On Bartlett's return the Eskimos built the usual wind shelter already described, and Bartlett took a latitude observation, getting 87 deg. 46' 49''.

Bartlett was naturally much disappointed to find that even with his five-mile northward march of the morning he was still short of the 88th parallel. Our latitude was the direct result of the northerly wind of the last two days, which had crowded the ice southward as we traveled over it northward. We had traveled fully twelve miles more than his observation showed in the last five marches, but had lost them by the crushing up of the young ice in our rear and the closing of the leads.

Bartlett took the observations here, as had Marvin five camps back partly to save my eyes and partly to have independent observations by different members of the expedition. When the calculations were completed, two copies were made, one for Bartlett and one for me, and he got ready to start south on the back trail in command of my fourth supporting party, with his two Eskimos, one sledge, and eighteen dogs.

I felt a keen regret as I saw the captain's broad shoulders grow smaller in the distance and finally disappear behind the ice hummocks of the white and glittering expanse toward the south. But it was no time for reverie, and I turned abruptly away and gave my attention to the work which was before me. I had no anxiety about Bartlett. I knew that I should see him again at the ship. My work was still ahead, not in the rear. Bartlett had been invaluable to me, and circumstances had thrust upon him the brunt of the pioneering instead of its being divided among several, as I had originally planned.

Though he was naturally disappointed at not having reached the 88th parallel, he had every reason to be proud, not only of his work in general, but that he had surpassed the Italian record by a degree and a quarter. I had given him the post of honor in command of my last supporting party for three reasons: first, because of his magnificent handling of the Roosevelt; second, because he had cheerfully and gladly stood between me and every possible minor annoyance from the start of the expedition to that day; third, because it seemed to me right that, in view of the noble work of Great Britain in arctic exploration, a British subject should, next to an American, be able to say that he had stood nearest the North Pole.

With the departure of Bartlett, the main party now consisted of my own division and Henson's. My men were Egingwah and Seegloo; Henson's men were Ootah and Ooqueah. We had five sledges and forty dogs, the pick of one hundred and forty with which we had left the ship. With these we were ready now for the final lap of the journey.

We were now one hundred and thirty-three nautical miles from the Pole. Pacing back and forth in the lee of the pressure ridge near which our igloos were built, I made out my program. Every nerve must be strained to make five marches of at least twenty-five miles each, crowding these marches in such a way as to bring us to the end of the fifth march by noon, to permit an immediate latitude observation. Weather and leads permitting, I believed that I could do this. From the improving character of the ice, and in view of the recent northerly winds, I hoped that I should have no serious trouble with the going.

If for any reason I fell short of these proposed distances, I had two methods in reserve for making up the deficit. One was to double the last march—that is, make a good march, have tea and a hearty lunch, rest the dogs a little, and then go on again, without sleep. The other was, at the conclusion of my fifth march, to push on with one light sledge, a double team of dogs, and one or two of the party, leaving the rest in camp. Even should the going be worse than was then anticipated, eight marches like the three from 85 deg. 48' to 86 deg. 38', or six similar to our last one, would do the trick.



Underlying all these calculations was the ever-present knowledge that a twenty-fours' gale would open leads of water which might be impassable, and that all these plans would be negatived.

As I paced to and fro, making out my plans, I remembered that three years ago that day we had crossed the "big lead" on our way north, April 1, 1906. A comparison of conditions now and then filled me with hope for the future.

This was the time for which I had reserved all my energies, the time for which I had worked for twenty-two years, for which I had lived the simple life and trained myself as for a race. In spite of my years, I felt fit for the demands of the coming days and was eager to be on the trail. As for my party, my equipment, and my supplies, they were perfect beyond my most sanguine dreams of earlier years. My party might be regarded as an ideal which had now come to realization—as loyal and responsive to my will as the fingers of my right hand.

My four Eskimos carried the technic of dogs, sledges, ice, and cold as their racial heritage. Henson and Ootah had been my companions at the farthest point on the expedition three years before. Egingwah and Seegloo had been in Clark's division, which had such a narrow escape at that time, having been obliged for several days to subsist upon their sealskin boots, all their other food being gone.

And the fifth was young Ooqueah, who had never before served in any expedition; but who was, if possible, even more willing and eager than the others to go with me wherever I should elect. For he was always thinking of the great treasures which I had promised each of the men who should go to the farthest point with me—whale-boat, rifle, shotgun, ammunition, knives, et cetera—wealth beyond the wildest dreams of Eskimos, which should win for him the daughter of old Ikwah of Cape York, on whom he had set his heart.

All these men had a blind confidence that I would somehow get them back to land. But I recognized fully that all the impetus of the party centered in me. Whatever pace I set, the others would make good; but if I played out, they would stop like a car with a punctured tire. I had no fault to find with the conditions, and I faced them with confidence.



CHAPTER XXX

THE FINAL SPURT BEGUN

At this time it may be appropriate to say a word regarding my reasons for selecting Henson as my fellow traveler to the Pole itself. In this selection I acted exactly as I have done on all my expeditions for the last fifteen years. He has in those years always been with me at my point farthest north. Moreover, Henson was the best man I had with me for this kind of work, with the exception of the Eskimos, who, with their racial inheritance of ice technic and their ability to handle sledges and dogs, were more necessary to me, as members of my own individual party, than any white man could have been. Of course they could not lead, but they could follow and drive dogs better than any white man.

Henson, with his years of arctic experience, was almost as skilful at this work as an Eskimo. He could handle dogs and sledges. He was a part of the traveling machine. Had I taken another member of the expedition also, he would have been a passenger, necessitating the carrying of extra rations and other impedimenta. It would have amounted to an additional load on the sledges, while the taking of Henson was in the interest of economy of weight.

The second reason was that while Henson was more useful to me than any other member of my expedition when it came to traveling with my last party over the polar ice, he would not have been so competent as the white members of the expedition in getting himself and his party back to the land. If Henson had been sent back with one of the supporting parties from a distance far out on the ice, and if he had encountered conditions similar to those which we had to face on the return journey in 1906, he and his party would never have reached the land. While faithful to me, and when with me more effective in covering distance with a sledge than any of the others, he had not, as a racial inheritance, the daring and initiative of Bartlett, or Marvin, MacMillan, or Borup. I owed it to him not to subject him to dangers and responsibilities which he was temperamentally unfit to face.

As to the dogs, most of them were powerful males, as hard as iron, in good condition, but without an ounce of superfluous fat; and, by reason of the care which I had taken of them up to this point, they were all in good spirits, like the men. The sledges, which were being repaired that day, were also in good condition. My food and fuel supplies were ample for forty days, and by the gradual utilization of the dogs themselves for reserve food, might be made to last for fifty days if it came to a pinch.

As the Eskimos worked away at repairing the sledges while we rested there on the first day of April, they stopped from time to time to eat some of the boiled dog which the surplus numbers in Bartlett's returning team had enabled them to have. They had killed one of the poorest dogs and boiled it, using the splinters of an extra broken sledge for fuel under their cooker. It was a change for them from the pemmican diet. It was fresh meat, it was hot, and they seemed thoroughly to enjoy it. But though I remembered many times when from sheer starvation I had been glad to eat dog meat raw, I did not feel inclined to join in the feast of my dusky friends.

A little after midnight, on the morning of April 2, after a few hours of sound, warm, and refreshing sleep, and a hearty breakfast, I started to lift the trail to the north, leaving the others to pack, hitch up, and follow. As I climbed the pressure ridge back of our igloo, I took up another hole in my belt, the third since I left the land—thirty-two days before. Every man and dog of us was as lean and flat-bellied as a board, and as hard.

Up to this time I had intentionally kept in the rear, to straighten out any little hitch or to encourage a man with a broken sledge, and to see that everything was in good marching order. Now I took my proper place in the lead. Though I held myself in check, I felt the keenest exhilaration, and even exultation, as I climbed over the pressure ridge and breasted the keen air sweeping over the mighty ice, pure and straight from the Pole itself.

These feelings were not in any way dampened when I plunged off the pressure ridge into water mid-thigh deep, where the pressure had forced down the edge of the floe north of us and had allowed the water to flow in under the surface snow. My boots and trousers were tight, so that no water could get inside, and as the water froze on the fur of my trousers I scraped it off with the blade of the ice lance which I carried, and was no worse for my involuntary morning plunge. I thought of my unused bath tub on the Roosevelt, three hundred and thirty nautical miles to the south, and smiled.

