River of the Gods

Millard, Candice. River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile. New York: Doubleday 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

Sitting on a thin carpet in his tiny, rented room in Suez, Egypt, in 1854, Richard Francis Burton calmly watched as five men cast critical eyes over his meager belongings.....He knew that if they discovered the truth, that he was not Shaykh Abdullah, an Afghan-born Indian doctor and devout, lifelong Muslim but a thirty-two-year-old lieutenant in the army of the British East India Company, not only would his elaborately planned expedition be in grave danger, but so would his life. Burton, however, was not worried.


Description:

Any book about Richard Burton (the 19th century soldier/explorer, not the 20th century actor) has got my full attention. Here is a man who was described by Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, as "dark, and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless...He is steel! He would go through you like a sword." Burton was the first white, non-Moslem to successfully journey into Mecca and view the most sacred religious rite of the Hajj. In short, a man to be reckoned with.

Candice Millard and her brilliantly detailed River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the NIle, follows Burton throughout his burning quest to discover the source of the Nile. 

The world of the 1850s was wildly excited about exploration of any type. Those who voyaged to the North and South Poles or searched for the Northwest Passage were world-wide heroes of their day. And the Nile origin was one of the last great mysteries the public clamored to be solved, especially, the English believed, by a Britisher.

  

Surrounded by impenetrable jungles, deserts, hostile tribes, monsoon rains, and dangerous animals every mile, the Nile source had proved unconquerable for centuries. No one in history had ever been able to follow the Nile from its mouth back to its source. 

So, of course, Burton believed he was just to man to do this. But this time he planned to take an untried route across Africa straight to where he felt the Nile's source was rather than trying to float upstream from its mouth. He would follow game trails, ancient routes used by slavers to march their captives from inland to departure ports, or just hack his way through the jungles, relying on tribal guides, his instincts, and pure luck. Nine months was the projected time allotted to the expedition by the sponsoring Royal Geographical Society along with a paltry sum of money for supplies and bearers..

But Burton's East African Expedition was plagued with trouble almost from the start. Debilitating disease, lack of food and funds, desertion of native bearers, and worst of all betrayal by his second in command lead to disaster after disaster. Burton himself became so sick he had to be transported on a stretcher by bearers for much of the journey.

But there is hope for a second expedition and Burton, ever the bold optimist, again must raise funds and expedition members for another full-on assault to the source, which Burton felt was the recently-discovered gigantic Lake Tanganyika. River of the Gods provides a highly-detailed, thoroughly absorbing description of all his expeditions.

Author Millard relies heavily on Burton's prodigious writings for authenticity, including books, articles, essays, lectures, and copious field notes. She also quotes original news articles, diaries, and other primary source documents for more timely details. 

The result is a wonderfully in-depth description of how an expedition is envisioned, funded, staffed, and carried out, with background information on the countries passed through, their histories, African culture, and the outside world of the mid-19th century --- each of which plays a significant role to drive such expeditions.

There is so much to detail about Burton's adventures that, if you are interested in exploration, expeditions, African history, British confidence, and the mysterious Nile, then River of the Gods is definitely for you. Highly engrossing, challenging, triumphant, and heart-breaking.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Rosolie, Paul. Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon.   

A fascinating, modern-day exploration of the Amazon River with all its impenetrable jungles, ferocious creatures, and hostile people (both tribal and foreign). Riveting.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Give Me My Father's Body

Harper, Kenn. Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. New York: Washington Square Press 1986. Print

First Sentences:
 

Qisuk and Nuktqo were at Cape York already when the vessel hove into view. They recognized her from a distance -- it was the Hope again, the same chartered Newfoundland sealer that had come the year before...It was August 1897. This was Robert Peary's fourth expedition to northwestern Greenland, the home of the Polar Eskimos.


Description:

This is the true history of Minik, a Polar Eskimo (this is the author's historic term) who as a child lived alone in New York City at the turn of the century. Brilliantly, heartbreakingly told by Kenn Harper in Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo, this is a book that grabs you immediately for its uniqueness of story, characters, and setting. 

In 1897, Robert Peary, the polar explorer, returned to the United States from his most recent voyage to northwest Greenland. Among other treasures from this failed quest to reach the North Pole, Peary brought with him six Polar Eskimos. He felt these four unique adults and two children would be welcome gifts to be studied by anthropologists at the Museum of Natural History, (although the museum had not asked Peary to bring them any "live specimens"). 

