Like Fawcett, Dyott had developed over the years his own idiosyncratic methods of exploring. He believed, for instance, that diminutive men-men, that is to say, built like himself-were best able to endure in the jungle. “A big man has to exert so much energy to carry his bulk that he has no surplus,” Dyott told reporters, and he would be “difficult to stow in a canoe.”
Dyott posted an advertisement in several American newspapers seeking a volunteer who was “small, spare, of wiry build.” The Los Angeles Times broadcast his appeal under the headline “Dyott Needs Young Unmarried Man for Perilous Jungle Trip in Search for Scientist: Applicant Must Be Single, Quiet and Youthful.” Within days, he received offers from twenty thousand people. “They have come from all over the world,” Dyott told reporters. “England, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Peru, Mexico-all are represented. Letters have come from Alaska, too.” He noted, “There are applicants in all ranks of society… There are letters from lawyers, physicians, real estate dealers, steeplejacks… From Chicago an acrobat wrote, and a wrestler.” Dyott hired three secretaries to help him sift through the applications. The 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 Bakairí Post, where a group of Kayapós 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 Bakairí Indians turned and said in an expressionless voice, “Kayapós.”
After trekking nearly a month northward from Bakairí Post, the party reached the settlement of the Nahukwá, one of many tribes that had sought sanctuary in the jungles around the Xingu. Dyott wrote of the Nahukwá, “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 Suyás, lived in that direction. Each time the Nahukwás said the word “Suyá,” 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.