It was a fine marching morning, clear and sunlit, with a temperature of minus 25 deg., and the wind of the past few days had subsided to a gentle breeze. The going was the best we had had since leaving the land. The floes were large and old, hard and level, with patches of sapphire blue ice (the pools of the preceding summer). While the pressure ridges surrounding them were stupendous, some of them fifty feet high, they were not especially hard to negotiate, either through some gap or up the gradual slope of a huge drift of snow. The brilliant sunlight, the good going save for the pressure ridges, the consciousness that we were now well started on the last lap of our journey, and the joy of again being in the lead affected me like wine. The years seemed to drop from me, and I felt as I had felt in those days fifteen years before, when I headed my little party across the great ice-cap of Greenland, leaving twenty and twenty-five miles behind my snowshoes day after day, and on a spurt stretching it to thirty or forty.

* * * * *

Perhaps a man always thinks of the very beginning of his work when he feels it is nearing its end. The appearance of the ice-fields to the north this day, large and level, the brilliant blue of the sky, the biting character of the wind—everything excepting the surface of the ice, which on the great cap is absolutely dead level with a straight line for a horizon—reminded me of those marches of the long ago.

The most marked difference was the shadows, which on the ice-cap are absent entirely, but on the polar ice, where the great pressure ridges stand out in bold relief, are deep and dark. Then, too, there are on the polar ice those little patches of sapphire blue already mentioned, made from the water pools of the preceding summer. On the Greenland ice-cap years ago I had been spurred on by the necessity of reaching the musk-oxen of Independence Bay before my supplies gave out. Now I was spurred on by the necessity of making my goal, if possible, before the round face of the coming full moon should stir the tides with unrest and open a network of leads across our path.

After some hours the sledges caught up with me. The dogs were so active that morning, after their day's rest, that I was frequently obliged to sit on a sledge for a few minutes or else run to keep up with them, which I did not care to do just yet. Our course was nearly, as the crow flies, due north, across floe after floe, pressure ridge after pressure ridge, headed straight for some hummock or pinnacle of ice which I had lined in with my compass.

In this way we traveled for ten hours without stopping, covering, I felt sure, thirty miles, though, to be conservative, I called it twenty-five. My Eskimos said that we had come as far as from the Roosevelt to Porter Bay, which by our winter route scales thirty-five miles on the chart. Anyway, we were well over the 88th parallel, in a region where no human being had ever been before. And whatever distance we made, we were likely to retain it now that the wind had ceased to blow from the north. It was even possible that with the release of the wind pressure the ice might rebound more or less and return us some of the hard-earned miles which it had stolen from us during the previous three days.

Near the end of the march I came upon a lead which was just opening. It was ten yards wide directly in front of me, but a few hundred yards to the east was an apparently practicable crossing where the single crack was divided into several. I signaled to the sledges to hurry; then, running to the place, I had time to pick a road across the moving ice cakes and return to help the teams across before the lead widened so as to be impassable. This passage was effected by my jumping from one cake to another, picking the way, and making sure that the cake would not tilt under the weight of the dogs and the sledge, returning to the former cake where the dogs were, encouraging the dogs ahead while the driver steered the sledge across from cake to cake, and threw his weight from one side to the other so that it could not overturn. We got the sledges across several cracks so wide that while the dogs had no trouble in jumping, the men had to be pretty active in order to follow the long sledges. Fortunately the sledges were of the new Peary type, twelve feet long. Had they been of the old Eskimo type, seven feet long, we might have had to use ropes and pull them across hand over hand on an ice cake.

It is always hard to make the dogs leap a widening crack, though some of the best dog drivers can do it instantly, using the whip and the voice. A poor dog driver would be likely to get everything into the water in the attempt. It is sometimes necessary to go ahead of the dogs, holding the hand low and shaking it as though it contained some dainty morsel of food, thus inspiring them with courage for the leap.

Perhaps a mile beyond this, the breaking of the ice at the edge of a narrow lead as I landed from a jump sent me into the water nearly to my hips; but as the water did not come above the waistband of my trousers, which were water-tight, it was soon scraped and beaten off before it had time to freeze.

This lead was not wide enough to bother the sledges.

As we stopped to make our camp near a huge pressure ridge, the sun, which was gradually getting higher, seemed almost to have some warmth. While we were building our igloos, we could see, by the water clouds lying to the east and southeast of us some miles distant, that a wide lead was opening in that direction. The approaching full moon was evidently getting in its work.

As we had traveled on, the moon had circled round and round the heavens opposite the sun, a disk of silver opposite a disk of gold. Looking at its pallid and spectral face, from which the brighter light of the sun had stolen the color, it seemed hard to realize that its presence there had power to stir the great ice-fields around us with restlessness—power even now, when we were so near our goal, to interrupt our pathway with an impassable lead.

The moon had been our friend during the long winter, giving us light to hunt by for a week or two each month. Now it seemed no longer a friend, but a dangerous presence to be regarded with fear. Its power, which had before been beneficent, was now malevolent and incalculably potent for evil.

When we awoke early in the morning of April 3, after a few hours' sleep, we found the weather still clear and calm. There were some broad heavy pressure ridges in the beginning of this march, and we had to use pickaxes quite freely. This delayed us a little, but as soon as we struck the level old floes we tried to make up for lost time. As the daylight was now continuous we could travel as long as we pleased and sleep as little as we must. We hustled along for ten hours again, as we had before, making only twenty miles, because of the early delay with the pickaxes and another brief delay at a narrow lead. We were now half-way to the 89th parallel, and I had been obliged to take up another hole in my belt.

Some gigantic rafters were seen during this march, but they were not in our path. All day long we had heard the ice grinding and groaning on all sides of us, but no motion was visible to our eyes. Either the ice was slacking back into equilibrium, sagging northward after its release from the wind pressure, or else it was feeling the influence of the spring tides of the full moon. On, on we pushed, and I am not ashamed to confess that my pulse beat high, for the breath of success seemed already in my nostrils.



CHAPTER XXXI

ONLY ONE DAY FROM THE POLE

With every passing day even the Eskimos were becoming more eager and interested, notwithstanding the fatigue of the long marches. As we stopped to make camp, they would climb to some pinnacle of ice and strain their eyes to the north, wondering if the Pole was in sight, for they were now certain that we should get there this time.

We slept only a few hours the next night, hitting the trail again a little before midnight between the 3d and 4th of April. The weather and the going were even better than the day before. The surface of the ice, except as interrupted by infrequent pressure ridges, was as level as the glacial fringe from Hecla to Cape Columbia, and harder. I rejoiced at the thought that if the weather held good I should be able to get in my five marches before noon of the 6th.

Again we traveled for ten hours straight ahead, the dogs often on the trot and occasionally on the run, and in those ten hours we reeled off at least twenty-five miles. I had a slight accident that day, a sledge runner having passed over the side of my right foot as I stumbled while running beside a team; but the hurt was not severe enough to keep me from traveling.

Near the end of the day we crossed a lead about one hundred yards wide, on young ice so thin that, as I ran ahead to guide the dogs, I was obliged to slide my feet and travel wide, bear style, in order to distribute my weight, while the men let the sledges and dogs come over by themselves, gliding across where they could. The last two men came over on all fours.

I watched them from the other side with my heart in my mouth—watched the ice bending under the weight of the sledges and the men. As one of the sledges neared the north side, a runner cut clear through the ice, and I expected every moment that the whole thing, dogs and all, would go through the ice and down to the bottom. But it did not.

This dash reminded me of that day, nearly three years before, when in order to save our lives we had taken desperate chances in recrossing the "Big Lead" on ice similar to this—ice that buckled under us and through which my toe cut several times as I slid my long snowshoes over it. A man who should wait for the ice to be really safe would stand small chance of getting far in these latitudes. Traveling on the polar ice, one takes all kinds of chances. Often a man has the choice between the possibility of drowning by going on or starving to death by standing still, and challenges fate with the briefer and less painful chance.

That night we were all pretty tired, but satisfied with our progress so far. We were almost inside of the 89th parallel, and I wrote in my diary: "Give me three more days of this weather!" The temperature at the beginning of the march had been minus 40 deg.. That night I put all the poorest dogs in one team and began to eliminate and feed them to the others, as it became necessary.

We stopped for only a short sleep, and early in the evening of the same day, the 4th, we struck on again. The temperature was then minus 35 deg., the going was the same, but the sledges always haul more easily when the temperature rises, and the dogs were on the trot much of the time. Toward the end of the march we came upon a lead running north and south, and as the young ice was thick enough to support the teams, we traveled on it for two hours, the dogs galloping along and reeling off the miles in a way that delighted my heart. The light air which had blown from the south during the first few hours of the march veered to the east and grew keener as the hours wore on.