All six Eskimos were scheduled to live in New York City for one season and then be returned to their home on Peary's next voyage. One of these Eskimos was Minik, a six-year-old child who had accompanied his father from Greenland.

Unfortunately, these newcomers almost immediately succumbed to pneumonia. Four died in the first months, including Minik's father. One Eskimo child was able to sail back home safely, but the now-orphaned Minik remained in the city where he spent months living in the museum basement, studied by scientists, and on display to the public. Eventually he was adopted by a wealthy family and began to live a new life of ease in America.

But that idyllic life was brief.

His adopted family became financially ruined. The museum, for their part, could not offer Minik housing or support. Peary did not want to any assume any responsibility for the boy and never communicated with child. Minik's life at a young age became that of an outsider, living on the streets in a foreign land, trying to learn a new language and the ways of Americans, without support from family, friends, or scientists.

Author Harper relates Minik's story in Greenland and New York, using his extensive research into diaries, newspaper articles, museum notes, interviews, and other documents of the day. Harper, who lived in the Arctic for over thirty years and is fluent in those native languages, also provides numerous photos of Minik, his family, museum scientists, and even Peary to better bring the book's narrative to life.

The book's title is taken from Minik's own words in trying to recover his father's skeleton from the museum. He had shockingly noticed that his father's bones were on public display in the museum along with his father's precious kayak, knife, and furs. Minik wanted to recover his father's bones and what were now his own rightful possessions, then return to his home in Greenland for a traditional Eskimo burial. With no cooperation from the museum and almost no ships equipped to sail that far north, Minik was forced to remain for years alone, without his father's remains, in the United States, apart from his true home.

I won't reveal whether Minik ever does return to Greenland. If he did return, one can just imagine what he might find there, what his reception would be, and whether he could even grow to stand the bitter cold of Northern Greenland. You'll just have to read the book to find out.

It's a gripping, fascinating, and deeply personal history of one person struggling to understand his old and new worlds. You won't regret picking it up and immersing yourself into the turn of the century world of exploration and science, and the life of one boy from a far-off land.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kroeber, Theodora. Ishi in Two Worlds.   

True account of Ishi, the last surviving Native American, a genuine Stone Age man, who was found in California in 1911. He had avoided all people outside his region for 40 years until his entire tribe including his family had died. The book chronicles his last years in the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco where he was studied for his fascinating, unique skills, lifestyle, and history. A wonderful, tragic look into humankind's past and survival techniques. 

Kayaks Down the Nile

Goddard, Robert. Kayaks Down the Nile. New York: Holt 2019. Print

First Sentences:

For those wondering why three men with sound minds and healthy bodies would want to risk their comfort and security -- even their lives -- in exploring the largely untamed Nile River, I offer the reasons why the river intrigues me. 

The 4,145-mile Nile is the longest river on earth, and one of the greatest of all natural wonders. For 6,000 years it has been the world's most important watercourse, with a vital role in the development of the human race. And the Nile Basin's million square miles contain the world in miniature: a fantastic variety of races, animals, terrain, agriculture, and weather.

The water of the Nile is the source of life for an immense population of humans representing dozens of races ...

Description:

When I was in high school in Southern California, there were two days that every student and teacher looked forward to with complete abandon. Those were the days that John Goddard, a former graduate of my high school, came to visit and give an assembly on his latest adventure. You see, Goddard was a world-famous explorer and documentarian for National Geographic of the world's natural beauties: from mountain tops (by foot) to jungles (by elephant), to underwater (by scuba and also by holding his breath for 2.5 minutes) and to the air (by flying a fighter jet). He was Indiana Jones before there was an Indiana Jones, but without the treasure-hunting.

Goddard, at age 15, heard an adult say he regretted not pursuing his goals when he was Goddard's age. Fired up, Godddard created a list of 127 things he wanted to accomplish in his lifetime. Included were relatively simple tasks like "Type 50 words a minute," "Become an Eagle Scout," and "Make a parachute jump." Others were more challenging, such as, "Ride an elephant, camel, ostrich and bronco," "Retrace travels of Marco Polo and Alexander the Great," and "Milk a poisonous snake." Some were just plain daunting: "Visit every country in the world," "Land on and take off from an aircraft carrier," and "Visit the Moon."

