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"Good I hope you find what you're looking for"

"So do I," said Perlh "Believe me, so do I"

At twenty , Perlmutter threw open the door before the Federal Express driver could punch the doorbell button "Youthis, Mr Perlmutter, "

said the young blackhaired lasses and a friendly smile

"Like a child waiting for Santa" Perl for the reinforced envelope

He hurried into his study, pulling the tab and opening the envelope as he walked He sat at his desk, slipped on his glasses, and held the journal of Thomas Cuttill in his hands as if it were the Holy Grail The cover was the skin of soes were yellowed parchment in a state of excellent preservation The ink was brown, probably a concoction Cuttill had ed to brew froes The entries ritten in the quaint Elizabethan prose of the day The handwriting see a man as reasonably well educated for the times The first entry was dated March 1578, but ritten much later:

Mine strange historie of the passte sexteen yeares, by Thomas Cuttill, formerly of Devonshire

It was the account of a shipwrecked sailor, cast away after barely surviving the sea's violent fury, only to endure incredible hardships in a savage land in his unsuccessful atte with Cuttill's departure froland with Drake, Perlmutter noted that it ritten in a more honest style than narratives of later centuries, which were littered with sererations, and clichés Cuttill's persistence, his will to survive, and his ingenuity in overco for the help of God made a profound impression on Perlmutter Cuttill was a man he would like to have known

After finding hialleon after the tidal wave carried it far inland, Cuttill chose the unknown horrors of the le rather than capture and torture by the avenging Spanish, ere alleon by the hated Englishman, Drake All Cuttill kneas that the Atlantic Ocean lay souess Reaching the sea, and then soland would be nothing short of a miracle But it was the only path open to him

On the western slopes of the Andes the Spanish had already created colonies of large estates, noorked by the once-proud Incas, ere enslaved and greatly reduced in numbers by inhumane treatment and infection froh the estates under cover of darkness, stealing food at every opportunity After two ht to elude the Spanish and reive him away, he crossed over the continental divide of the Andes, through the isolated valleys, and descended into the green hell of the Amazon River Basin

Froht swah forests so thick every rowth had to be cut aith his knife Swarators were a constant peril, the snakes often attacking without warning He suffered fro only 100 ht After several e of hostile natives, who immediately tied him with ropes and kept him imprisoned as a slave for five years

Cuttill finallydown the A , but as he drifted unconscious in his canoe he was found by a tribe of long-haired women who nursed him back to health

It was the same tribe of women the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana had discovered during his futile search for El Dorado He named the river Aend because the native women could draw a boith any man

Cuttill introduced a nu devices to the women and the few ht thee intricate bowls and water vessels He constructed wheelbarrows and heels for irrigation, and showed thehts Soon looked upon as a god, Cuttillthe tribe He took three of the most attractive women as wives and quickly produced several children

His desire to see holand, he was sure there would be no relatives or old shipreet his return And then there was the possibility that Drake, a stern disciplinarian, would de the Concepcion