Didja Notice?

 

The book opens with quotes from Brazilian Adventure (1933), about the search for the lost Colonel Percy Fawcett in the Brazilian jungle by British adventurer, soldier, and writer Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond author Ian Fleming) and a quote attributed to 17th-18th Century Irish writer Jonathan Swift. Colonel Percy Fawcett was a British explorer and archaeologist who disappeared in the Brazilian jungle with his son Jack and Raleigh Rimell in search of the lost city of Z. The Colonel Fawcett mystery plays a large part in this novel. Brazilian Adventure can be read in full at the Internet Archive.

 

Prologue

 

The prologue is a purported excerpt from the journal of Colonel Percy Fawcett (1867-disappeared 1925). Fawcett kept a number of journals throughout his career. This entry appears to be fictitious.

 

On page 3, Fawcett finds himself, after having fallen unconscious, rescued by Maria and taken to a mission outpost on the Rio Tocantins. This is an actual river in Brazil.

 

On page 4, Fawcett writes of Harry Walters' story of his first meeting with the woman who would be called Maria, he thinking she must be Yaro, the native legend of a jungle spirit who is a protector of the beasts. As far as I can find, Yaro is a fictitious legend made up for the novel.

 

In his journal entry, Fawcett indicates he is convinced that Maria comes from the lost city of Z. "Z" is the name Fawcett gave to an alleged lost city of an advanced civilization that he believed once existed in the Brazilian jungle.

 

Chapter 1: Camozotz's Revenge

 

The name "Camozotz" in the chapter title is the name of a bat spirit that serves the lords of the Xibalba (underworld) in Mayan mythology as related in the Popul Vuh, the book of the sacred mythology of Kʼicheʼ people of the larger Maya group of peoples of Mesoamerica, dating from the 16th Century. Camozotz means "death bat" in Kʼicheʼ language.

 

The chapter opens in Tikal, Guatemala. Tikal is the site of the ruins of an ancient city called Yax Mutal, of the Mayan civilization. 

 

The jade mask of Camozotz discovered by Indy in the pyramid on page 8 is pictured on cover of the novel.

 

Camozotz's "House of Bats" and the killing of the father of the Mayan Hero Twins as told here is roughly true to that in Mayan mythology.

 

Professor Bernard has replaced Professor Campbell as chairman of the archaeology department at the University of London after the latter's death in Dance of the Giants.

 

On page 15, Professor Bernard compares the violence levels of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, referring to the Mayans as peace-loving and the Aztec as "ripping the hearts out of their slaves or turning their pyramids into booby traps." This is roughly true of what mainstream archeology thought of those two cultures at the time, though later evidence came to suggest that the Mayans engaged in their fair share of violence as well. The Aztecs were an ethnic group of Mexico in the 14th-16th Centuries, known for the Aztec Empire of the time.

 

The Tzotzil language spoken by Esteban and Carlos on page 15 is an actual language spoken by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people, largely found in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

 

On page 16, Dr. Bernard points out paintings on the interior walls of the pyramid, saying they are the Nine Lords of Darkness. These were the Maya gods that ruled over the nine months of pregnancy.

 

Also on page 16, Indy muses on how a number of 19th Century archaeologists had speculated that the Mayan civilization had been influenced by Atlantis. Atlantis is a mythological land mass that once harbored advanced civilization that later suffered severe cataclysm that sank the land beneath the ocean. There had been some limited belief in an Atlantis connection to the Maya by scholars in the 19th Century, quite likely inspired by racism and the belief that the Native Americans could not have developed a sophisticated society on their own.

 

Indy also muses on the Mayans "god of culture", Quetzalcoatl. However, Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec god. The Mayan "equivalent" (sort of) is Kukulkan. The names mean "feathered serpent".

 

On page 18, Esteban yells, "Cuidado!" This is Spanish for "Careful!"

 

Chapter 2: Bat Time

 

On page 20, Indy tells Esteban, "Gracias, amigo," and Esteban says, "Tiene mucho suerte." These are Spanish for "Thank you, friend," and "You are very lucky," respectively.

 

On page 21, Bernard is ecstatic that he and Indy have beaten the huaqueros to the pyramid chambers. Huaqueros is Spanish for "looters".

