its ankle a band similarly inscribed. It was given to me by Sir H. Rider Haggard, who obtained it
from Brazil and I firmly believe that it came from one of these lost cities.
“There is a peculiar property in this stone image to be felt by all who hold it their hands. It is
though an electric current were flowing up ones arm, and so strong is it that some people have
been forced to lay it down. Why this should be I don’t know. Experts at the British Museum were
unable to tell me anything about the idols origin.”
Fig.61The black basalt image Fawcett spoke of is still a source of wonder and debate (fig.62). As of
yet both the writing that appears on the plaque the character is holding and the writing on the
ankle bands has not been deciphered (fig.63).
I would be more than happy to hear from anyone who may be familiar with this language or
has found anything similar in another location.
In the course of his extensive and very well documented explorations Fawcett discovered many
other strange and unusual things. On one of his South American journeys he lived among an tribe
of white Indians known as the ‘Tapuyas,’ describing them as follows: “The Tapuya tribe are as
fair as the English and they have hands and feet that are small and delicate.” His book also tells of
another Amazonian tribe who were red haired and also fair skinned.
On one expedition local Indians told him of a cave filled with markings or petroglyphs in an
unknown language that exist at Villa Rica and he heard many stories about lost cities deep in the
jungles. One tale in particular, a story recorded in manuscript form by Jesuit missionaries in the
1700’s, told that in the jungles of Cuyaba, Brazil, somewhere in the Matto Grosso region, there
are apparently strange bright lights that shed no heat, which the Indians say, have burned
continually and quite unattended for many generations and still burn today in the ruins of now
uninhabited and long dead cities. Fawcett claims to have also once seen these lights from distance
himself. It is rumored by some that just such an eternal, cold light energy has also been found in
ancient Roman and Egyptian tombs and in areas of Tibet and India though I am unable to confirm