I had not dared to hope for such progress as we were making. Still the biting cold would have been impossible to face by anyone not fortified by an inflexible purpose. The bitter wind burned our faces so that they cracked, and long after we got into camp each day they pained us so that we could hardly go to sleep. The Eskimos complained much, and at every camp fixed their fur clothing about their faces, waists, knees, and wrists. They also complained of their noses, which I had never known them to do before. The air was as keen and bitter as frozen steel.

At the next camp I had another of the dogs killed. It was now exactly six weeks since we left the Roosevelt, and I felt as if the goal were in sight. I intended the next day, weather and ice permitting, to make a long march, "boil the kettle" midway, and then go on again without sleep, trying to make up the five miles which we had lost on the 3d of April.

During the daily march my mind and body were too busy with the problem of covering as many miles of distance as possible to permit me to enjoy the beauty of the frozen wilderness through which we tramped. But at the end of the day's march, while the igloos were being built, I usually had a few minutes in which to look about me and to realize the picturesqueness of our situation—we, the only living things in a trackless, colorless, inhospitable desert of ice. Nothing but the hostile ice, and far more hostile icy water, lay between our remote place on the world's map and the utmost tips of the lands of Mother Earth.

I knew of course that there was always a possibility that we might still end our lives up there, and that our conquest of the unknown spaces and silences of the polar void might remain forever unknown to the world which we had left behind. But it was hard to realize this. That hope which is said to spring eternal in the human breast always buoyed me up with the belief that, as a matter of course, we should be able to return along the white road by which we had come.

Sometimes I would climb to the top of a pinnacle of ice to the north of our camp and strain my eyes into the whiteness which lay beyond, trying to imagine myself already at the Pole. We had come so far, and the capricious ice had placed so few obstructions in our path, that now I dared to loose my fancy, to entertain the image which my will had heretofore forbidden to my imagination—the image of ourselves at the goal.

We had been very fortunate with the leads so far, but I was in constant and increasing dread lest we should encounter an impassable one toward the very end. With every successive march, my fear of such impassable leads had increased. At every pressure ridge I found myself hurrying breathlessly forward, fearing there might be a lead just beyond it, and when I arrived at the summit I would catch my breath with relief—only to find myself hurrying on in the same way at the next ridge.

At our camp on the 5th of April I gave the party a little more sleep than at the previous ones, as we were all pretty well played out and in need of rest. I took a latitude sight, and this indicated our position to be 89 deg. 25', or thirty-five miles from the Pole; but I determined to make the next camp in time for a noon observation, if the sun should be visible.



Before midnight on the 5th we were again on the trail. The weather was overcast, and there was the same gray and shadowless light as on the march after Marvin had turned back. The sky was a colorless pall gradually deepening to almost black at the horizon, and the ice was a ghastly and chalky white, like that of the Greenland ice-cap—just the colors which an imaginative artist would paint as a polar ice-scape. How different it seemed from the glittering fields, canopied with blue and lit by the sun and full moon, over which we had been traveling for the last four days.

The going was even better than before. There was hardly any snow on the hard granular surface of the old floes, and the sapphire blue lakes were larger than ever. The temperature had risen to minus 15 deg., which, reducing the friction of the sledges, gave the dogs the appearance of having caught the high spirits of the party. Some of them even tossed their heads and barked and yelped as they traveled.

Notwithstanding the grayness of the day, and the melancholy aspect of the surrounding world, by some strange shift of feeling the fear of the leads had fallen from me completely. I now felt that success was certain, and, notwithstanding the physical exhaustion of the forced marches of the last five days, I went tirelessly on and on, the Eskimos following almost automatically, though I knew that they must feel the weariness which my excited brain made me incapable of feeling.

When we had covered, as I estimated, a good fifteen miles, we halted, made tea, ate lunch, and rested the dogs. Then we went on for another estimated fifteen miles. In twelve hours' actual traveling time we made thirty miles. Many laymen have wondered why we were able to travel faster after the sending back of each of the supporting parties, especially after the last one. To any man experienced in the handling of troops this will need no explanation. The larger the party and the greater the number of sledges, the greater is the chance of breakages or delay for one reason or another. A large party cannot be forced as rapidly as a small party.



Take a regiment, for instance. The regiment could not make as good an average daily march for a number of forced marches as could a picked company of that regiment. The picked company could not make as good an average march for a number of forced marches as could a picked file of men from that particular company; and this file could not make the same average for a certain number of forced marches that the fastest traveler in the whole regiment could make.

So that, with my party reduced to five picked men, every man, dog, and sledge under my individual eye, myself in the lead, and all recognizing that the moment had now come to let ourselves out for all there was in us, we naturally bettered our previous speed.

When Bartlett left us the sledges had been practically rebuilt, all the best dogs were in our pack, and we all understood that we must attain our object and get back as quickly as we possibly could. The weather was in our favor. The average march for the whole journey from the land to the Pole was over fifteen miles. We had repeatedly made marches of twenty miles. Our average for five marches from the point where the last supporting party turned back was about twenty-six miles.



CHAPTER XXXII

WE REACH THE POLE

The last march northward ended at ten o'clock on the forenoon of April 6. I had now made the five marches planned from the point at which Bartlett turned back, and my reckoning showed that we were in the immediate neighborhood of the goal of all our striving. After the usual arrangements for going into camp, at approximate local noon, of the Columbia meridian, I made the first observation at our polar camp. It indicated our position as 89 deg. 57'.



We were now at the end of the last long march of the upward journey. Yet with the Pole actually in sight I was too weary to take the last few steps. The accumulated weariness of all those days and nights of forced marches and insufficient sleep, constant peril and anxiety, seemed to roll across me all at once. I was actually too exhausted to realize at the moment that my life's purpose had been achieved. As soon as our igloos had been completed and we had eaten our dinner and double-rationed the dogs, I turned in for a few hours of absolutely necessary sleep, Henson and the Eskimos having unloaded the sledges and got them in readiness for such repairs as were necessary. But, weary though I was, I could not sleep long. It was, therefore, only a few hours later when I woke. The first thing I did after awaking was to write these words in my diary: "The Pole at last. The prize of three centuries. My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot bring myself to realize it. It seems all so simple and commonplace."

Everything was in readiness for an observation[1] at 6 P.M., Columbia meridian time, in case the sky should be clear, but at that hour it was, unfortunately, still overcast. But as there were indications that it would clear before long, two of the Eskimos and myself made ready a light sledge carrying only the instruments, a tin of pemmican, and one or two skins; and drawn by a double team of dogs, we pushed on an estimated distance of ten miles. While we traveled, the sky cleared, and at the end of the journey, I was able to get a satisfactory series of observations at Columbia meridian midnight. These observations indicated that our position was then beyond the Pole.



Nearly everything in the circumstances which then surrounded us seemed too strange to be thoroughly realized; but one of the strangest of those circumstances seemed to me to be the fact that, in a march of only a few hours, I had passed from the western to the eastern hemisphere and had verified my position at the summit of the world. It was hard to realize that, in the first miles of this brief march, we had been traveling due north, while, on the last few miles of the same march, we had been traveling south, although we had all the time been traveling precisely in the same direction. It would be difficult to imagine a better illustration of the fact that most things are relative. Again, please consider the uncommon circumstance that, in order to return to our camp, it now became necessary to turn and go north again for a few miles and then to go directly south, all the time traveling in the same direction.

As we passed back along that trail which none had ever seen before or would ever see again, certain reflections intruded themselves which, I think, may fairly be called unique. East, west, and north had disappeared for us. Only one direction remained and that was south. Every breeze which could possibly blow upon us, no matter from what point of the horizon, must be a south wind. Where we were, one day and one night constituted a year, a hundred such days and nights constituted a century. Had we stood in that spot during the six months of the arctic winter night, we should have seen every star of the northern hemisphere circling the sky at the same distance from the horizon, with Polaris (the North Star) practically in the zenith.



All during our march back to camp the sun was swinging around in its ever-moving circle. At six o'clock on the morning of April 7, having again arrived at Camp Jesup, I took another series of observations. These indicated our position as being four or five miles from the Pole, towards Bering Strait. Therefore, with a double team of dogs and a light sledge, I traveled directly towards the sun an estimated distance of eight miles. Again I returned to the camp in time for a final and completely satisfactory series of observations on April 7 at noon, Columbia meridian time. These observations gave results essentially the same as those made at the same spot twenty-four hours before.