I still remember Goddard's assembly when he came back from exploring the Nile River from source to mouth by kayak. The trip proved the basis for his book, Kayaks Down the Nile
(#97 on his Life List: "Write a book"). 

Just walking up to their starting point of that adventure proved ominous:

Occasionally, as I plunged through the spongy mat of humus, my foot sank into cold slime, after extricating my leg, I had the distasteful chore of prying off the slimy black leeches that had immediately fastened themselves onto my bare legs.

Goddard was attacked by a Nile hippo on one of his very first days:

My private opinion that an unmolested hippo was not dangerous to man was refuted when this great barrel-shaped hulk plunged after me in a vicious charge that left no doubt as to his intentions. He was nearly as long as my kayak and must have weighed well over three tons, yet his rage drove him through the water at an incredible speed. His nostrils blasted spray with every snort, and his yellow tusks were to say the least, awesome.

When he and his fellow explorer Jean came across some fifteen foot tall termite nests near Lake Victoria (#68: "Swim in Lake Victoria" - done) and sliced into one to see what it was like inside, Goddard got a surprise:

Suddenly an aggressive soldier termite bit Jean on the forearm with such ferocity that Its pincers pierced the skin and overlapped. To free Jean, I had to split the head and pull out each mandible separately.

That's just a taste of the adventures and energetic writing style of Goddard. You can see how he could hold audiences of every age and country breathless with his casual descriptions of dangerous events encountered in his travels.

I highly recommend Kayaks Down the Nile for its fearlessness and variety of experiences, and then marvel that this tremendous Nile adventure, so challenging, so threatening, so inspirational, was just one of many such expeditions undertaken by Goddard. I still am in awe of him and his accomplishments 50 years after first listening to him tell his tales. This book shows you why.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kane, Joe. Running the Amazon.   

Joe Kane documents the nine-member expedition to explore, for the first time, the entire length of the Amazon River from its source high in the Andes to its mouth in the Atlantic. (previously reviewed here) 

Running the Amazon

Kane, Joe. Running the Amazon. New York: Knopf. 1989. Print.

First Sentences:

Southern Peru, late August 1985.

Beneath a rust-colored winter sky an old GMC flatbed bounced slowly through the high Andean badlands known as The Puna. It is a lunar landscape, flat, treeless, ringed with bald dun hills and sharp gray peaks, bone-dry nine months of the year, beaten by frigid, dust-coated winds. 

Description:

I'm a sucker for any adventure book with humans pitted against nature, whether by their own choice or by accident, Exploring and surviving the arctic, space, jungles, mountains, wild rivers, and deserts all provide fascinating adventures and force me to wonder "Would I have survived this experience?" Probably not, but that only increases the admiration I have for these brave people and compels me to read more and more about such death-defying adventures.

In Running the Amazon, author Joe Kane recounts the only expedition to travel the entire length of the Amazon River, all 4,200 miles of it, from its source in the Andes mountains to mouth in the Atlantic Ocean. Kane was one of four members of this 1984 expedition to complete the entire length of the Amazon over the six-month trip by kayak, raft, and foot.. 

The Amazon Source to Sea Expedition consisted of nine men and women from Poland, Britain, Costa Rica, and South Africa. Members joined the expedion out of a sense of adventure, for the sake of science, and simply to be part of accomplishing a unique goal. One man was an experienced kayaker, one a doctor, one a photographer, and one a national park director from Costa Rica. Kane was along to document the journey for future articles and a book.

From the beginning, it proved to be a difficult endeavor. Simply finding the source of the Amazon at the 15,000 foot level of the Andes in Peru was the first challenge. From those freezing slopes to kayaking down to the humid jungles of the Amazon valleys, Kane documents their times of starvation, freezing, exhaustion, internal dissent, and small triumphs. He also includes fascinating local history of the region, the Incan dynasty, the Spanish invasion, and the indigenous people the expedition met along the river. 

Here's just one of Kane's many tidbits. While traveling down the wild, mysterious Apurimac river ("parts of it remain among the least-known areas on the South American continent"), Kane describes the hammered grass bridges of that region. They were once "two hundred feet long [with grass cables] as thick as a man's body...capable of supporting entire armies of animals and men." Imagine. Huge bridge cables made only of grass strong enough to support travel over vast chasms! The Incans eventually burned almost all of these bridges to slow the pursuit of Spanish conquistadors. Kane provides a photo of the last remaining Incan grass bridge, with expedition members crossing it with their kayaks floating in the river far below.

