Jungle Adventure

Lt Col Percy Fawcett pictured in 1911.

One of the many nice things about volunteering in an Oxfam bookshop is that you come across all sorts of hidden gems and unknown books which you wouldn’t normally seek out. Exploration Fawcett, by Lt Col PH Fawcett, is one such book.

This particular volume, a pale green, cloth-bound hardback published in 1954 by Hutchinson & Co for members of the Companion Book Club, rang a bell, so I picked it up, read a few pages... and kept reading! By that stage, of course, I had to buy it, despite making my usual pre-shift pledge about not acquiring any more books.

Percy Harrison Fawcett disappeared in 1925 in the Brazilian Matto Grosso while hunting for a long-lost city, which he called ‘Z’ and believed was still inhabited by descendants of an ancient ‘higher’ race, whose civilisation held the secrets of mankind. No trace of him or his two companions – his elder son Jack and his son’s friend Raleigh Rimell - was ever found which, given the climate and nature of the land he was travelling through, is probably not surprising. However, the mystery (fuelled in part by his own interest in the occult) gripped the public imagination and took on a life of its own, spawning myths and legends even more fantastic than those which set him off on his quest.

The book, ‘arranged’ from his manuscripts, letters, logbooks and records by his younger son Brian, traces his interest in South America, and his growing obsession with an ancient culture he claimed existed long before the pre-Conquest period. He first travelled to the continent in 1906, surveying and mapping the Bolivian border in a region where there were frontier disputes with Peru and Brazil.

Over the next two decades he carried out more work like this, but eventually mounted his own expeditions searching for traces of the long-lost civilisation he believed in so passionately. The only records of his final, ill-fated journey are a handful of letters, but the earlier accounts of his life, work and travels in South America are fascinating. Part travelogue, part boy’s on adventure, they are amazingly wide-ranging, describing his journeys, the landscape, weather, industry, the flora and fauna, history, customs and culture, archaeology, food, and the people he met,(the white men and the Indians).

The map on the front and back pages shows the areas Fawcett wrote about, 

There were dangers from swamps, venomous snakes, vicious insects, pirhana, hostile natives and goodness knows what else. He encountered giant anacondas, two-nosed dogs, spiders as big as dinner plates and tribes who had little or no contact with the outside world – one was even using Stone Age tools. Fawcett must have kept notes on every traveller’s tale he ever heard, no matter how unlikely it seemed, for the book is packed with such yarns. He was especially intrigued by anything he thought had a bearing on his own theories, like the stories about White Indians (light-skinned Indians with blue eyes and red hair) and those which told of a magical plant juice potion which could turn the surface of stone to mud.

The world he portrays is violent and brutal. Life was cheap and land was being exploited for natural resources like gold, diamonds and rubber. Even in the early days of the 20^th century the rain forests of the Amazon basin and its tributaries were being eroded by so-called ‘development’ and Fawcett showed concern for the environmental and ecological issues.

Exploration Fawcett - and adventure tale, and a
a travelogue.

He has been accused of racism, and I can see why. It’s his use of the word ‘savages’ which grates on modern ears, and terms like ‘tame Indians’.  But I don’t think he was any more racist than most other people of the time – and he was considerably more enlightened than some. He recognised the adverse affect of white settlers on ethnic people, was outraged by their ill treatment, and said they were quick learners who, when given the opportunity, could hold their own in business and society. I think perhaps patronising would be a better description of his attitude.

He certainly had a way with words, and the places, people and things he describes spring to life, and his love of Brazil shines through, as does his obsession with the idea of a lost city. By the end of the book I desperately wanted him to have found his El Dorado, but I doubt he ever did.

Canals, slaves and railways!

The remains of the lock gates reflected in the water.

Question: How do you boost your town's wealth and trade when there's no decent road network linking you to the rest of Britain, but you're only a mile and a half from the sea? Answer: You build a canal... And that's just what the good citizens of Ulverston did at the end of the 18th century.