I had now taken in all thirteen single, or six and one-half double, altitudes of the sun, at two different stations, in three different directions, at four different times. All were under satisfactory conditions, except for the first single altitude on the sixth. The temperature during these observations had been from minus 11 deg. Fahrenheit to minus 30 deg. Fahrenheit, with clear sky and calm weather (except as already noted for the single observation on the sixth). I give here a facsimile of a typical set of these observations. (See the two following pages.)

In traversing the ice in these various directions as I had done, I had allowed approximately ten miles for possible errors in my observations, and at some moment during these marches and countermarches, I had passed over or very near the point[2] where north and south and east and west blend into one.



Photos by Henson, April 7



Of course there were some more or less informal ceremonies connected with our arrival at our difficult destination, but they were not of a very elaborate character. We planted five flags at the top of the world. The first one was a silk American flag which Mrs. Peary gave me fifteen years ago. That flag has done more traveling in high latitudes than any other ever made. I carried it wrapped about my body on every one of my expeditions northward after it came into my possession, and I left a fragment of it at each of my successive "farthest norths": Cape Morris K. Jesup, the northernmost point of land in the known world; Cape Thomas Hubbard, the northernmost known point of Jesup Land, west of Grant Land; Cape Columbia, the northernmost point of North American lands; and my farthest north in 1906, latitude 87 deg. 6' in the ice of the polar sea. By the time it actually reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn and discolored.

A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal of earth—the place where I and my dusky companions stood.

It was also considered appropriate to raise the colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which I was initiated a member while an undergraduate student at Bowdoin College, the "World's Ensign of Liberty and Peace," with its red, white, and blue in a field of white, the Navy League flag, and the Red Cross flag.



After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told Henson to time the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with the greatest enthusiasm. Thereupon, I shook hands with each member of the party—surely a sufficiently unceremonious affair to meet with the approval of the most democratic. The Eskimos were childishly delighted with our success. While, of course, they did not realize its importance fully, or its world-wide significance, they did understand that it meant the final achievement of a task upon which they had seen me engaged for many years.

Then, in a space between the ice blocks of a pressure ridge, I deposited a glass bottle containing a diagonal strip of my flag and records of which the following is a copy:

90 N. LAT., NORTH POLE, April 6, 1909.

Arrived here to-day, 27 marches from C. Columbia.

I have with me 5 men, Matthew Henson, colored, Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ooqueah, Eskimos; 5 sledges and 38 dogs. My ship, the S. S. Roosevelt, is in winter quarters at C. Sheridan, 90 miles east of Columbia.

The expedition under my command which has succeeded in reaching the Pole is under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club of New York City, and has been fitted out and sent north by the members and friends of the club for the purpose of securing this geographical prize, if possible, for the honor and prestige of the United States of America.

The officers of the club are Thomas H. Hubbard, of New York, President; Zenas Crane, of Mass., Vice-president; Herbert L. Bridgman, of New York, Secretary and Treasurer.

I start back for Cape Columbia to-morrow.

ROBERT E. PEARY, United States Navy.

90 N. LAT., NORTH POLE, April 6, 1909.

I have to-day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of America at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North Polar axis of the earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the President of the United States of America.

I leave this record and United States flag in possession.

ROBERT E. PEARY, United States Navy.

If it were possible for a man to arrive at 90 deg. north latitude without being utterly exhausted, body and brain, he would doubtless enjoy a series of unique sensations and reflections. But the attainment of the Pole was the culmination of days and weeks of forced marches, physical discomfort, insufficient sleep, and racking anxiety. It is a wise provision of nature that the human consciousness can grasp only such degree of intense feeling as the brain can endure, and the grim guardians of earth's remotest spot will accept no man as guest until he has been tried and tested by the severest ordeal.



Perhaps it ought not to have been so, but when I knew for a certainty that we had reached the goal, there was not a thing in the world I wanted but sleep. But after I had a few hours of it, there succeeded a condition of mental exaltation which made further rest impossible. For more than a score of years that point on the earth's surface had been the object of my every effort. To its attainment my whole being, physical, mental, and moral, had been dedicated. Many times my own life and the lives of those with me had been risked. My own material and forces and those of my friends had been devoted to this object. This journey was my eighth into the arctic wilderness. In that wilderness I had spent nearly twelve years out of the twenty-three between my thirtieth and my fifty-third year, and the intervening time spent in civilized communities during that period had been mainly occupied with preparations for returning to the wilderness. The determination to reach the Pole had become so much a part of my being that, strange as it may seem, I long ago ceased to think of myself save as an instrument for the attainment of that end. To the layman this may seem strange, but an inventor can understand it, or an artist, or anyone who has devoted himself for years upon years to the service of an idea.



From Top of Pressure Ridge Back of Igloos at Camp Jesup

But though my mind was busy at intervals during those thirty hours spent at the Pole with the exhilarating thought that my dream had come true, there was one recollection of other times that, now and then, intruded itself with startling distinctness. It was the recollection of a day three years before, April 21, 1906, when after making a fight with ice, open water, and storms, the expedition which I commanded had been forced to turn back from 87 deg. 6' north latitude because our supply of food would carry us no further. And the contrast between the terrible depression of that day and the exaltation of the present moment was not the least pleasant feature of our brief stay at the Pole. During the dark moments of that return journey in 1906, I had told myself that I was only one in a long list of arctic explorers, dating back through the centuries, all the way from Henry Hudson to the Duke of the Abruzzi, and including Franklin, Kane, and Melville—a long list of valiant men who had striven and failed. I told myself that I had only succeeded, at the price of the best years of my life, in adding a few links to the chain that led from the parallels of civilization towards the polar center, but that, after all, at the end the only word I had to write was failure.



(The Four Directions from the Pole)

But now, while quartering the ice in various directions from our camp, I tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my country at the goal of the world's desire. It is not easy to write about such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with the last of the great adventure stories—a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story which was to be told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, the flag that during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of home and everything I loved—and might never see again.



The thirty hours at the Pole, what with my marchings and countermarchings, together with the observations and records, were pretty well crowded. I found time, however, to write to Mrs. Peary on a United States postal card which I had found on the ship during the winter. It had been my custom at various important stages of the journey northward to write such a note in order that, if anything serious happened to me, these brief communications might ultimately reach her at the hands of survivors. This was the card, which later reached Mrs. Peary at Sydney:—

"90 NORTH LATITUDE, April 7th.

"My dear Jo,

"I have won out at last. Have been here a day. I start for home and you in an hour. Love to the "kidsies."

"BERT."

In the afternoon of the 7th, after flying our flags and taking our photographs, we went into our igloos and tried to sleep a little, before starting south again.

I could not sleep and my two Eskimos, Seegloo and Egingwah, who occupied the igloo with me, seemed equally restless. They turned from side to side, and when they were quiet I could tell from their uneven breathing that they were not asleep. Though they had not been specially excited the day before when I told them that we had reached the goal, yet they also seemed to be under the same exhilarating influence which made sleep impossible for me.

Finally I rose, and telling my men and the three men in the other igloo, who were equally wakeful, that we would try to make our last camp, some thirty miles to the south, before we slept, I gave orders to hitch up the dogs and be off. It seemed unwise to waste such perfect traveling weather in tossing about on the sleeping platforms of our igloos.

Neither Henson nor the Eskimos required any urging to take to the trail again. They were naturally anxious to get back to the land as soon as possible—now that our work was done. And about four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of April we turned our backs upon the camp at the North Pole.

Though intensely conscious of what I was leaving, I did not wait for any lingering farewell of my life's goal. The event of human beings standing at the hitherto inaccessible summit of the earth was accomplished, and my work now lay to the south, where four hundred and thirteen nautical miles of ice-floes and possibly open leads still lay between us and the north coast of Grant Land. One backward glance I gave—then turned my face toward the south and toward the future.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The instruments used in taking observations for latitude may be either a sextant and an artificial horizon, or a small theodolite. Both these instruments were taken on the sledge journey; but the theodolite was not used, owing to the low altitude of the sun. Had the expedition been delayed on the return until May or June, the theodolite would then have been of value in determining position and variation of the compass.

The method of taking meridian observations with a sextant and an artificial horizon on a polar sledge journey is as follows: if there is any wind, a semi-circular wind-guard of snow blocks, two tiers high, is put up, opening to the south. If there is no wind, this is not necessary.