The group had to deal with local politics and cocaine traffickers, as well as the more severe problems of shelter, food, wild animals, biting insects, and drowning in the rapids they faced daily. You can probably imagine the other dangers presented on every page of this heart-stopping story.

I was completely transported into the rain forests along with these incredibly brave and stubborn explorers. Their dedication and perseverance inspired and drove them onward, overcoming every obstacle the environment could throw at them. A strong, inspiring book.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Goddard, John. Kayaks Down the Nile

Author Goddard used to come to my high school in California twice a year to give student assemblies recounting his adventures. I remember one of his best was his trip to be the first to explore the Nile River from origin to mouth. Hippos, rapids, and every other obstacle was met and overcome with a casual grace so evident in his talks and this book. Hard to find, but a must read for those with an explorer's soul. 

Underland

MacFarlane, Robert. Underland: A Deep Time Journey. New York: Norton 2019. Print

First Sentences:

We know so little of the worlds beneath our feet.

Look up on a cloudless night and you might see the light from a star thousands of trillions of miles away, or pick out the craters left by asteroid strikes on the moon's face. Look down and your sight stops at topsoil. tarmac, toe .... 

The underland keeps its secrets well.

Description:

"The underland" is defined as the "world beneath our feet" in Robert MacFarlane's highly engrossing new book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey. MacFarlane sets out to explore and experience various underland manifestations from caves to underground cities and melting glaciers, sharing his feelings about each physical environment, as well as the literature, history, and people who explore these hidden worlds.

MacFarlane explains that underland areas, throughout history, have have been used for three purposes for humans:

• To shelter what is precious (memories, messages, fragile lives
• To yield what is valuable (minerals, visions, information, wealth)
• To dispose of what is harmful (waste, poison, secrets)

MacFarlane notes the "long cultural history of abhorrence around underground spaces, associated with 'the awful darkness inside the world,'" (Cormac McCarthy). Mankind has described the underworld through stories full of fear, disgust, dirt, mortality, and the "disturbing power of claustrophobia." Not wonder we know so little of this portion of our own earth.

MacFarlane sets out to experience each sub-surface land first hand, including:

• The Mendips limestone burial sites in England
• The intricate Invisible Cities and Les Catecombes under Paris
• The Starless Rivers that run underground in Italy
• The caves with Red Dancer paintings in the isolated caves of Norway
• The Hiding Places in Finland
• The Moulin (melting holes) in the glaciers of Greenland 
• The Onkalo in Finland built to store radioactive waste safely underground for eons

What makes this extensive book so compelling is the combination of science, folklore, and curiosity MacFarlane brings to each experience. He thoroughly researches the limestone caverns carved over countless ages (incomprehensible numbers of years are called "dark time") by dripping water. We can hardly imagine such a span of time. MacFarlane imparts this information as he inches belly down through tiny cave passageways. 

He also shows us the 8,600 year old honey fungus with a root system that spreads for miles underground. This underground network helps trees share nutrients (via the "wood wide web" - yes, that is the official term) and breaks down rocky mountains into sand over deep time. 

We read the historical literary references which portray trips to the underland to rescue people or to convey the dead with coins on their eyes to pay for the river crossing to the underworld. Poe wrote of the Maelstrom in Norway and Jules Verne of the Icelandic volcano, both of which lead to worlds hidden below the Earth's surface.. 

We hear the roaring water from the sunless rivers MacFarlane explores and view the animals that live in these waters without light. He even finds an inflatable dingy used by extreme cavers to float themselves upward towards a tiny opening in the ceiling as the only way of escape when the rivers cause the cavern to flood. Imagine! 

He also describes the dangers of the thawing arctic underworld as ancient burials are now exposed: animals that died of anthrax, skeletons of people with smallpox viruses, radioactive waste deposits abandoned after the Cold War. All were thought to be permanently buried for thousands of lifetimes. Now, these dangers have recently been revealed and released by melting permafrost and glaciers..  

