My Dearest Claudette,

We had finally found our way into a large and dreadfully deep amazon basin, teaming with life that predated history. As I took refuge behind the trunk of what seemed large as a redwood, breathing in the primordial air, I wondered: What if there really is a Z? What if the jungle had concealed such a place? What of the Lost City that Percy Fawcett raved about actually existed, and these vile serpent people simply eliminated him?

Even today, the Brazilian government estimates that there are more than sixty Indian tribes that have never been contacted by outsiders. “These forests are . . . almost the only place on earth where indigenous people can survive in isolation from the rest of mankind,” John Hemming, the distinguished historian of Brazilian Indians and a former director of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote. Sydney Possuelo, who was in charge of the Brazilian department set up to protect Indian tribes, has said of these groups, “No one knows for sure who they are, where they are, how many they are, and what languages they speak.”

Could this place have persisted well beyond the reach of time, beyond the prescience of history and beyond the prodding eyes of modern explorative science? Could this be where the ancient spawn of Yig have hidden themselves away for nearly the entire epoch of man?

Endearingly yours, Allan Quartermain