The instrument box is firmly bedded in the snow, which is packed down to a firm bearing and snow is packed around the box. Then something, usually a skin, is thrown over the snow, partly to prevent any possible warmth from the sun melting the snow and shifting the bearing of the box; partly to protect the eyes of the observer from the intense reflected glare of light from the snow.

The mercury trough of the artificial horizon is placed on top of the level box, and the mercury, which has been thoroughly warmed in the igloo, is poured into the trough until it is full. In the case of the special wooden trough devised and used on the last expedition, it was possible to bring the surface of the mercury level with the edges of the trough, thus enabling us to read angles very close to the horizon.

The mercury trough is covered with what is called the roof—a metal framework carrying two pieces of very accurately ground glass, set inclined, like the opposite sides of the roof of a house. The object of this roof is to prevent any slightest breath of wind disturbing the surface of the mercury and so distorting the sun's image in it, and also to keep out any fine snow or frost crystals that may be in the atmosphere. In placing the trough and the roof on the top of the instrument box, the trough is placed so that its longer diameter will be directed toward the sun.

A skin is then thrown down on the snow close to the box and north of it, and the observer lies down flat on his stomach on this, with his head to the south, and head and sextant close to the artificial horizon. He rests both elbows on the snow, holding the sextant firmly in both hands, and moving his head and the instrument until the image or part of the image of the sun is seen reflected on the surface of the mercury.

The principle on which the latitude of the observer is obtained from the altitude of the sun at noon is very simple. It is this: that the latitude of the observer is equal to the distance of the center of the sun from the zenith, plus the declination of the sun for that day and hour.

The declination of the sun for any place at any hour may be obtained from tables prepared for that purpose, which give the declination for noon of every day on the Greenwich meridian, and the hourly change in the declination.

Such tables for the months of February, March, April, May, June, and July, together with the ordinary tables for refraction to minus 10 deg. Fahrenheit, I had with me on pages torn from the "Nautical Almanac and Navigator."

[2] Ignorance and misconception of all polar matters seem so widespread and comprehensive that it appears advisable to introduce here a few a b c paragraphs. Anyone interested can supplement these by reading the introductory parts of any good elementary school geography or astronomy.

The North Pole (that is, the geographical pole as distinguished from the magnetic pole, and this appears to be the first and most general stumbling block of the ignorant) is simply the point where that imaginary line known as the earth's axis—that is, the line on which the earth revolves in its daily motion—intersects the earth's surface.

Some of the recent sober discussions as to the size of the North Pole, whether it was as big as a quarter, or a hat, or a township, have been intensely ludicrous.

Precisely speaking, the North Pole is simply a mathematical point, and therefore, in accordance with the mathematical definition of a point, it has neither length, breadth, nor thickness.

If the question is asked, how closely can the Pole be determined (this is the point which has muddled some of the ignorant wiseacres), the answer will be: That depends upon the character of the instruments used, the ability of the observer using them, and the number of observations taken.

If there were land at the Pole, and powerful instruments of great precision, such as are used in the world's great observatories, were mounted there on suitable foundations and used by practised observers for repeated observations extending over years, then it would be possible to determine the position of the Pole with great precision.

With ordinary field instruments, transit, theodolite, or sextant, an extended series of observations by an expert observer should permit the determination of the Pole within entirely satisfactory limits, but not with the same precision as by the first method.

A single observation at sea with sextant and the natural horizon, as usually taken by the master of a ship, is assumed under ordinary satisfactory conditions to give the observer's position within about a mile.

In regard to the difficulties of taking observations in the arctic regions, I have found a tendency on the part of experts who, however, have not had practical experience in the arctic regions themselves, to overestimate and exaggerate the difficulties and drawbacks of making these observations due to the cold.

My personal experience has been that, to an experienced observer, dressed in furs and taking observations in calm weather, in temperatures not exceeding say 40 deg. below zero Fahrenheit, the difficulties of the work resulting from cold alone are not serious. The amount and character of errors due to the effect of cold upon the instrument might perhaps be a subject for discussion, and for distinct differences of opinion.

My personal experience has been that my most serious trouble was with the eyes.

To eyes which have been subjected to brilliant and unremitting daylight for days and weeks, and to the strain of continually setting a course with the compass, and traveling towards a fixed point in such light, the taking of a series of observations is usually a nightmare; and the strain of focusing, of getting precise contact of the sun's images, and of reading the vernier, all in the blinding light of which only those who have taken observations in bright sunlight on an unbroken snow expanse in the arctic regions can form any conception, usually leaves the eyes bloodshot and smarting for hours afterwards.

The continued series of observations in the vicinity of the Pole, noted above, left me with eyes that were, for two or three days, useless for anything requiring careful vision, and had it been necessary for me to set a course during the first two or three days of our return I should have found it extremely trying.

Snow goggles, as worn by us continually during the march, while helping, do not entirely relieve the eyes from strain, and during a series of observations the eyes become extremely tired and at times uncertain.

Various authorities will give different estimates of the probable error in observations taken at the Pole. I am personally inclined to think that an allowance of five miles is an equitable one.

No one, except those entirely ignorant of such matters, has imagined for a moment that I was able to determine with my instruments the precise position of the Pole, but after having determined its position approximately, then setting an arbitrary allowance of about ten miles for possible errors of the instruments and myself as observer, and then crossing and recrossing that ten mile area in various directions, no one except the most ignorant will have any doubt but what, at some time, I had passed close to the precise point, and had, perhaps, actually passed over it.



CHAPTER XXXIII

GOOD-BY TO THE POLE

We turned our backs upon the Pole at about four o'clock of the afternoon of April 7. Some effort has been made to give an adequate impression of the joy with which that remote spot had been reached, but however much pleasure we experienced upon reaching it, I left it with only that tinge of sadness that sometimes flashes over one at the thought, "This scene my eyes will never see again."

Our pleasure at being once more upon the homeward trail was somewhat lessened by a distinct feeling of anxiety with regard to the task that still lay before us. All the plans for the expedition were formulated quite as much with an eye toward a safe return from the Pole as toward the task of reaching it. The North Pole expedition has some relation to the problem of flying: a good many people have found that, while it was not so very difficult to fly, the difficulties of alighting in safety were more considerable.

It will be remembered, doubtless, that the greatest dangers of the expedition of 1905-06 were encountered not upon the upward journey, but in the course of our return from our farthest north over the polar ice, for it was then that we encountered the implacable "Big Lead," whose perils so nearly encompassed the destruction of the entire party. And it will be further remembered that even after the "Big Lead" was safely crossed and we had barely managed to stagger ashore upon the inhospitable edge of northernmost Greenland we escaped starvation only by the narrowest possible margin.



Memories of this narrow escape were, therefore, in the minds of every member of our little party as we turned our backs upon the North Pole, and I dare say that every one of us wondered whether a similar experience were in store for us. We had found the Pole. Should we return to tell the story? Before we hit the trail I had a brief talk with the men of the party and made them understand that it was essential that we should reach the land before the next spring tides. To this end every nerve must be strained. From now on it was to be a case of "big travel," little sleep, and hustle every minute. My plan was to try to make double marches on the entire return journey; that is to say, to start out, cover one northward march, make tea and eat luncheon, then cover another march, then sleep a few hours, and push on again. As a matter of fact, we did not fall much short of accomplishing this program. To be accurate, day in and day out we covered five northward marches in three return marches. Every day we gained on the return lessened the chances of the trail being destroyed by high winds shifting the ice. There was one region just above the 87th parallel, a region about fifty-seven miles wide, which gave me a great deal of concern until we had passed it. Twelve hours of strong wind blowing from any quarter excepting the north would have turned that region into an open sea. I breathed a sigh of relief when we left the 87th parallel behind.



It will be recalled, perhaps, that though the expedition of 1905-06 started for the Pole from the northern shore of Grant Land, just as did this last expedition, the former expedition returned by a different route, reaching land again on the Greenland coast. This result was caused by the fact that strong winds carried the ice upon which we traveled far to the eastward of our upward course. This time, however, we met with no such misfortune. For the most part we found the trail renewed by our supporting parties easily recognizable and in most cases in good condition. Moreover there was an abundance of food both for men and for dogs, and so far as equipment went we were stripped as if for racing. Nor must the stimulating effects of the party's high spirits be forgotten. Everything, in short, was in our favor. We crowded on all speed for the first five miles of our return journey. Then we came to a narrow crack which was filled with recent ice, which furnished a chance to try for a sounding, a thing that had not been feasible at the Pole itself on account of the thickness of the ice. Here, however, we were able to chop through the ice until we struck water. Our sounding apparatus gave us 1500 fathoms of water with no bottom. As the Eskimos were reeling in, the wire parted and both the lead and wire went to the bottom. With the loss of the lead and wire, the reel became useless, and was thrown away, lightening Ooqueah's sledge by eighteen pounds. The first camp, at 89 deg. 25', was reached in good time, and the march would have been a pleasant one for me but for my eyes burning from the strain of the continued observations of the previous hours.

