Byron Rogers

The romance of the jungle

The Lost City of Z, by David Grann

issue 28 March 2009

It is so sad to read about the Mato Grosso now, at least it is for anyone who, like me, was a boy in the 1950s. When the vast rain forest of the Amazon makes the news at all it is in stories about economic predation, logging and genocide. The Mato Grosso has shrunk and become a victim, which for us was the ultimate in adventure, romance, and horror, with all of it so safely far away.

For it had everything: lost cities in the jungle, lost treasures, lost wisdoms, as well as savage tribes which could shrink your head to the size of a cricket-ball, snakes as long as streets, pirana fish that in minutes could whittle you down to your wish-bone, and those other, even more terrifying (if intriguing) fish, whose names we could never remember, which, being very small, could leap out of the Amazon along the arc of your pee and straight up your dick.

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