As you can see, for this week's  Saturday Snapshot, I've been trawling through the photos from our visit to Cumbria this summer. In all the years we've holidayed up there we've never, ever explored the canal, which is still full of water, although it's no longer navigable. The Man of the House, born and bred in the area, had never seen it and knew nothing of its history, so it was something of adventure.

Sea-side: This was the entrance to the canal but, as you can see
from the grass, the sea no longer reaches the gates.

We left the campervan behind, and walked along hedge-lined lanes and narrow roads down to Canal Foot at Hammerside, where the canal meets the sea (the town end is known as Canal Head). It seemed quite a trek - as I've said before, we're not really used to walking - so we were glad to stop and enjoy a reviving pot of tea whilst sitting in a pub garden admiring the spectacular views of Morecambe Bay, the Cumbrian Hills, and the canal itself.

The entrance to the bay, where the great ships once sailed in and out, is now plugged with concrete, and the swingbridge that spanned the canal is long gone, but there's a modern footbridge leading to the towpath which runs on one side. The ruined gates to the sea lock  are reflected in the water, a strange, ghostly reminder of the time when this was part of a thriving port.

Land-side: The lock at the end of the canal. Once the level of
the water had been adjusted, huge  gates would have
 opened to let ships in or out.

In the 18th century Ulverston, like most of the Furness Peninsula, was cut off on the landward side by the hills and mountains of the Lake District, and on the seaward side by the treacherous, shifting sands of Morecambe Bay. In those days Cumbria hadn't been created (the county is a modern invention, as the Man of the House is fond of reminding me), and the area, remote and isolated, was known as known as Lancashire-over-the-Sands, which I think sounds much nicer. Romantic, don't you agree? Anyway, horse-drawn wagons took local iron and slate to coastal towns to be shipped elsewhere, but loading and unloading was difficult, because the bay is tidal, and the water goes out for miles.

Canals were the favoured haulage routes of the day - quick (!), efficient and direct. So there was huge support when solicitor William Burnthwaite came up with the idea of a waterway linking Ulverston with the sea at the Leven estuary, to provide ocean-going ships with a safe berth in the basin at the town end while cargoes were packed and unpacked. When it opened in October 1796, the Ulverston Canal was the country's shortest, deepest, widest and straightest waterway and, unusually, was all one one level, with only one lock. It was an engineering masterpiece.

I like this view of industrial chimneys reflected in the water,
and the juxtaposition of nature and industry existing side by side.

A host of industries grew up around it. There were warehouses, foundries, mills, timber merchants, rope making, and ships' supplies, as well as charcoal burning and hoop-making for barrels. Hemp was grown in  local fields, and twisted into rope for ships on 'rope walks'. Ship building and repairs flourished - vessels from Ulverston travelled the world when nearby Barrow, now much better known, was still a hamlet. And, of course, there were offices for port and customs officials. 

Merchants and ship owners became extremely wealthy - but many a fortune was based on the iniquitous 'three-way trade', where goods were traded for African slaves, who were sold in America and the Caribbean, and ships returned to England with their holds full of goods unavailable in their native land. In Ulverston riches were often founded on locally produced gunpowder, which was traded for slaves in Africa.

This strange structure is part of a rare sliding railway bridge,
which originally opened up to let ships through  (unlike the
brick built viaduct arches further up the canal). There are
bits of it below the water on both sides of the bridge.

But the glory years didn't last long: from the outset there were problems keeping the constantly moving deep water channel free from silt and in the right position. Barrow proved to be a far better deep water port, growing in importance as Ulverston declined. And the railway had a terrible effect. In the mid-1840s viaduct arches built across the canal near its head prevented bigger ships from reaching the 'pool'. Although a new basin was dug out on the other side of the bridge for new wharves, things never picked up. 

Another viaduct built by the Furness Railway Company in 1857 provided quick, easy transport across the estuary, and some businessmen believed it was the cause of the channel silting up. The railway company bought the canal in 1862 (which sounds like a conflict of interests to me) and shipbuilding gradually came to an end. However, the canal was still used commercially until the First World War, and remained open until just after the Second World War, when the sea entrance was dammed - and very odd it looks, with water on one side, and sand on the other.

