In Search of an Unknown Race

IN SEARCH OF AN UNKNOWN RACE This 1901 Street & Smith publication by Frank H. Converse recounts the adventures of seventeen-year-old Van Briscoe. When Van boards the trading schooner *Rattler* bound for Brazil and the Amazon River, Captain Peterson reveals an extraordinary secret: Van's uncle, Richard Vance Briscoe, presumed lost at sea aboard the *Argonaut* in 1865, is alive in a hidden city called Itambez in the Brazilian interior. The mysterious letter, authenticated by a diamond and royal seal, directs the expedition up the Amazon, through river tributaries and Canuma Lake, where they will be guided to the lost civilization. Among the crew, Van notes the immense strength of a Black sailor named Tom, and suspects duplicity in the handsome young sailor Bates, whose educated speech and mysterious authority over the others conceal darker intentions. As the *Rattler* nears Para, becalmed at the equator, tensions mount aboard the vessel.