leonard clark

About Leonard Clark

Leonard Clark was perhaps one of the greatest of all twentieth-century explorers. He did not believe in big expeditions and elaborate paraphernalia - he was a man who carried his own belongings and charged ahead. This same trait enabled him to perform extraordinary feats of military intelligence and reconnaissance in difficult and dangerous areas during World War II. Clark attended the University of California, then joined the army, attaining the rank of colonel. During the war, he spent many months in China behind Japanese lines organizing guerrilla activity. His post-war expeditions began in Borneo, and over the years he made trips to Mexico, the Celebes, Sumatra, China, India, Japan, Central America, South America, and Burma. He was the author of two other books, A Wanderer Till I Die and The Marching Wind. He passed away in 1957 at the age of 49, while on a diamond-mining expedition in Venezuela.

The Rivers Ran East

This is a riveting firsthand account of Leonard Clark's search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola - reputedly home to enormous reserves of gold - in the Amazon rain forest east of the Peruvian Andes. En route, he acquires vast knowledge about the lives of indigenous peoples. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Clark is joined on his expedition by Inez Pokorny, a gutsy, multilingual female sidekick and fellow explorer. Their treacherous journey includes encounters with headhunting JÖvaro Indians, man-eating jaguars, forty-foot-long anacondas, poisonous plants, and shamanistic healers. "An exploration to rival Lewis and Clark's, remarkable both for its sense of adventure and for the breadth of its reporting." - Joe Kane, author of Savages and Running the Amazon