After a few hours' sleep we hurried on again, Eskimos and dogs on the qui vive.

At this camp I began the system followed throughout the return march, of feeding the dogs according to the distance covered; that is, double rationing them when we covered two marches. I was able to do this, on account of the reserve supply of food which I had in my dogs themselves, in the event of our being seriously delayed by open leads.

At the next camp we made tea and ate our lunch in the igloos, rested the dogs, and then pushed on again. The weather was fine, though there were apparently indications of a coming change. It took all of our will power to reach the next igloos, but we did it, and were asleep almost before we had finished our supper. Without these igloos to look forward to and work for, we should not have made this march.

Friday, April 9, was a wild day. All day long the wind blew strong from the north-northeast, increasing finally to a gale, while the thermometer hung between 18 deg. and 22 deg. below zero. All the leads that we had passed here on the upward journey were greatly widened and new ones had been formed. We struck one just north of the 88th parallel which was at least a mile wide, but fortunately it was all covered with practicable young ice. It was not a reassuring day. For the last half of this march the ice was raftering all about us and beneath our very feet under the pressure of the howling gale. Fortunately we were traveling nearly before the wind, for it would have been impossible to move and follow a trail with the gale in our faces. As it was, the dogs scudded along before the wind much of the time on the gallop. Under the impact of the storm the ice was evidently crushing southward and bearing us with it. I was strongly reminded of the wild gale in which we regained "storm camp" on our return march in 1906. Luckily there was no lateral movement of the ice, or we should have had serious trouble. When we camped that night, at 87 deg. 47', I wrote in my diary: "From here to the Pole and back has been a glorious sprint with a savage finish. Its results are due to hard work, little sleep, much experience, first class equipment, and good fortune as regards weather and open water."



During the night the gale moderated and gradually died away, leaving the air very thick. All hands found the light extremely trying to the eyes. It was almost impossible for us to see the trail. Though the temperature was only 10 deg. below zero, we covered only Bartlett's last march that day. We did not attempt to do more because the dogs were feeling the effects of the recent high speed and it was desired to have them in the best possible condition for the next day, when I expected some trouble with the young ice we were sure to meet. At this spot certain eliminations which we were compelled to make among the dogs left us a total of thirty-five.



Sunday, April 11, proved a brilliant day, the sun breaking through the clouds soon after we left camp. The air was nearly calm, the sun seemed almost hot, and its glare was intense. If it had not been for our smoked goggles we should have suffered from snow-blindness. Despite the expectation of trouble with which we began this march, we were agreeably disappointed. On the upward journey, all this region had been covered with young ice, and we thought it reasonable to expect open water here, or at the best that the trail would have been obliterated; but there had not been enough movement of the ice to break the trail. So far there had been no lateral—east and west—movement of the ice. This was the great, fortunate, natural feature of the home trip, and the principal reason why we had so little trouble. We stopped for lunch at the "lead" igloos, and as we finished our meal the ice opened behind us. We had crossed just in time. Here we noticed some fox tracks that had just been made. The animal was probably disturbed by our approach. These are the most northerly animal tracks ever seen.

Inspirited by our good fortune, we pressed on again, completing two marches, and when we camped were very near the 87th parallel. The entry that I made in my diary that night is perhaps worth quoting: "Hope to reach the Marvin return igloo to-morrow. I shall be glad when we get there onto the big ice again. This region here was open water as late as February and early March and is now covered with young ice which is extremely unreliable as a means of return. A few hours of a brisk wind, east, west, or south, would make this entire region open water for from fifty to sixty miles north and south and an unknown extent east and west. Only calm weather or a northerly wind keeps it practicable."

A double march brought us to Camp Abruzzi, 86 deg. 38', named in honor of the farthest north of the Duke of the Abruzzi. The trail was faulted in several places, but we picked it up each time without much difficulty. The following day was a bitterly disagreeable one. On this march we had in our faces a fresh southwest wind that, ever and again, spat snow that stung like needles and searched every opening in our clothing. But we were so delighted that we were across the young ice that these things seemed like trifles. The end of this march was at "Camp Nansen," named in honor of Nansen's "Farthest North."

This return journey was apparently destined to be full of contrasts, for the next day was one of brilliant sunlight and perfect calm. Despite the good weather the dogs seemed almost lifeless. It was impossible to get them to move faster than a walk, light though the loads were. Henson and the Eskimos also appeared to be a bit stale, so that it seemed wise to make a single march here instead of the usual double march.

After a good sleep we started to put in another double march and then we began to feel the effects of the wind. Even before we broke camp the ice began to crack and groan all about the igloo. Close by the camp a lead opened as we set out, and in order to get across it we were obliged to use an ice-cake ferry.



Between there and the next camp, at 85 deg. 48', we found three igloos where Marvin and Bartlett had been delayed by wide leads, now frozen over. My Eskimos identified these igloos by recognizing in their construction the handiwork of men in the parties of Bartlett and Marvin. The Eskimos can nearly always tell who built an igloo. Though they are all constructed on one general principle, there are always peculiarities of individual workmanship which are readily recognized by these experienced children of the North.

During the first march of the day we found the trail badly faulted, the ice breaking up in all directions under the pressure of the wind, and some of the way we were on the run, the dogs jumping from one piece of ice to another. During the second march we saw a recent bear track, probably made by the same animal whose track we had seen on the upward journey. All along here were numerous cracks and narrow leads, but we were able to cross them without any great delay. There was one lead a mile wide which had formed since the upward trip, and the young ice over it was now breaking up.



Perhaps we took chances here, perhaps not. One thing was in our favor: our sledges were much lighter than on the upward journey, and we could now "rush" them across thin ice that would not have held them a moment then. In any event we got no thrill or irregularity of the pulse from the incident. It came as a matter of course, a part of the day's work.

As we left the camp where we had stopped for lunch, a dense, black, threatening bank of clouds came up from the south and we looked for a gale, but the wind fell and we arrived at the next camp, where Marvin had made a 700-fathom sounding and lost wire and pickaxes, in calm and brilliant sunlight after a march of eighteen hours. We were now approximately one hundred and forty-six miles from land.

We were coming down the North Pole hill in fine shape now and another double march, April 16-17, brought us to our eleventh upward camp at 85 deg. 8', one hundred and twenty-one miles from Cape Columbia. On this march we crossed seven leads, which, with the repeated faulting of the trail, lengthened our march once more to eighteen hours. Sunday, April 18, found us still hurrying along over the trail made by Marvin and Bartlett. They had lost the main trail, but this made little difference to us except as to time. We were able to make longer marches when on the main trail because there we camped in the igloos already built on the upward journey instead of having to build fresh ones for ourselves. This was another eighteen-hour march. It had a calm and warm beginning, but, so far as I was concerned, an extremely uncomfortable finish. During the day my clothes had become damp with perspiration. Moreover, as our long marches and short sleeps had brought us round to the calendar day, we were facing the sun, and this, with the southwest wind, burned my face so badly that it was little short of agonizing. But I consoled myself with the reflection that we were now less than a hundred miles from land. I tried to forget my stinging flesh in looking at the land clouds which we could see from this camp. There is no mistaking these clouds, which are permanent and formed of the condensation of the moisture from the land in the upper strata of the atmosphere. To-morrow, we knew, we might even be able to see the land itself. Meantime the dogs had again become utterly lifeless. Three of them had played out entirely. Extra rations were fed to them and we made a longer stop in this camp, partly on their account and partly to bring us around again to "night" marching, with the sun at our backs.

During the next march from Sunday to Monday, April 18th to 19th, there was a continuation of the fine weather and we were still coming along on my proposed schedule. Our longer sleep of the night before had heartened both ourselves and the dogs, and with renewed energy we took to the trail again about one o'clock in the afternoon. At a quarter past two we passed Bartlett's igloo on the north side of an enormous lead which had formed since we went up. We were a little over two hours crossing this lead.