We share his joy in examining the 65,000 year old wall painting in sacred places deep in French caves. We also talk with scientists searching  deep in the quiet salt caves of Yorkshire, England for infinitesimal signs of dark matter that makes up the universe. And it is equally powerful in the opposite way to learn of the deep foiba sinkholes and limestone caverns in Yugoslavia used by Communists and Fascists to dispose of "enemy" civilians and military victims, alive, wounded, or dead. 

I especially was struck by the timelessness of the deep time references. When considering the vast number of years, centuries, and millennium, why should mankind care what happens today since everything, including the human species, will be gone? MacFarlane offers a positive answer:

To think in deep time can be a means not of escaping our troubled present, but rather of re-imagining it; countermanding its quick greeds and furies with older, slower stories of making and unmaking. 

A deep time awareness might help us see ourselves as part of a web of gift, inheritance and legacy stretching over millions of years past and millions to come, bringing us to consider what we are leaving behind for the epoch and beings that will follow us.

Underland offers so many fascinating experiences with both the worlds under our feet and the people, past and present, who discover, study, and incorporate these environments into their lives. I cannot even begin to cover a fraction of the interesting facts and stories MacFarlane shares. I simply can say you really need to read this fascinating narrative and immerse yourself into the worlds below the surface of our Earth.

Darkness might be a medium of vision, and descent may be a movement towards revelation rather than deprivation. Our common verb "to understand" itself bears an old sense of passing beneath something in order fully to comprehend it. "To discover" is "to reveal by excavation, "to descend and bring to the light", "to fetch up from the depth." These are ancient associations.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

MacFarland, Robert. Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit.   

MacFarland examines the world's highest places from his own personal experiences and literary accounts from figures like Mallory, Lord Byron and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

The Lost City of the Monkey God

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story. New York: Grand Central Publishing. 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

Deep in Honduras, in a region called La Mosquitia, lie some of the last unexplored places on earth....

Early maps labeled it the Portal del Infierno, or "Gates of Hell," because it was so forbidding. The area is one of the most dangerous in the world, for centuries frustrating efforts to penetrate and explore it.

Description:

In today's era where seemingly every inch of our Earth has been thoroughly explored, wouldn't it be fantastic to discover the ruins of a vast civilization? A thriving culture previously never before identified? A huge city and art right under our noses, completely sheltered by the thick rain forests of Honduras? 

Well, enter Douglas Preston and his new book on the recent exploration of just such a modern-day architectural/cultural find: The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story.

While there had been whispered rumors and scraps in ancient diaries of a great "White City," Ciudad Blanca, or the Lost City of the Monkey God, deep in the forests of Honduras, natives were reluctant to lead explorers to possible locations due to curses and evil histories of the city. Thick tree canopies, impossible terrain, and dangerous fel-del-lance snakes, leopards, insects, and unrelenting rain, rain, rain helped preserve any possibility of finding such a city. One could walk five feet by ruins covered by vines and other vegetation and never notice them.

But technology to the rescue. A new radar system from Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed to analyze photos from space was also able to penetrate thick tree cover and up to 15 feet below the Earth's surface to identify potential lost cities. An ariel survey in the late-1990s identified several possible locations   for the White City deep in the Honduran jungle but it was ten years before a physical exploration on foot could be mounted. 

The White City expedition, accompanied by writer Preston, is described in all its wet, scary, trackless, and dangerous glory. Slogging through knee-deep mud, relying on GPS systems when more than 100 yards from camp to find your way home, the explorers do eventually discover ruins and statues, but their difficulties are only beginning.

Intertwined with historical details about the lost culture that may have existed and built these unknown cities, the possible reasons the abandoned their homes, and the effect of the Spanish conquerors is carefully described by author Preston as well. I knew nothing about Honduras and its cultures, so this research was absolutely fascinating.

That all this exploration and discovery happened and continue to develop as of 2017 is unbelievably exciting. The explorers and scientists from the first trek continue to re-live the discovery long after their return via publications due to diseases brought back from the jungle. The knowledge and city they literally uncovered and continue to explore will keep scientists and anthropologists challenged for years.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

The 1925 true story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his gripping, obsessive hunt for the Lost City, the rumored civilization full of gold, in the Amazon rainforest (previously reviewed here)

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

Author Adams retraces the steps of ancient Incas through Peru to explore ancient cities. Along the way, this inexperienced hiker and historian uncovers tales of this ancient culture, the men who originally discovered it, and the future of these fragile cities. (previously reviewed here)

Alone on the Ice

Roberts, David. Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration. New York: Norton. 2013. Print.