 

On page 22, Indy muses on a theory held by some that the Mayan pyramids had been built by a race of giants and later inherited by the Mayas. This is a theory that some fringe researchers embraced, but is largely discredited today.

 

On page 22, Esteban shouts, "Murciélagos!" This is Spanish for "Bats!"

 

On pages 28-29, Indy recalls a situation when he was stuck in Merlin's cave with Deirdre. This incident occurred in Dance of the Giants.

 

Chapter 3: Huaqueros

 

As pointed out earlier, the word huaqueros, now used as the title of Chapter 3, is Spanish for "looters".

 

On page 31, One Eye says, "Sí, the señorita is right." Sí and señorita are Spanish for "yes" and "miss", respectively.

 

On page 32, One Eye refers to Indy as chigador. I've been unable to find a translation of this term.

 

Chapter 4: Ancient Mariners

 

The title of this chapter is inspired by the title of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

 

Indy attends the exhibition "New Evidence of Ancient Forays to the Americas". This appears to be a fictitious museum exhibition of the time.

 

Indy and Deirdre arrive in New York through Grand Central Station and Deirdre decides she needs some time away from Indy, staying with a friend of hers in Greenwich Village who is attending Columbia University. Greenwich Village is a neighborhood in the New York borough of Manhattan.

 

On pages 40-41, Indy briefly discusses with a woman at the exhibition the theory that the Phoenicians visited Iowa and left behind relics 2500 years ago (in the area of the modern city of Davenport, according to page 43). This is an actual theory espoused by some fringe researchers. Phoenicia was an ancient civilization of the Mediterranean and portions of the Middle East and Africa from 1500-300 BC.

 

On page 42, Indy reminds Brody that ancient Libyan writing resembles Zuni. This has been stated by some researchers, though it is unlikely the systems are related.

 

The fringe artifacts examined by Indy on pages 43-45 from places like San Augustin, Columbia, the Mound Builder region of North America, and Mystery Hill appear to be fictitious, but the locations where they were found are real. Mystery Hill is now called America's Stonehenge by the owners of the site, but many academics believe the stone ruins at the site are a hoax constructed by original owner William Goodwin around 1932 for the purpose of supporting his theory that Irish monks of the Middle Ages had colonized the site long before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The ancient English monument called Stonehenge was seen in Circle of Death and Dance of the Giants.

 

Much of Indy's musings on the Mystery Hill stone in the exhibit is borrowed from America BC: Ancient Settlers In The New World by Barry Fell (1976). Said book mentions a report filed by Dr. Harold W. Krueger in 1967 about a ruin on the site that is penetrated by the roots of a tree carbon dated to about 1690 A.D. In our novel, Indy is familiar with Krueger's report, but with a date filed in 1917 instead of 1967! (One of the cheats of a novelist!)

 

    The alleged Celtic ogham words Indy translates off a stone slab found in Vermont, "Pay heed to Bel, his eye is the sun," is an actual inscription on one of the stone slabs translated by Harvard marine biologist Barry Fell (author of the book mentioned in the paragraph above). As stated in the novel, Bel is the sun (or healing) god of the ancient Celts, often equated with Apollo (the Greek god of the sun).

    On page 46, Dr. Bernard espouses his opinion that the alleged ogham inscriptions on the stone are simply the markings of a plow or tree root. In the real world, many researchers do believe the marks are scrapes from a plow.

 

Page 48 reveals that Brody had once had a wife (called later in the book, Elizabeth) who died a few years after they married, of pneumonia.

 

On page 49, a reporter asks Brody if the exhibition isn't a slap in the face to Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus (~1450-1506) was an Italian explorer who is credited with opening up, if not exactly "discovering", the New World for Spain in 1492. At the time of the setting of this novel, Columbus was generally credited with the discovery of the so-called New World.

 

Dr. Bernard calls tales of white Indians in the Amazon "rubbish". While he is essentially correct, there were reports of so-called white Indians by the Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 16th Century, possibly referring to a couple tribes that had some "lighter-skinned" members or the Guna people of Panama who have a higher than normal incidence of albinism.

 

Chapter 5: Messages

 

On page 51, Indy reads an article on Brody's museum exhibition in the Times. This presumably refers to the New York Times. On page 52, he finds other articles about the exhibition in the Herald-Tribune and the Post. The New York Herald-Tribune was a newspaper published from 1924-1966.

