By Hiram Bingham

Hiram Bingham was the genuine article. It is obvious that he was at least in part the model for the Indiana Jones character, but Bingham was no Hollywood hero. Though he was not trained as an archaeologist he discovered most of the known major ruins of the Inca civilization long hidden by jungle and protected by almost impassible mountains and raging rivers.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section is a brief history of the Incas. Though superseded by new discoveries this section is still worth reading. However, it is not adventure travel and the reader can safely skip to the second section where he describes the search. The third section is about the discovery of Machu Picchu.

“Suddenly I found myself confronted with the walls of ruined houses built of the finest quality of Inca stone work. It was hard to see them for they were partly covered with trees and moss, the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, appeared here and there walls of white granite ashlars carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. . . . Dimly I began to realize that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the world. It fairly took my breath away. What could this place be?”

Bingham’s discoveries fundamentally changed the conventional wisdom about indigenous American cultures. Here was evidence of a civilization that built structures at least equal to anything in Europe.

The Urubamba river had a disastrous flood in late January 2010, and Machu Picchu is as of this writing almost as inaccessible as it was in Bingham’s day. It is a humanitarian disaster that has been overshadowed by the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

Image: Hiram Bingham in 1911 after returning from the jungle site of Espiritu Pampa. Note the saddle mule, the snake-proof boots, the waxed cotton jacket with the bulge of a pistol just above his left hand, and the battered felt hat. This is the epitome of the experienced jungle explorer. He looks very thin in this and other photos taken at the time. There was no Cipro or other antibiotics. Photograph taken with Bingham’s camera by an unknown member of the expedition.

Get Lost City of the Incas in paperback.

Starting up a new segment here, Dale is writing up book reviews of the books of some of the greatest adventurers throughout history. This is the first installment.

By Ernest Shackleton

Endurance trapped in pack ice. Photo by Frank Hurley

This is an epic story, a story of exploration and desperate survival in the harshest environment imaginable. If it were fiction you would toss it aside as unbelievable. Ernest Shackleton’s quest was to cross Antarctica on foot from sea to sea via the South Pole. In 1914 he set out in the wooden sailing ship Endurance with 27 men, including the great photographer Frank Hurley.

Their ship was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed, leaving them stranded on the ice far from land. For several months they lived on ice floes, until at last they drifted near enough an island to launch their lifeboats and cross to solid ground. They were far from any shipping lanes, and the probability of rescue very slight.

Shackleton set out with 5 men in an open boat to sail more than 1200 miles across the stormy Antarctic Ocean to South Georgia Island, where there was a whaling station. They weathered hurricane force winds that sank a ship nearby, but the weather forced them to land on the wrong side of the island. They had to cross the mountains and glaciers with no equipment over an unexplored route. They succeeded, and the entire party was rescued without the loss of a single man.

When they returned World War I had broken out and after a brief moment of honor their achievement was overshadowed by the war news. Robert Falcon Scott, who died in the Antarctic along with his crew, became celebrated as a hero. Shackleton, who had saved his crew, was almost forgotten until 1959 when Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage was published. In 2002, Nova broadcast the documentary Endurance on Shackleton’s voyage on PBS. About the same time Margaret Morrell and Stephanie Capparell published Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer.

Although other books and films have been made about this expedition, I prefer this one because it is Shackleton’s own book. He was not a brilliant writer, and he downplayed his own role in saving them, but the story is so compelling that it transcends any literary shortcomings.

Get the book: download the ebook or buy the paperback.