First Sentences:

It was a fitful start to the most ambitious venture ever launched in Antarctica. 

Description:

There's something about a survival story that always grabs me. A true story that pits people against impossible conditions is definitely my cup of tea. David Roberts' Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration is one of the best (and most aptly titled) in this genre.

The year 1912 took place during the last and greatest era of exploration. Expeditions were mounted to explore the Amazon as well as the North and South Poles. It seemed a last opportunity for personal and national glory for men like Scott, Admunsen, Perry, Shakelton, and Fawcett in the shrinking world of discovery and challenge.

Enter Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1912. His goal was not personal glory but to scientifically explore areas already discovered in the Antarctic but only briefly examined. To survey this wilderness properly, he divided his men into five teams with specific sections of the ice to map and gather information about the animals, temperature, and terrain of this mysterious continent. 

Once they left their base camp, unbelievable hardship follows each group, from 100-mph bitter winds, ice chasms that open unexpectedly to swallow men, starvation, illness, and hopelessness. After a time all teams were forced to turn back. Some staggered into the base camp almost unrecognizable with frostbite and haggard features. Others were not so lucky. Mawson's party was the last team remaining on the ice. His team knew if they did not return to base camp by the time the supply ship arrived to take them home, they would be abandoned.

It is Mawson's story, a man who shines as a leader, encouraging his party to keep on walking, keep on, keep on. Pulling sledges with equipment over jagged outcroppings of ice, Mawson and his men faced exhaustion, hunger, and frigid conditions each minute. Bottomless ice crevasses open up to threaten them with certain death. Mawson himself fell into one and was saved only by the help of a line of poetry.

If survival stories are your thing, this is probably the best ever. Bravery, danger, cold, and perseverance fill every page. Who will make it? Who will succumb to one of the hazards out there? Can the survivors reach base camp before the ship departs? 

Strongly narrated and illustrated with never-before-seen photos of the Antarctic and the expedition, Alone on the Ice is a top read. Highly recommended

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

The incredible true history of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated voyage to explore Antarctica in 1914 that ended with every disaster possible: shipwreck, starvation, open-water lifeboat voyage, desperate overland travel, and unbelievable hardships too numerous to mention. All was held together by the will and leadership of Shackleton, the commander. Absolutely the best survival history ever.

The Unconquered

Wallace, Scott. The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes. New York: Crown. 2011. Print.

First Sentences:

We found fresh tracks in the morning, footprints in the soggy mud, adult size 8 or 9, and no more than a few hours old. 

They pointed in the same direction our column was headed, deep into the farthest reaches of the Amazon jungle.

Description:

Small tribes of ancient people dwell deep in the forests of the Amazon, living apart from the modern world through their own choice. And why not? Every previous contact with man has led to their losing trees and homes, contracting fatal illnesses, or being enslaved to work on rubber plantations. They moved deeper and deeper into isolated portions to preserve their lives and culture. 

But how long can they remain isolated, unconquered, living in a vast, untapped source of valuable trees, acreage for grazing, and land for roads to join the vast reaches between cities in Brazil?

Scott Wallace in his gripping true adventure, The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes, tells the peril of these tribes and the efforts made to protect them. Recently, Brazil set aside huge tracts of rain forests on a provisional basis as a "preserve" for these tribes, a buffer zone that permits no outsiders. The  hope is that the tribes can re-establish their numbers and culture away from modern man. 

But is this program having success? If it isn't, there are plenty of people eager to have these lands opened for development with roads, buildings, mining, and deforestation to create grazing lands.

Author Wallace joins a dangerous expedition into this unknown region to observe the health and numbers of these tribes ...  a task made more difficult because the expedition members cannot come into physical contact with these tribes and risk impacting a tribe's health or culture. The expedition must travel for weeks up rivers and then hack the pathless jungle through the preserved land. Insects, snakes, torrential rain, starvation, and low morale plague them. Each step is a tremendous effort.

But they do find signs of one of these tribes, the Arrow People, along with warning signs left by the tribe to go no further. A closer approach might mean disaster to both sides. The Arrow People are notoriously quick to use their deadly curare poison blowguns and bows and arrows against all intruders. There is genuine fear among expedition members, but their commitment pushes them forward and closer to danger with each day.