 

On page 52, Indy muses the letters of ogham writing have mystical significance as well as being standard characters of written communication. But, in the real world, while modern practitioners of Celtic spirituality and neopaganism ascribe mystical and divinatory meanings to ogham script, any mystical significance in modern contexts is a result of contemporary interpretations and practices.

 

The National Museum's archeology building is said to overlook Central Park. Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan and one of the largest urban parks in the world.

 

On page 55, Brody mentions John Scopes being convicted for teaching evolution. John Scopes (1900-1970) was a public school teacher in Tennessee who was charged and found guilty in 1925 of violating the state's Butler Act prohibiting the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools.

 

Page 56 reveals that Colonel Fawcett had been an old chum of Brody's during their college days in London. Here in the novel, Fawcett seems to have the nickname of "Jack", but I have found no evidence that he did in real life. In reality, his son was named Jack.

 

Brody receives pages from Fawcett's journal, sent anonymously from Bahia, Brazil. Bahia is the city where Fawcett actually found a document now called Manuscript 512, which purports to be written by Portuguese bandeirante João da Silva Guimarães stating that he had discovered the ruins of an ancient city of the Amazon in 1753. 

 

On page 58, a symbol at the end of a ransom note for Fawcett is said by Indy and Brody to be the Eye of Bel, used by the ancient Celts to invoke protection from their sun god. As far as I can find, this symbol is fictitious.

 

On page 59, Brody speculates that Fawcett may have also been searching for an occupied lost city in the Serra do Roncador (Snoring Mountains). This is an actual mountain range in Brazil. Page 182 states the mountain range lies between the Araguaia and Xingu rivers: this is correct. Brody's speculation that druids from the Dutch island of Zealand may have sailed across the Atlantic and arrived in South America around 500 B.C. appears to be entirely fictitious, though Zealand is an actual island that is part of Denmark.

 

On pages 60-61, Brody tells Indy that Fawcett believed the druids were descendants of priests who had survived the destruction of Atlantis. I have found no evidence that Fawcett had any such theories.

 

On page 61, Brody points out that the envelope the ransom letter arrived in has Hotel Paraíso, Bahia, Brazil written on the back. There are a number of hotels by similar names in the state of Bahia.

 

Brody tells Indy he found the pilot Larry Fletcher in Brazil through the English Flying Club. This appears to be a fictitious organization.

 

On page 62, Brody remarks that he has recently received a modest inheritance and can afford to send Indy and Deirdre to Brazil to look for Fawcett.

 

Chapter 6: Surprises at Sea

 

Indy and Deirdre head to the port of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the British cruise ship S.S. Mauretania. This presumably refers to the RMS Mauretania, which held the record for passenger liners crossing westbound on the Atlantic, as suggested in the novel, from 1909 to 1929.

 

    Page 66 indicates that Mauretania will arrive in Rio on Shrove Tuesday of Rio's Carnival after a journey of eight days. The Rio Carnival is held each year before the Christian observance of Lent, commemorating the 40 days Jesus fasted in the desert and endured temptation by Satan (beginning seven weeks before Easter). The Rio Carnival starts the Friday before Ash Wednesday and lasts five days. Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday and is a day of self-examination for Christians.

    Shrove Tuesday was on February 16 in 1926, so Indy and Deirdre are leaving New York on February 8. Unfortunately, the book opens our story on March 7th!

 

On page 67, Deirdre gazes out at the Statue of Liberty as the ship leaves New York harbor.

 

On page 70, a debutante on the ship is pleased that sound would be coming to movies soon. Though sound on films had been possible since 1900, the process did not become financially viable until about 1926.

 

Also on page 70, an older passenger remarks that people would someday be travelling on rockets, commenting on the recent success of Robert Goddard's test flight of a rocket 183 feet in 2.3 seconds. Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) was an American physicist and professor who invented and built the first liquid fuel rocket. His first successful test flight of a rocket with liquid fuel took place in March of 1926. It's interesting to note that, in "Winds of Change", Indy gets a summer job assisting Professor Goddard, including with a successful (but fictitious!) liquid fuel rocket test launch in May 1919!

 

A passenger remarks blithely that he was in Paris last week, New York today, and will be in Rio next week on page 70.

