The Celtic people seldom built temples—they had no need. The sanctity of nature was an inescapable part of their worship, and the land itself was a permanent temple. Sacred places were often located near a water source, especially a well, spring, or a lake.

The explorers paddled past the Ricardo Franco Hills, eerie sandstone plateaus that rose three thousand feet. “Time and the foot of man had not touched those summits,” Fawcett wrote. “They stood like a lost world, forested to their tops, and the imagination could picture the last vestiges of an age long vanished.” (Conan Doyle reportedly based the s