Customer Reviews

The Rivers Ran East

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Leonard Clark was my uncle, and the new edition having been released, I have recently re-read The Rivers Ran East.

I found this book to be most incredible, not simply for the storytelling, but more importantly for Len's foresight into the value and preciousness of the South American rainforest. While he was admittedly not an environmentalist, he was truly a man ahead of his times in that respect. His appreciation for and finely detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Amazon River basin are extremely topical and perhaps even more pertinent today than when he wrote the book. Among all else, he identifies specific native tribal practices and forest herbs as remedies unknown by Western medicine; as with many other products of the rainforest, these hold great promise and yet remain unresearched. Furthermore, his anthropological descriptions of the Amazonian natives capture a culture that now, just 50 years later, has largely been transformed to modern society and lost.

Purely on a swash-buckling adventure-tale level, the book is priceless: this is a real-life Indiana Jones! Len's hair-raising stunts, death-defying experiences, and encounters with Amazonian headhunters hit the reader one after another with nearly a breath in between.

Altogether five of Leonard's books were published: A Wanderer Till I Die (1937), The Rivers Ran East (1953), The Marching Wind (1954), Explorer's Digest (1955), and Yucatan Adventure (posthumously in 1958). All five make for fascinating reading. Many of his books were translated into Italian, Japanese, and other languages. My mother was Len's younger half-sister and I inherited her collection, which includes first editions in English of all five, as well as several of the translated versions, for example, the Japanese edition of The Marching Wind. In addition to The Rivers Ran East, The Marching Wind has also recently been republished and is now also available on Amazon.com. Beyond his books, articles by Len were published in National Geographic, Life, Literary Digest, Field and Stream, Popular Science, and American Weekly. The family still receives inquiries from time to time about possibly make a film based on one of his adventures, but none has been produced to date.

All of Len's books except for A Wanderer Till I Die were written after World War II. However, it was during the war that he perhaps made his greatest - though unpublished - contributions. Leonard served as an officer in the OSS, spending a good portion of the war in the China-Burma-India corridor conducting intelligence work in the Yellow River valley. Near the end of the war, he was stationed on Formosa and accepted the first (unofficial) surrender of the Japanese there. He earned the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and the Order of the White Cloud with Ribbon, the highest honor given by the Chinese to the foreigners who served them.

All of Leonard's works are fact, not fiction, and he is very highly regarded in our family as a military hero and quintessential adventurer. After the war, he built a log cabin near Fresno, California that I visited as a child. I remember Len as a large, quiet, gentle man who liked to tease us children, smoke his pipe, and take long contemplative walks in the woods with my mother. Yet he also embodied a sophistication, powerfulness, and seriousness that I sensed even as a child.

Len was born on 1/6/1907. He died on 5/4/1957 under mysterious circumstances while exploring for gold and diamond mines on the Caroni River in Venezuela. You will find a fairly extensive biography in Current Biography, Volume 17, No. 1, January 1956, although this does not cover his last years. In addition, my father devoted 20 pages in our family history to Len. For more information, please feel free to contact me.

I still vividly remember when and how I discovered this treasure of a book (years ago, at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh). It was the most incredible true adventure I had ever read, and it still is. I have read it repeatedly over the years; somehow the story is always fresh and exciting.

Leonard Clark was a former intelligence officer and a first-class explorer when he set his sights on the fabled land of gold, El Dorado. He started his journey in Lima, Peru, in 1946, with a thousand dollars and a very old Spanish parchment map of El Dorado. One one person was going to accompany him: Jorge Mendoza, a young, college-educated Peruvian who spoke perfect English.

Everyone in Lima remotely acquainted with the area Clark proposed to travel warned him not to go. Much of his path was through completely unexplored and impenetrable jungle territory, where people were regularly murdered or disappeared. Compounding the difficulty was the political situation in Peru, which forced Clark to take a very long and indirect route. He had to first travel east from Lima to Iquitos, then travel west to Borja and Bella Vista, in order to reach El Dorado. His 'cover' was that he was looking for medical secrets of the Indian brujos (witchmen). He did indeed discover amazing jungle remedies, many of which he brought back with him.

The constant stress of heat and humidity; the threat of attacks by headhunting and cannibalistic Indians; insect bites (some of which could blind a man); dangers from wild animals, including enormous man-eating snakes -- and over it all, the incessant sounds of the jungle -- were nearly unendurable for the two men. Every single page in this book is captivating, packed with sounds and smells and images of the jungle that linger in your memory.

About two-thirds of the way through the story, before they reached Iquitos, Jorge's brother died, and he left to head his family's estates -- leaving Clark alone. Inez Pokorny, an American woman who had already traveled for eight months on her way up the Amazon, accompanied Clark on the rest of his journey, from Iquitos west. Her help was inestimable; he described her as 'the best friend any explorer ever had.'