 

On page 70, the narration reads, "Everyone around them seemed to be thriving, the cream of Coolidge prosperity...the times were roaring, as the papers liked to say." "Coolidge Prosperity" was a term used during the booming economy in the United States during the Calvin Coolidge presidency of the 1920's. The term "Roaring Twenties" was popularized in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

 

The Paul Whiteman Orchestra is playing aboard the Mauretania. Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) was an American bandleader and composer who incorporated a streamlined sort of jazz into his orchestral selections.

 

Page 71 has Indy thinking about his jazz-loving former roommate Jack Shannon. Shannon was seen previously in The Peril at Delphi and Dance of the Giants.

 

On page 71, Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" plays on the ship's speakers as Indy and Deirdre take a romantic walk along the deck. This is a 1924 musical composition by George Gershwin that combines classical-style with jazz intonations. The piece was commissioned by the aforementioned Paul Whiteman for a concert called "An Experiment in Modern Music". Indy became friends with Gershwin in Scandal of 1920.

 

On page 73, Indy unpacks his .455 Webley. This may be the same gun he was given by Carl in Dance of the Giants. As stated in that study, ".455 Webley" is actually a designation for a British handgun cartridge, not a gun itself. The handgun given to Indy may be a Webley "WG" Army revolver, which he is seen to carry in The Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

 

On page 75, the Mauretania enters Guanabara Bay. This is the large bay on which the city of Rio de Janeiro resides. The description of the bay on page 76 is accurate, though the Jesus statue (Christ the Redeemer) on top of Corcovado mountain should be mentioned as still under construction, as it was from 1922-1931.

 

On page 77, the ship's captain refers to Oron, the Brazilian man who has been the steward for Indy and Deirdre while aboard, as a niggero. This is Portuguese for "nigger", a derogatory slang term for people of African descent.

 

At the end of this chapter, Indy and Deirdre are married by the ship's captain.

 

Chapter 7: Carnival

 

Arriving in Rio, Indy and Deirdre check in at the Palace Hotel. Though there are a number of Rio hotels with "palace" as part of the name, there is no "Palace Hotel" as far as I can tell.

 

A masked ball takes place at the hotel the night Indy and Deirdre arrive. Page 79 mentions some of the guests wearing costumes that made them look like characters of out Alice in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland is an 1865 novel by Lewis Carroll about a girl transported to Wonderland, a hidden, surreal, and semi-mystical world not run by the same rules as the normal world and filled with bizarre characters.

 

Indy attends the ball as one of the Three Musketeers and Deirdre's costume sounds as if she may be Marie Antoinette (as a passerby refers to her later on page 89). The Three Musketeers is a an 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas about members of the Musketeers of the Guard, an elite company of fighters in the Royal Household of the French monarchy. Marie Antoinette was queen of France from 1774-1792.

 

On page 82, Indy tells his lovely new bride that he'll never get married again. Well, his young wife dies later in the novel and Indy does eventually marry again, in 1957 in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

 

On page 85 Oron tells Indy that the parade they stumble into on the streets outside of the hotel is a blocos carnavalescos. This is Portuguese for "block carnival".

 

On page 85, Pão de Açúcar is Portuguese is for "Sugarloaf", a mountain on Guanabara Bay.

 

Chapter 8: Sugarloaf

 

On page 93, the cable car up to Sugarloaf Mountain stops briefly at Morro da Urca. This is a hill that is part of the Sugarloaf Mountain and Urca Hill Natural Monument.

 

On page 94, Bernard waits for Julian Ray at Grand Central Station. Grand Central Station is a railroad terminal in Manhattan, popularly known as one of the busiest commuter stations in the world.

 

Also on page 94, Bernard muses on what he will do to get the artifacts released to him once he reaches Guatemala City. Guatemala City is the capital of Guatemala.

 

On page 96, Ray tells Bernard to enjoy his trip to banana land. Guatemala is known for its export of bananas.

 

Chapter 9: Hotel Paraíso

 

On page 105, a woman is said to speak Nago while bargaining for fruit in an outdoor market in Bahia. As stated here, Nago is a language of the African Yorubas.

 

On page 109, the Bahia taxi driver named Hugo drives Indy and Deirdre in a Tin Lizzie. A Tin Lizzie is a Model T Ford automobile, manufactured from 1908–1927.

