the Royal Geographical Society, where he presented his findings, dozens of scientists and explorers from across Europe crowded into the hall to glimpse the “Livingstone of the Amazon.” Beckoning him to the front of the hall, Charles Darwin's son Leonard, who was now the Society's president, described how Fawcett had mapped “regions which have never before been visited by Europeans” and had traveled up rivers that had “never before been ascended by one.” Darwin added that Fawcett had demonstrated that there was still a place “where the explorer can go forth and exhibit perseverance, energy, courage, forethought, and all those qualities which go to make up the qualities of an explorer of the times now passing away.”
Although Fawcett liked to protest that he was not “a great seeker for publicity,” he clearly relished the attention. (One of his hobbies was to paste newspaper accounts about himself into a scrapbook.) Showing lantern slides of the jungle and sketches of his maps, he told the crowd:
What I hope is that the publicity of these explorations may attract other adventurous spirits into this neglected part of the world. But it should be remembered that the difficulties are great and the tale of disasters a long one, for the few remaining unknown corners of the world exact a price for their secrets. Without any desire whatever for self-glorification, I can vouch for it that it requires a great en thusiasm to successfully bridge, year after year, the wide gulf which lies between the comforts of civilization and the very real risks and penalties which dog every footstep in the unexplored forests of this still little-known continent.
A Bolivian emissary who was there said of the emerging map of South America, “I must tell you that it is owing to Major Fawcett's bravery that this has been accomplished… If we had a few more men like him, I am sure there would not be a single corner of the unexplored regions.”
Fawcett's growing legend was predicated on the fact that not only had he made journeys that no one else had dared but he had done so at a pace that seemed inhuman. He accomplished in months what others took years to do-or, as Fawcett once put it matter-of-factly, “I am a rapid worker and have no idle days.” Incredibly, he rarely, if ever, seemed to get sick. “He was fever-proof,” said Thomas Charles Bridges, a popular adventure writer at the time who knew Fawcett. The trait caused rampant speculation about his physiology. Bridges attributed this resistance to his having “a pulse below the normal.” One historian observed that Fawcett had “a virtual immunity from tropical disease. Perhaps this last quality was the most exceptional. There were other explorers, although not many, who equaled him in dedication, courage and strength, but in his resistance to disease he was unique.” Even Fawcett began to marvel at what he called the “perfect constitution.”
In addition, he was struck by his ability to elude predators. Once, after leaping over a pit viper, he wrote in his journal, “What amazed me more than anything was the warning of my subconscious mind, and the instant muscular response… I had not seen it till it flashed between my legs, but the ‘inner man'-if I can call it that-not only saw it in time, but judged its striking height and distance exactly, and issued commands to the body accordingly!” His RGS colleague William Barclay, who worked in Bolivia and knew Fawcett's methods as an explorer as well as anyone, said that over the years the explorer had developed “the conviction that no danger could touch him” and that, like a mythic hero, “his actions and happenings were fore-ordained.” Or, as Fawcett liked to say, “I am in the hands of the Gods.”
Yet the very things that made Fawcett a great explorer-demonic fury, single-mindedness, and an almost divine sense of immortality-also made him terrifying to be with. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of his object-or destiny. He was “prepared to travel lighter and fare harder than most people would consider either possible or proper,” the journal of the Royal Geographical Society reported. In a letter to the Society, Nina said, “By the way, you will be amused to hear Major Fawcett contemplated cutting through 100 miles of forest… in a month! The others fairly gasped at the thought!!!”