LOST EXPLORER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 8

LOST EXPLORER.

AMERICAN SEARCH EXPEDITION. IS COLOmEI FAWCETT STILL ALIVE ? SWISS TRAPPER'S STORY. Seven adventurers and explorers, starting from Boston on July 1, will plunge into the dense Brazilian wilderness this summer with the prime object of hunting Colonel P. H. Fawcett, the lost British explorer. The group, led by Ralph Forrest Donaldson, movie expert, who has recently returned from New Guinea, Java and Borneo, will land at the mouth of the Amazon, proceed up that stream to the Madeira tributary and then go G5 miles to Porto Vellio. Prom there the seven will drop out of sight into the wilderness, two or pos-1 sibly three hopping off from the river by aircraft, the remainder proceeding 011 foot into the jungle. The party will take one large 'plane and possibly an autogiro, both equipped with pontoons. Recently Stephen Rattin, characterised in Press dispatches as a Swiss trapper, came out of the jungle with the statement he had seen Colonel Fawcett. The Boston party hopes Mr. Rattin will join its search. Trapper's Story Ridiculed. Believing that he h:w established the actual movements of 0 Jonel P. H. Fawcett, some 40 miles fivther in Central Brazil than any other living white man, Vincenzo Petrullo, research associate in anthropology of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, disclosed information which, in hw opinion, lear*;s little doubt that Colonel Fawcett died of starvation and thirst. Mr. Petrullo ridiculed the story told by Stephan Rattin, a Swiss "trapper," r tothoeffect x^t-dseeeod

in animal skins on October 18 whom he felt certain was the missing explorer. Mr. Rattin placed the scene of their meeting about 800 miles west by north of the point where Colonel Fawcett disappeared with his party, including two other white men, one his 21-year-old son, Jack Fawcett. Mr. Petrullo said that lie accidentally stumbled upon Colonel Faweett's trail last fall while exploring and mapping the great plateau of Matto Grosso Province, in Central Brazil. He talked with Aloike, the Anahukua tribal head, who is charged by Commander George M. Dyott with Colonel Faweett's murder, and from whom Commander Dyott fled. Mr. Petrullo came upon old Aloike on the Kuluseu River, at. an Anahukua camp. The Indian told the Bakairi guides, who translated his dialect into Portuguese, that he had guided three white men, identified positively as Colonel Fawcett, his son and Rimmel, from his own village to that of the Kalapalu, on the Kuluene River. Trail of Lost Party. The Kalapalu Indians informed Mr. Petrullo that the. younger men with Colonel Fawcett were ill, suffering from borachudo sores, which he believes caused them to succumb later to malaria. His informants said they gave I tlio party food, and, having failed to dissuade the leader from continuing, ferried the three men across the Kuluene River. Colonel Fawcett, according to this information, intended following the Rio des Mortes northward to the Araguaya River, where he would strike settlements and the considerable commerce which passes down" to the Amazon. Mr. Petrullo said the Kalapalu saw the smoke of the Fawcett party for five days as the members apparently were blazing a trail through the high grass, the only way progress could be made. On the sixth day they were presumed to have reached the forest fringing the Rio des Mortes, where all trace was lost. The anthropologist said that in the major episodes his informafion corroborated that of Commander Dyott, who searched for Colonel Fawcett in 1928. "However, the theory that the Anahukua killed Colonel Fawcett cannot be held," lie added, "since he reached the Kalapalu safely, and, thus being outside Anahukua territory, could not have fallen victim to that tribe."

Mr. Petrullo said that the men who have related, seeing Colonel Fawcett in the jungle, "without exception, have never been outside of the modern towns in the southern part of the State or some near-by ranch." Further light on the links of modern civilisation with the mysterious Matto Grosso of inner Brazil has been shed in a report by Christian La Marche, A ncan scientist, who said he believed many white men were living among the Indians there. La Marche has just spent seveial months in exploring the vast plateau of Matto Grosso, with headquarters at Goyaz, capital of the Brazilian State of Goyaz. La Marche said that in January he had met Paraguayan hunters near the headquarters of the Tapajos, who had told him they liad several times met white men among the Indians. La Marche said ho believed one of the white men might have been Colonel P- H. Fawcett, the British explorer, who vannislied in the Matto Grosso seven years ago.