 

On page 110, Hugo uses the word terreiro. A terreiro is a Candomblé temple. As Indy explains to Deirdre on the next page, Candomblé is a Yoruba religion mixed with Catholicism, which sometimes makes use of animal sacrifice.

 

On page 113, Indy and Deirdre are introduced to Julia, who tells them she is the babalorixá of the temple. She should have said she is a ialorixás, which is a Candomblé (priestess). Babalorixá is a priest (male).

 

On page 114, Julia refers to Xango, the patron of fire, thunder, and lightning. Xango is one of the Yoruba gods (orixás).

 

On page 119, Joaquin tells Indy the daughter of Oya will find him and can help him find Fawcett's journal. He tells him Exu can open and close doors, but tries to control the doorways for his own purposes. Oya is the Yoruba queen of Xango and is the goddess of winds, storms, death, and rebirth. Oya does not have a surviving daughter because all of her children were stillborn according to legend. Exu is the Yoruba god of trickery, chaos, crossroads, misfortune, trickery, and travelers.

 

Joaquin tells Indy and Deirdre the writings they seek will guide them to the ancient land of Orun. Orun is the spirit world of the Yoruba religion.

 

On page 119, colar is Portuguese for "necklace".

 

Chapter 10: Veilings

 

On page 123, Amergin tells Indy that Orun is also the name of the sun god. As far as I can find, the Yoruba sun god is called Imole, though orun is the term for "sky".

 

On page 124, Amergin is said to have grown up under the eye of Bel. Recall from Chapter 4 that Bel is the Celtic sun god.

 

On page 128, Indy and Deirdre find a note pinned to their hotel room door, telling them to meet at Bar de Luxo to get the journal. Bar de luxo is Portuguese for "luxury bar". As far as the name of a bar in Bahia, it appears to be fictitious.

 

Indy tells Hugo that he and Deirdre will be flying in Fletcher's plane to the interior jungle, Mato Grosso. Mato Grosso is the third largest state in Brazil. Hugo tells Indy his mother is a Caraja Indian and they know the stories of the lost city. The Caraja are an indigenous tribe of Brazil; part of their territory lies within Mato Grosso.

 

Chapter 11: Fawcett's Journal

 

On page 135, a woman addresses Deirdre as senhora and, at the end of their conversation, Deirdre tells her, "Muito obrigada." These are Portuguese for "madam" and "Thank you very much."

 

On page 136, Fawcett's journal describes soon reaching the Rio San Francisco. This is an actual river in Brazil.

 

On page 138, Deirdre reflects on how the pubs in Bahia were not like the more well-mannered ones in her hometown of Whithorn, Scotland. This is an actual town in Scotland, seen in Dance of the Giants.

 

Indy and Deirdre are staying at the Hotel Europa while in Bahia. This appears to be a fictitious lodge.

 

The ceiba tree for which Maria says the lost city is named is an actual genus of large growth tree in Central and South America.

 

Chapter 12: The Orbs

 

Indy tells the army captain he's just in Brazil on holiday, but thinks to himself "busman's holiday." This is a vacation or day off in which one does the same sort of thing one does for work.

 

Chapter 13: Rae-la

 

No notes.

 

Chapter 14: Guava Farm 

 

Fletcher's plane is a Fokker F-VII trimotor on pontoons for water landing. Fokker was a Dutch manufacturer of aircraft from 1912-1996. The F-VII is an actual model produced from 1925-1932. (Photo of Fokker F-VII trimotor on pontoons from Wikipedia.)

 

Fletcher tells Indy that he was one of the crew of the two Douglas World Cruisers that circled the globe together in 1924. This was a real world circumnavigation, the first aerial circumnavigation, under the auspices of the U.S. Army Air Service. It started with four planes specially constructed by the Douglas Aircraft Company (now part of Boeing), each crewed by two men, flying together, but one crashed in a dense fog in Alaska and another was forced to ditch in the Atlantic Ocean after an oil pump failure. However, none of the eight crew were named Larry Fletcher!

 

Chapter 15: Jungle Lore

 

On page 180, Fletcher's plane stops in Cuiabá for fuel and to spend the night. Cuiabá is the capital city of Mato Grosso.