This was the unspoiled landscape next to the towpath.

A large chunk of land on one bank is taken up by pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline, who owned the canal at one point, but it now belongs to the Ulverston Canal Company, and a trust has been established to provide cash for management, maintenance and preservation. In addition, I gather South Lakeland District Council, Ulverston Town Council and other interested bodies are working with UCC to develop derelict industrial areas on that side of the canal, to preserve wildlife, and promote leisure activities. 

The towpath runs along the opposite bank, and is absolutely glorious, with open fields and views of the hills on one side, and the canal on the other. It's a haven for wildlife. We saw waterlilies on the canal, and stood on the edge watching fish, dragonflies, coot, mallards, moorhens, swans and geese. Sometimes, apparently, you can see cormorants, herons and grebe, but there were none around on our day out. However, there were masses of birds and insects (most of which we were unable to identify) in the hedges, trees and fields.

Don't you think this looks beautiful? The buildings in the
background are at Canal Head, where the canal ends - it looks
almost like the edge of pond, which wasn't what I was expecting.
I imagine it would look more like a dock.

I spotted rowan trees, and brambles, meadowsweet with its beautiful creamy white flowers, rose bay willowherb, a plant I think was kind of balsam, and a profusion of other flowers and grasses. The canal was much, much bigger than the canals in and round Tamworth, and looked much cleaner as it shone and sparkled in the sunlight.

It was the most beautiful, peaceful walk, and was obviously well used by  fisherman, walkers, cyclists, dog owners, children, tourists and local residents, which was good to see. We were also impressed that people seem to respect the area - there was no dog mess or litter, no-one was playing loud music, and the children and young people we met were all really well behaved. I should add here that the water and banks of the canals where we live often leave a lot to be desired.

The canal basin.

At the end of our canalside stroll we made our way into the town centre, where we had another reviving cup of tea and treated ourselves to a late lunch of home-made soup and a sandwich (the bread was  was homemade as well). Deciding we'd done enough walking for one day, we headed for the bus stop, and stopped to ask directions from a lovely lady who started chatting, said she was going our way, and insisted on giving us a lift! That's another thing that doesn't happen at home! It made the perfect end to a perfect day, leaving us with some really happy memories.

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog at http://athomewithbooks.net/

The lock of the bay: Looking out across the sea and sand.

*Information in this post was taken from the booklet 'Discovering Ulverston & Surroundings' by Jeff Chambers, from leaflets issued by the town council, and from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulverston_Canal

Love Among the Butterflies

One of my daughters took this photograph in the museum at
Plymouth. The butterflies on display are not from Margaret
Fountaine's collection, but I like the picture!

Margaret Fountaine was a feisty Victorian Englishwoman of independent means who travelled the world for 50 years collecting butterflies, and was totally unfazed by the unaccustomed situations and conditions she encountered, seeing off drunken men, robbers, fleas, snakes, mosquitoes, riots, wars, troublesome natives and the odd stray lion.

She visited 60 countries on six continents, journeying through mountains, marshes, tropical forests and deserts, and enduring excruciating heat, searing cold, drenching monsoon rains, bitter winds, mist and snow. Her accommodation ranged from palatial hotels and the homes of friends and fellow collectors to run-down boarding houses, remote monasteries, mud huts, and a beehive-like shepherds’ shelter, constructed from large, loose stones.

Victorian traveller and butterfly collector
Margaret Fountaine - I think she looks
very determined.

Sanitation and washing facilities were often 'unmentionable'; clean, comfortable bedding was rare and she slept – not always happily - on coconut matting, bamboo poles, and brushwood piled on bare earth and covered with rugs.

She began her travels after being abandoned by the man she hoped to marry, but seems to have attracted many other men throughout her long life (including a Sicilian bandit and a Hungarian nobleman). However, she found happiness with a handsome Syrian guide and translator who was 15 years her junior. and they lived,worked and travelled together, unmarried, for some 27 years.