It was not until eleven that night when we again picked up the main trail, in Henson's first pioneer march. When, traveling well in advance of the sledges I picked it up and signaled to my men that I had found it, they nearly went crazy with delight. The region over which we had just come had been an open sea at the last full moon, and a brisk wind from any direction excepting the north would make it the same again; or the raftering from a north wind would make it a ragged surface of broken plate glass.

It may seem strange to the reader that in this monotonous waste of ice we could distinguish between the various sections of our upward marches and recognize them on return. But, as I have said, my Eskimos know who built or even who has occupied an igloo, with the same instinct by which migratory birds recognize their old nests of the preceding year; and I have traveled these arctic wastes so long and lived so long with these instinctive children of Nature that my sense of location is almost as keen as their own.

At midnight we came upon pieces of a sledge which Egingwah had abandoned on the way up, and at three o'clock in the morning of the 19th we reached the MacMillan-Goodsell return igloos. We had covered Henson's three pioneer marches in fifteen and one-half hours of travel.



Another dog played out that day and was shot, leaving me with thirty. At the end of this march we could see the mountains of Grant Land in the far distance to the south, and the sight thrilled us. It was like a vision of the shores of the home land to sea-worn mariners.

Again, the next day, we made a double march. Starting late in the afternoon we reached the sixth outward camp, "boiled the kettle," and had a light lunch; then plunged on again until early in the morning of the 20th, when we reached the fifth outward camp.

So far we had seemed to bear a charm which protected us from all difficulties and dangers. While Bartlett and Marvin and, as I found out later, Borup had been delayed by open leads, at no single lead had we been delayed more than a couple of hours. Sometimes the ice had been firm enough to carry us across; sometimes we had made a short detour; sometimes we halted for the lead to close; sometimes we used an ice-cake as an improvised ferry: but whatever the mode of our crossing, we had crossed without serious difficulty.



It had seemed as if the guardian genius of the polar waste, having at last been vanquished by man, had accepted defeat and withdrawn from the contest.

Now, however, we were getting within the baleful sphere of influence of the "Big Lead," and in the fifth igloos from Columbia (the first ones north of the lead) I passed an intensely uncomfortable night, suffering from a variety of disagreeable symptoms which I diagnosed as those of quinsy. On this march we had brought the land up very rapidly so that I had some consolation for my discomfort. In three or four days at the most, barring accident, our feet would again press land. Despite my aching throat and no sleep, I took much comfort from this welcome thought.



CHAPTER XXXIV

BACK TO LAND AGAIN

We had now reached the neighborhood of the "Big Lead" which had held us in check so many days on the upward journey and which had nearly cost the lives of my entire party in 1906. I anticipated trouble, therefore, in the march of April 20-21, and I was not disappointed. Although the "Big Lead" was frozen over we found that Bartlett on his return had lost the main trail here and did not find it again. For the rest of the ice journey, therefore, we were compelled to follow the single trail made by Bartlett instead of our well beaten outward trail. I could not complain. We had kept the beaten road back to within some fifty miles of the land.

For me this was the most uncomfortable march of the entire trip. It was made following a sleepless night in a cold igloo. For all that my clothes were wet with perspiration, my jaw and head throbbed and burned incessantly, though toward the end of the march I began to feel the effects of the quinine I had taken, and not long after we reached the captain's igloo the worst of the symptoms had departed. But it was hard drilling that day, and our troubles were in no way lessened by the fact that the dogs seemed utterly without energy or spirit.

The beautiful weather which had accompanied us for several days still continued on the next day. It was really a surprising stretch of splendid weather. We marched six hours, then stopped for luncheon, and then drilled along for six hours more. Repeatedly we passed fresh tracks of bear and hare, together with numerous fox tracks. Save for these, the march was uneventful, with the exception of two narrow leads which we crossed over thin young ice. All that day the sun was hot and blinding to an almost intolerable degree. It would have been practically impossible to travel with the sun in our faces, so fierce were its rays. Yet all this day the temperature ranged between 18 deg. and 30 deg. below zero.

The last day's journey before we reached shore began at 5 P.M. in that same brilliant, clear, calm weather. A short distance from camp we encountered an impracticable lead which the captain's trail crossed. In one fruitless attempt to pass it we got one of our teams in the water. Ultimately the lead swung to the east, and we found the captain's trail, took it up, and worked around the end of the lead.



Only a short distance further on we got our first glimpse of the edge of the glacial fringe ahead of us and stopped our march long enough to take some photographs. Before midnight that night the whole party had reached the glacial fringe of Grant Land. We had now left the ice of the polar sea and were practically on terra firma. When the last sledge came to the almost vertical edge of the glacier's fringe I thought my Eskimos had gone crazy. They yelled and called and danced until they fell from utter exhaustion. As Ootah sank down on his sledge he remarked in Eskimo: "The devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we should never have come back so easily." We stopped long enough for a leisurely luncheon with tea ad libitum and then pressed on until Cape Columbia was reached.



It was almost exactly six o'clock on the morning of April 23 when we reached the igloo of "Crane City" at Cape Columbia and the work was done. Here I wrote these words in my diary:

"My life work is accomplished. The thing which it was intended from the beginning that I should do, the thing which I believed could be done, and that I could do, I have done. I have got the North Pole out of my system after twenty-three years of effort, hard work, disappointments, hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks. I have won the last great geographical prize, the North Pole, for the credit of the United States. This work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes by the civilized nations of the world, and it has been accomplished in a way that is thoroughly American. I am content."



Our return from the Pole was accomplished in sixteen marches, and the entire journey from land to the Pole and back again occupied fifty-three days, or forty-three marches. It had been, as a result of our experience and perfected clothing and equipment, an amazingly comfortable return as compared with previous ones, but a little difference in the weather would have given us a different story to tell. There was no one in our party who was not delighted to have passed the treacherous lead and those wide expanses of young thin ice where a gale would have put an open sea between us and the land and rendered our safe return hazardous, to say the least.

In all probability no member of that little party will ever forget our sleep at Cape Columbia. We slept gloriously for practically two days, our brief waking intervals being occupied exclusively with eating and with drying our clothes.

Then for the ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, had not been hungry when we arrived, but simply lifeless with fatigue. They were different animals now, and the better ones among them stepped out with tightly curled tails and uplifted heads, their iron legs treading the snow with piston-like regularity and their black muzzles every now and then sniffing the welcome scent of the land.



(The Portraits at the Left Were Made by Flashlight on the Roosevelt Before the Journey. Those on the Right Were Taken Immediately After the Return)

We reached Cape Hecla in one march of forty-five miles and the Roosevelt in another of equal length. My heart thrilled as, rounding the point of the cape, I saw the little black ship lying there in its icy berth with sturdy nose pointing straight to the Pole.

And I thought of that other time three years before when, dragging our gaunt bodies round Cape Rawson on our way from the Greenland coast, I thought the Roosevelt's slender spars piercing the brilliant arctic sunlight as fair a sight as ever I had seen. As we approached the ship I saw Bartlett going over the rail. He came out along the ice-foot to meet me, and something in his face told me he had bad news even before he spoke.

"Have you heard about poor Marvin?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

Then he told me that Marvin had been drowned at the "Big Lead," coming back to Cape Columbia. The news staggered me, killing all the joy I had felt at the sight of the ship and her captain. It was indeed a bitter flavor in the cup of our success. It was hard to realize at first that the man who had worked at my side through so many weary months under conditions of peril and privation, to whose efforts and example so much of the success of the expedition had been due, would never stand beside me again. The manner of his death even will never be precisely known. No human eye was upon him when he broke through the treacherous young ice that had but recently closed over a streak of open water. He was the only white man in the supporting party of which he was in command and with which he was returning to the land at the time he met his death. As was customary, on breaking camp he had gone out ahead of the Eskimos, leaving the natives to break camp, harness the dogs, and follow. When he came to the "Big Lead," the recent ice of which was safe and secure at the edges, it is probable that, hurrying on, he did not notice the gradual thinning of the ice toward the center of the lead until it was too late and he was in the water. The Eskimos were too far in the rear to hear his calls for help, and in that ice-cold water the end must have come very quickly. He who had never shrunk from loneliness in the performance of his duty had at last met death alone.