 

During the three days of flight to the region of the Ceiba, Fletcher gives Indy a few flying lesson so he can spell the pilot for brief periods of rest. On page 203, after Fletcher's death, Indy even feels confident he could fly the plane, but not take off and land it. Yet, in The Temple of Doom, taking place 9 years later, Indy claims not to know how to fly when the pilots of the Lao Che aircraft bail out, leaving him, Short Round, and Willie to ostensibly crash and die.

 

The description of Fawcett's past on pages 181-182 is largely accurate. There does seem to be an error in the narrative's statement that Manuscript 512 has the Portuguese expedition discovering the lost city in 1743, whereas the actual document dates the alleged discovery in 1753.

 

Page 183 has Indy reminiscing on seemingly have met Merlin the magician at Stonehenge a year ago. This vision occurred in Dance of the Giants.

 

On page 184-185, Amergin tells Indy about the Morcegos, a tribe of cannibals that live not too far from Ceiba. While other tribes of the Mato Grosso tell legends of the Morcegos, most ethnologists believe them to be a myth. Morcego is Portuguese for "bat", as stated in the narrative.

 

On page 190, Rae-la tells Deirdre that the ceiba tree is associated with the goddess Anu, who nurtures the inhabitants of the lost city Ceiba. Anu is the name of a mother goddess in Irish mythology.

 

Rae-la tells Deirdre about a prophecy given by Tuatha, a wise old man of Ceiba shortly before his death several years previous. Tuath is an old Irish word for "folk" or "people" and Tuatha Dé Danann ("the folk of the goddess Danu") are a race of supernatural beings in Irish mythology.

 

Chapter 16: Bat People

 

On page 205, Indy pronounces the ogham letter D as duir and that it means "strength, solidity, protection" and is the etymological origin of the English word "door". He also says it means the same thing in Sanskrit. This is all true.

 

Also on page 205, Deirdre remarks to Indy that Rae-la had told her people used the fibers in the seed pods of the ceiba tree for making clothes. Ceiba seed pod fibers have historically had many uses, not only for textiles, but insulation, floatation, and stuffing.

 

Chapter 17: Into Ceiba

 

The ogham letter that looks like an X with a vertical line through it is said within the novel to be representative of the letter CH and is called "koad". This is a belief among modern practitioners of Celtic spiritualism, not the classical ogham alphabet.

 

On page 212, Indy recalls being held captive in a cage by Deirdre's half-brother, Adrian Powell. This occurred in Dance of the Giants.

 

On page 215, Indy points out to Deirdre a mark on the wall of their alcove in Ceiba, the ogham letter phagos, meaning ancient knowledge. This is another of the "additional" letters of ogham among modern practitioners of Celtic spiritualism.

 

On page 216, Indy and Deirdre find a copy of the London Times in their room in Ceiba.

 

Chapter 18: Dream Time

 

On page 226, the ogham letter Mor is said to represent the sea. This is correct.

 

Chapter 19: The Council of Orbs

 

No notes.

 

Chapter 20: The Three

 

The old Scottish prayer Deirdre recites as an example of Gaelic speech on page 240 is an actual one from Scottish history. Likely, the author of the novel got it from Fell's aforementioned America BC: Ancient Settlers In The New World.

 

The ogham inscription Indy reads on the wall of the Council of Orbs on page 244 is an ancient Celtic hymn to the sun. This hymn is also found in Fell's aforementioned America BC: Ancient Settlers In The New World.

 

On page 248, Indy sees an eagle flying outside the Ceiba watchtower and takes it as a good sign. This is likely because the eagle is said to be his spirit guardian in The Peril at Delphi and which he also saw in a vision in Dance of the Giants.

 

Chapter 21: River of Death

 

The chapter title may be a reference to the 1981 novel River of Death by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, about dark secrets and a lost city in the jungles of Brazil.

 

Chapter 22: Wings of Doom

 

At the end of the chapter, Indy again has a vision of Merlin and his familiar, the owl Churchill. They appeared to him previously in a vision in Dance of the Giants. Merlin tells Indy that another one of his many names is Bel.

 

Epilogue

 

After the plane crash in the jungle, Indy is cared for at the Mission of Saint Francis in Cuiaba. As far as I can tell, this is a fictitious mission.

 

By the end of the novel, Indy's new wife Deirdre has died and Indy himself has had his memory of the lost city and Colonel Fawcett wiped from his mind.

 

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