Margaret recorded her experiences in a series of diaries, published by Collins in two parts, and then by Virago in one volume, Love Among the Butterflies, The Travels and Adventures of a Victorian Lady, and this is the edition I found. Sadly, it now seems to be unavailable, but the story of how it came to be printed is the stuff of fairy-tales.

When she died in 1940, aged 78, Margaret left her vast collection of butterflies to Norwich Museum, together with a mysterious black japanned box, which was sealed and padlocked, and came with instructions that it was not to be opened until April 15th, 1978. On that date 12 ledgers were discovered, containing her diaries, dated from 1878 to 1939. They are annual reports (written up from her earlier notes) and rarely mention a month, let alone a precise day, but they are surprisingly intimate in places, and reveal a woman who was obsessive, independent, and fearless, with a tremendous joy and enthusiasm for life.

As you read, it soon becomes apparent that Margaret, the daughter of a Norfolk vicar, had a penchant for unsuitable men. At 21 she developed an all-consuming passion for Septimus Hewson, a paid chorister at Norwich Cathedral. For seven years she pursued him with the relentless determination she later used to hunt butterflies. When he was sacked for drinking she followed him to Ireland, and considered herself engaged – but he thought otherwise.

She sought solace through travel, and while in Switzerland she tells us:

My 1997 edition of  'Love Among the
Butterflies'. If you see a copy, snap it
up, because it is a fascinating read.

I would often spend my afternoons at at St Jean and go out with an an English girl after butterflies, a pursuit which once once started became all-absorbing. I filled my pocket box with butterflies,s ome I had only seen in pictures as a child and yet recognised the moment I caught sight of them on the wing.

From that moment she was captivated, and spent the rest of her life hunting butterflies, often in the most inhospitable and inaccessible places. When her money ran out she accepted commissions from other collectors, and she bred many of the butterflies in her collection from from eggs or caterpillars, keeping notes and painting specimens (her sketch-books are in the Natural History Museum).

Despite her passion she was always aware that she caused the death of the creatures she loved, and in 1892 she wrote:

I caught a splendid specimen of male Brimstone, thinking that though it was common enough in England I should always love to think that it was caught in Italy. It gave me a pang of remorse to take this beautiful creature from her flowers and her sunshine, which I knew so well how to enjoy; the death of the butterfly is the one drawback to an entomological career.

But it's the human side of the diaries which is so fascinating: Margaret wrote about her feelings and relationships, and gave wonderful descriptions of the people she met and the places she visited, offering glimpses into worlds that have changed beyond all recognition.

Near Mesolonghi she gets caught in a shower of rain and gets wet through, so she seeks shelter at a mountain monastery:

The kindly monks had a sort of open stove filled with smouldering cinders placed at my disposal, and also provided me with a cassock, with many apologies that they were not in a position to offer me a more strictly feminine garment while my own dress was being dried. Then later on they placed before us a simple luncheon of poached egg and a kind of sweet confiture made from rose leaves mixed with sugar.

Margaret at Palm Springs, America.

In 1923, unable to continue with her travels in China, she gives us a sense of how chaotic things were:

China was in a turmoil from end to end; trains had been attacked by bandits on the main line between Shanghai and Pekin, and many foreigners robbed, and taken away by the bandits to be held for ransom. Even on the sea and up the rivers pirates were busy attacking boats, while in the interior civil war was raging.

Central to the diary – apart from her obsession with butterflies – is her relationship with Khalil Neimy, the dragoman (guide and translator) she met in Damascus on a late May afternoon in 1900 or 1901:

… he had a crushed almost cowed look; though his hair was quite fair his eyebrows and eyelashes and mustache were dark, and it was almost a boyish face beneath the tarboosh which he wore thrown far back... All I thought as I looked at this man for the first time was that he was very fair for a Syrian, and I liked to see a really fair man for a change. I noticed that his grey eyes were always looking towards me.