Clark's journey and its culmination surpass any adventure fiction. This is a remarkable book -- describing not just an amazing treasure hunt, but one of the finest pieces of exploration in the Amazon Valley.

I read this book many years ago and am now hoping to find copies for young friends just now poking their way into the world. I am very disappointed this book is out of print -- I have read countless adventure stories and none excedes this in excitment, "exoticness" and amazement. If there is a copy in your local library -- read it.

As a youngster I read this book so often the school librarian would chuckle each time I checked it out. Then, for years, I completely forgot about it. During that time I lived and worked in the Orinoco and Amazon Basin as a field biologist. When I re-discovered this title I had been working in Amazonian Peru for over a decade. Happy to find the book, I purchased a copy and read it again. Only this time I found myself laughing out loud. Clark did in fact get around while he was in Peru, but he clearly had little understanding of either Spanish or Quechua, and he had a vivid imagination. His facts are such an unreliable mishmash that I could tell immediately where he spent the majority of his time down there: in the bar of the hotel. Perhaps the most telling thing is that, with experience in the region, one can discern the kernel of truth at the heart of each of Clark's fabrications. It is far more instructive to read the journals of great scientist-explorers like Alfred Russel Wallace, Richard Spruce, or Bates...all of whom traversed the Amazon under much more grueling conditions. Their accounts reveal all the wonders and hardships of the area but with none of the silly exaggerations.

I was desperate for a another good travel memoir after traveling with Redmond O'Hanlon in South America and Eric Hansen in Borneo, so I ordered this after accidentally discovering it here. Well, I was not prepared for this journey. My jaw hit the floor on the first page and remained there throughout the whole incredible story. Clark's quirky personality and unbounded enthusiasm and belief in this trek to find the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola captured my imagination and had I been lucky enough to have been asked along on this trek, I would have followed without question. And all because of a treasure map someone sold him! The description of the silver and gold objects that had been reported was the most fabulous thing I had ever read or heard of. His ingenuity in getting over the difficult parts of the rivers on the trip out was amazing and his harrowing trek back to civilization kept me on the edge of my chair. And how clever of him to keep the best secret until last--they actually found gold. And Inez! No woman ever had a more interesting journey or life. I think young teens all the way up to seniors would be amazed to read about the part she played in this fabulous adventure. Before I really start gushing adjectives, I'll quit and just say read it. Mystery fans, history buffs, travel junkies, amateur biologists and anthropologists and adventure addicts--this book has something for everyone of you. I didn't realize he had written so many other books and I intend to get as many as possible and I suggest you do the same.

Several years ago I made the mistake of lending out my original copy to I-don't-remember-whom. Big mistake. This is my favorite book, ever, and I'm SO happy it's back in print! Other travellers will identify with the problem of what's it like to be a complete stranger, with little familiarity of the circumstances surrounding you, but Clark's travels might as well have been on another planet, for all he was able to deal with the problems thrown at him. Exciting reading, and lots to think about afterwards. I just want to know, is all that gold still there???? This time around I'm ordering two copies, just in case one goes astray again.

A friend highly recommended this book. He's pointed me to several interesting books over the years, but this was his best recommendation. After waiting for what seemed forever to get a copy, I read it overnight.

The Rivers Ran East is a great exploration story. I've been fascinated by the exploits of the great Victorian explorers, especially Sir Richard Francis Burton, for years. To me, Leonard Clark was probably the last of the Victorian-style explorers - facing the wilderness armed with few supplies, but inspired by a burning desire for exploration (with selfish reasons like gold thrown in for good measure).

Like some of the other reviewers, I want more information. The book's ending seemed to promise a continuation, but I guess it never happened. Some publisher needs to reprint this great book, complete with updates on "the rest of the story".

A very credible, former USArmy officer, follows rumors of gold in South America and tells his high adventure story in a captivating, chillingly honest, and unflinching way that tempts the reader to follow his trail. Only fear, and common sense, holds you back. Good reading: good discription of the Indian of South America, and the frequently obtuse way they are best approached. If you like "Indiana Jones", you'll like this.

A fantastic adventure story from an Author who apparently fears nothing. Very detailed and factual with photographs to back up his story. I would also like to learn more about this author and have only found that he wrote an article for National Geographic in 1938 about Hainan Island and it's inhabitants. That story was written in the same style. Mr. Clark was(?) indeed an aventurous soul.

I recently finished reading the book, The Rivers Ran East, by Leonard Clark, who just happens to be my uncle. What a great story! It was written in the 1950's when I was just a little girl and I grew up hearing exciting stories about my adventuresome uncle. He sure can tell an fascinating tale! The book has been out of print in English for quite some time, so it is exciting to see that it has been republished. Because of the vivid descriptions, you really feel as though you are there with him in the jungle.