In Brazil In April 1932 Fleming replied to an advertisement in the personal columns of
The Times: "Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel
Percy Fawcett; abundant game, big and small; exceptional fishing; room two more guns; highest references expected and given." He then joined the expedition, organised by Robert Churchward, to São Paulo, then overland to the rivers
Araguaia and
Tapirapé, heading towards the last-known position of the Fawcett expedition. During the inward journey the expedition was riven by increasing disagreements as to its objectives and plans, centred particularly on its local leader, whom Fleming disguised as "Major Pingle" when he wrote about the expedition. Fleming and
Roger Pettiward (a school and university friend recruited onto the expedition as a result of a chance encounter with Fleming) led a breakaway group. This group continued for several days up the Tapirapé to São Domingo, from where Fleming, Pettiward, Neville Priestley and one of the Brazilians hired by the expedition set out to find evidence of Fawcett's fate on their own. After acquiring two Tapirapé guides the party began a march to the area where Fawcett was reported to have last been seen. They made slow progress for several days, losing the Indian guides and Neville to foot infection, before admitting defeat. The expedition's return journey was made down the River Araguaia to
Belém. It became a closely fought race between Fleming's party and "Major Pingle", the prize being to be the first to report home, and thus to gain the upper hand in the battles over blame and finances that were to come. Fleming's party narrowly won. The expedition returned to England in November 1932. Fleming's book about the expedition,
Brazilian Adventure, has sold well ever since it was first published in 1933, and is still in print.
In Asia Fleming travelled from Moscow to Peking via the Caucasus, the Caspian, Samarkand, Tashkent, the
Turksib Railway and the
Trans-Siberian Railway to Peking as a special correspondent of
The Times. His experiences were recorded in ''
One's Company (1934). He then went overland in company of Ella Maillart from China via Tunganistan to India on a journey written up in News from Tartary (1936). These two books were combined as Travels in Tartary: One's Company and News from Tartary'' (1941). All three volumes were published by Jonathan Cape. According to Nicolas Clifford, for Fleming China "had the aspect of a comic opera land whose quirks and oddities became grist for the writer, rather than deserving any respect or sympathy in themselves". In ''One's Company'', for example, Fleming reports that Beijing was "lacking in charm", Harbin was a city of "no easily definable character". Changchun was "entirely characterless", and Shenyang was "non-descript and suburban". However, Fleming also provides insights into
Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in
Manchuria, which helped contemporary readers to understand Chinese resentment and resistance, and the aftermath of the
Kumul Rebellion. In the course of these travels Fleming met and interviewed many prominent figures in Central Asia and China, including the
Chinese Muslim General
Ma Hushan, the Chinese Muslim Taoyin of
Kashgar,
Ma Shaowu, and
Puyi. Of
Travels in Tartary,
Owen Lattimore remarked that Fleming, who "passes for an easy-going amateur, is in fact an inspired amateur whose quick appreciation, especially of people, and original turn of phrase, echoing
P. G. Wodehouse in only a very distant and cultured way, have created a unique kind of travel book". Lattimore added that it "is only in the political news from Tartary that there is a disappointment", as, in his view, Fleming offers "a simplified explanation, in terms of Red intrigue and Bolshevik villains, which does not make sense." Stuart Stevens retraced Peter Fleming's route and wrote his own travel book. ==Second World War==