Since European women cannot walk around on their own, she employs him, but his attentions annoy and entrance her in equal measure:

... I did not choose to have my hand kissed first thing in the morning – later in the day I would perhaps graciously submit to this humble act of adoration, though I could not help thinking sometimes that the kisses were a trifle more fervent than the occasion seemed to demand, and once I pulled my hand away, but he looked so awfully hurt that I never had the heart to do that again...

She finds his ‘untiring devotion and constant adoration' is 'decidedly pleasant’ and agrees to marry him, despite the differences in their culture, class and age - she is 39, he is 24. I thought her account of their engagement was very touching:

A page from Margaret's diary, with Khalil's photograph
pasted in.

And then – out there beneath the shadows of those great rocks neat Baalbeck, on that glorious summer morning I solemnly vowed to Khalil Neimy that I would be his wife, and the I said, ‘I have never kissed you once, but now I will give you one for the first time’, and I kissed him on the cheek, which was smooth and pink like a boy’s, and we held each other's hand and swore to be true. And all the time the big, brown butterflies flitted unmolested to and fro among the hot rocks.

Margaret makes it clear that they lived as man and wife, but the relationship was not always easy - it turned out that Khalil already had a wife and children, and he made frequent trips home to care for his mother. He died on a visit to his Damascus home in 1929, still proclaiming his love for Margaret and insisting that his divorce had finally been granted. “How can I bear to tell it?” Margaret writes in her diary, adding: “Nothing could help or comfort me now.”

 She continued her work, on her own, and was collecting butterflies in Trinidad when she died in 1940. A monk discovered her collapsed on the roadside, her butterfly net nearby. She was carried to the guesthouse of the monastery, where she died, and was buried on the island.

I loved this book and thought it was a real 'find'. There is so much detail in the diaries – which are very readable and very enjoyable – that it's impossible to give a comprehensive view of Margaret and her life, but I must mention WF Cater, who edited the diaries skilfully, providing resumés of the sections which were left out. He tracked down people who had known Margaret and, thanks to his researches,the book includes some fascinating details about Margaret, her family, and Khalil. 

More butterflies from Plymouth Museum!

Saturday Snapshots In A 'Royal' Village

This week’s Saturday Snaphots were taken in Newton Regis, which claims to be the most northerly village in Warwickshire, and if you think they don’t look very seasonal that’s because they were taken back in April, when my elder daughter and I were testing her SatNav by deliberately getting lost...

I love stumbling across places and discovering they have the most amazing history, and Newton is no exception. It's a lovely little village and is, apparently, 'royal' twice over. It is supposed to have been given its regal title (regis is Latin for king) by Henry II in the last half of the 12^th century, but later it became known as Newton-in-the-Thistles, which I think is much better. It's an incredible name, and makes me wonder if thistles were especially plentiful in the area, and if so, why? I know Eeyore ate them, but are there really any creatures which munch these prickly plants, or are they used for anything? The local football team are called the Thistles, which is a nice link with the past, but doesn't answer my questions. Generally speaking, dates appear to be a little vague, but it is thought the village reverted back to being Newton Regis in honour of Charles I, who prayed at St Mary’s Church on the night before a battle at Seckington, which is just down the road – and the village has also been referred to as Kings Newton, so it all gets a bit confusing really. And, should you wonder, the name Newton seems to mean ‘new settlement’ - tun or ton is Old English for an enclosure or homestead.

 

Anyway, 'quite settled' describes how Elder Daughter and I felt as we sat in the sunshine by the tiny, triangular village pond, and watched the ducks, who seemed happier on dry land. We admired a timber-framed, thatched cottage and the Queen’s Head pub, then (deciding that exercise was good for us),  wandered along the road, past the Old Post Office (now a private house)  and a gateway to a farm, to St Mary’s Church, parts of which date back to the 13^th century.

It would have been nice to look inside the building, but it was locked, so we explored the churchyard,   but we felt it was a sad reflection on the way life has changed. Once upon a time churches were always open, providing sanctuary and solace for those in need, and allowing visitors to browse at leisure: now many are kept shut up as a precaution against theft and vandalism.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/