Wallace gives a well-researched background on these tribes, the history of Brazil, the exploitation by plantation owners and missionaries, and the efforts by anthropologists to control this land. The unique culture of each isolated tribe is fascinating to learn about. Equally interesting are the efforts of the expedition members to find ways to survive the rigors of the jungle, fending off the boredom of eating monkey meat to sighting a giant anaconda in the river. They even drizzle a juice made from bark shavings into their eyes to give them a better 3-D look into the flat greenness of the jungle and even provide extra energy for their weary legs.

A thrilling, true life adventure with death and discovery awaiting the expedition members each day. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

Author Adams retraces the steps of ancient Incas through Peru to explore ancient cities. Along the way, this inexperienced hiker and historian uncovers tales of this ancient culture, the men who originally discovered it, and the future of these fragile cities. (previously reviewed here)

Blue Latitudes

Horwitz, Tony. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before. New York: Holt. 2002. Print.

First Sentences:

When I was thirteen, my parents bought a used sailboat, a ten-foot wooden dory that I christened Wet Dream. 

For several summers, I tacked around the waters off Cape Cod, imagining myself one of the whalers who plied Nantucket Sound in the nineteenth century.

Description:

Author Tony Horwitz has a passion for Captain James Cook, the man who circumnavigated the world in a small wooden ship at a time when "roughly a third of the world's map remained blank, or filled with fantasies: sea monsters, Patagonian giants, imaginary continents." Horwitz decided to revisit the destinations written about by Cook during his three voyages, including stops in the Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, Hawaii, Tahiti, Terra del Fuego, and other far-flung destinations.

The result of his historical travels is Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, a rollicking voyage and encounters with the people and places of Captain Cook's travels. Using Cook's diaries for inspiration and historical background. Horwitz and his Australian friend, fellow sailor, and general lay-about Roger Williamson, fly to each of Cook's ports and wander the land looking for traces of Cook while gathering the current views about the explorer from locals.

To prepare himself for this travel, Horwitz first spent one week working as a common seaman on a replica of Cook's ship, Endeavour. This ship was currently taking a round-the-world voyage and allowing volunteers to spend time living, working, and eating as Cook's crew did in the 1700s. Even for a sailor, the experience for Horwitz was daunting from scaling masts during storms to trying to sleep in a tiny, rocking hammock. Throughout the trip, Horwitz provides us with comparisons to what Cook's men endured for years at a time on the original voyages.

Surviving this test, Horwitz and Williamson fly (rather than sail) to Cook's destinations. Horwitz is fascinated that Cook's missions were for scientific rather than personal goals. Cook had set out in 1769 to record data from the Transit of Venus celestial occurrence, search for a new continent (Australia), and seek out a Northwest Passage for ship travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. His voyages took years, weathering storms, shipwrecks, and unruly crews. Cook demonstrated his leadership time and again by making his men leave the promiscuous women and warm air of Tahiti for less desirable destinations of cannibals, cold weather, and other deprivations while also trying to communicate with Tahitians, Maoris, Hawaiians, and other natives who had never seen white men before. 

Horwitz and Williamson compare what they find at each location with entries from Cook's diaries and biographers' writings, noting the changes in population, landscape,and attitudes towards Cook. With much time on their hands between transportation, the two men are able to interview locals and historians, read original documents, and explore native customs - and drink the local brews, of course.

Blue Latitudes is a fascinating, detailed, thoroughly researched history of explorer/scientist Cook and the world and people of the late 1700s and the European Industrial Revolution. It is also a detailed commentary of the changes, both positive and negative, Cook's voyages brought to those destinations and our world today as revealed to two modern explorers.

Cook not only redrew the map of the world, creating a picture of the globe much like the one we know today; he also transformed the West's image of nature and man. 

[P.S. On a related note, the wreck of Cook's original ship Endeavour might have been discovered off the New England coast. It was intentionally sunk during the American Revolution. Here's a link to this discovery and the story of the ship's life after Cook's voyages.]

Happy reading.

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Horwitz, Tony. A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America

Horwitz sets out to reenact the adventures of the Indians, explorers, and conquerors who set foot in the New World between 1492 and 1620, the era between the discovery by Columbus and the landing of the Pilgrims.