Coming along over the trail in his footsteps, the Eskimos of his party came to the spot where the broken ice gave them the first hint of the accident. One of the Eskimos said that the back of Marvin's fur jacket was still visible at the top of the water, while the condition of the ice at the edge seemed to indicate that Marvin had made repeated efforts to drag himself from the water, but that the ice was so thin that it had crumbled and broken beneath his weight, plunging him again into the icy water. He must have been dead some time before the Eskimos came up. It was, of course, impossible for them to rescue the body, since there was no way of their getting near it. Of course they knew what had happened to Marvin; but with childish superstition peculiar to their race they camped there for a while on the possibility that he might come back. But after a time, when he did not come back, Kudlooktoo and "Harrigan" became frightened. They realized that Marvin was really drowned and they were in dread of his spirit. So they threw from the sledge everything they could find belonging to him, that the spirit, if it came back that way, might find these personal belongings and not pursue the men. Then they hurried for the land as fast as they could go.

Quiet in manner, wiry in build, clear of eye, with an atmosphere of earnestness about him, Ross G. Marvin had been an invaluable member of the expedition. Through the long hot weeks preceding the sailing of the Roosevelt, he worked indefatigably looking after the assembling and delivery of the countless essential items of our outfit, until he, Bartlett, and myself were nearly exhausted. On the northern voyage he was always willing and ready, whether for taking an observation on deck or stowing cargo in the hold. When the Eskimos came aboard, his good humor, his quiet directness, and his physical competence gained him at once their friendship and respect. From the very first he was able to manage these odd people with uncommon success.

Later, when face to face with the stern problems of life and work in the arctic regions, he met them quietly, uncomplainingly, and with a steady, level persistence that could have but one result, and I soon came to know Ross Marvin as a man who would accomplish the task assigned to him, whatever it might be. The tidal and meteorological observations of the expedition were his particular charge, while, during the long dark winter night, his mathematical training enabled him to be of great assistance in working out problems of march formation, transportation and supplies, and arrangements of the supporting parties. In the spring sledge campaign of 1906 he commanded a separate division. When the great storm swept the polar sea and scattered my parties hopelessly in a chaos of shattered ice, Marvin's division, like my own farther north, was driven eastward and came down upon the Greenland coast, whence he brought his men safely back to the ship. From this expedition he returned trained in arctic details and thoroughly conversant with the underlying principles of all successful work in northern regions, so that when he went north with us in 1908, he went as a veteran who could absolutely be depended upon in an emergency.



The bones of Ross G. Marvin lie farther north than those of any other human being. On the northern shore of Grant Land we erected a cairn of stones, and upon its summit we placed a rude tablet inscribed: "In Memory of Ross G. Marvin of Cornell University, Aged 34. Drowned April 10, 1909, forty-five miles north of C. Columbia, returning from 86 deg. 38' N. Lat." This cenotaph looks from that bleak shore northward toward the spot where Marvin met his death. His name heads that glorious roll-call of arctic heroes among whom are Willoughby, Franklin, Sontag, Hall, Lockwood, and others who died in the field, and it must be some consolation to those who grieve for him that his name is inseparably connected with the winning of that last great trophy for which, through nearly four centuries, men of every civilized nation have suffered and struggled and died.

The Eskimos of whom Marvin was in command at the time he lost his life fortunately overlooked, in throwing Marvin's things upon the ice, a little canvas packet on the up-standers of the sledge containing a few of his notes, among them what is probably the last thing he ever wrote. It is so typical of the man's intelligent devotion to his duty that it is here appended as he wrote it. It will be seen that it was written on the very day that I last saw him alive, that day upon which he turned back to the south from his farthest north.

"March 25, 1909. This is to certify that I turned back from this point with the third supporting party, Commander Peary advancing with nine men in the party, seven sledges with the standard loads, and sixty dogs. Men and dogs are in first class condition. The captain, with the fourth and last supporting party, expects to turn back at the end of five more marches. Determined our latitude by observations on March 22, and again to-day, March 25. A copy of the observations and computations is herewith enclosed. Results of observations were as follows: Latitude at noon, March 22, 85 deg. 48' north. Latitude at noon, March 25, 86 deg. 38' north. Distance made good in three marches, fifty minutes of latitude, an average of sixteen and two-thirds nautical miles per march. The weather is fine, going good and improving each day.

"ROSS G. MARVIN, "College of Civil Engineering, Cornell University."

With a sad heart I went to my cabin on the Roosevelt. Notwithstanding the good fortune with which we had accomplished the return, the death of Marvin emphasized the danger to which we had all been subjected, for there was not one of us but had been in the water of a lead at some time during the journey.

Despite the mental depression that resulted from this terrible news about poor Marvin, for twenty-four hours after my return I felt physically as fit as ever and ready to hit the trail again if necessary. But at the end of twenty-four hours the reaction came, and it came with a bump. It was, of course, the inevitable result of complete change of diet and atmosphere, and the substitution of inaction in place of incessant effort. I had no energy or ambition for anything. Scarcely could I stop sleeping long enough to eat, or eating long enough to sleep. My ravenous appetite was not the result of hunger or short rations, for we had all had plenty to eat on the return from the Pole. It was merely because none of the ship's food seemed to have the satisfying effect of pemmican, and I could not seem to hold enough to satisfy my appetite. However, I knew better than to gorge myself and compromised by eating not much at a time, but at frequent intervals.

Oddly enough, this time there was no swelling of the feet or ankles and in three or four days we all began to feel like ourselves. Anyone who looks at the contrasted pictures of the Eskimos, taken before and after the sledge trip, will realize, perhaps, something of the physical strain of a journey to the Pole and back, and will read into the day-by-day narrative of our progress all the details of soul-racking labor and exhaustion which at the time we had been obliged stoically to consider as a part of the day's work, in order to win our goal.

One of the first things done after reaching the ship and bringing our sleep up to date was to reward the Eskimos who had served us so faithfully. They were all fitted out with rifles, shotguns, cartridges, shells, reloading tools, hatchets, knives, and so on, and they behaved like so many children who had just received a boundless supply of toys. Among the things I have given them at various times, none are more important than the telescopes, which enable them to distinguish game in the distance. The four who stood with me at the Pole were to receive whale-boats, tents, and other treasures when I dropped them at their home settlements along the Greenland coast on the southward journey of the Roosevelt.



CHAPTER XXXV

LAST DAYS AT CAPE SHERIDAN

It is not long now to the end of the story. On returning to the Roosevelt I learned that MacMillan and the doctor had reached the ship March 21, Borup on April 11, the Eskimo survivors of Marvin's party April 17, and Bartlett on April 24. MacMillan and Borup had started for the Greenland coast, before my return, to deposit caches for me, in the event that I should be obliged by the drifting of the ice to come back that way, as in 1906. (Borup, on his return to the land, had deposited a cache for me at Cape Fanshawe Martin, on the Grant Land coast, some eighty miles west from Cape Columbia, thus providing for a drift in either direction.)



Borup also, with the aid of the Eskimos, built at Cape Columbia a permanent monument, consisting of a pile of stones formed round the base of a guidepost made of sledge planks, with four arms pointing true north, south, east, and west—the whole supported and guyed by numerous strands of heavy sounding wire. On each arm is a copper plate, with an inscription punched in it. On the eastern arm is, "Cape Morris K. Jesup, May 16, 1900, 275 miles;" on the southern arm is, "Cape Columbia, June 6, 1906;" on the western arm is, "Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, July 1, 1906, 225 miles;" on the northern arm, "North Pole, April 6, 1909, 413 miles." Below these arms, in a frame covered with glass to protect it from the weather, is a record containing the following:

PEARY ARCTIC CLUB NORTH POLE EXPEDITION, 1908

S. S. Roosevelt, June 12th, 1909.

This monument marks the point of departure and return of the sledge expedition of the Peary Arctic Club, which in the spring of 1909 attained the North Pole.

The members of the expedition taking part in the sledge work were Peary, Bartlett, Goodsell, Marvin,[3] MacMillan, Borup, Henson.

The various sledge divisions left here February 28th and March 1st, and returned from March 18th to April 23rd.

The Club's Steamer Roosevelt wintered at C. Sheridan, 73 miles east of here.

R. E. PEARY, U. S. N.

Commander, R. E. Peary, U. S. N., Comdg. Expedition. Captain R. A. Bartlett, Master of Roosevelt. Chief Engr. George A. Wardwell. Surgeon J. W. Goodsell. Prof. Ross G. Marvin, Assistant. Prof. D. B. McMillan, " George Borup, " M. A. Henson, " Charles Percy, Steward. Mate Thomas Gushue. Bosun John Connors. Seaman John Coadey. " John Barnes. " Dennis Murphy. " George Percy. 2nd Engr. Banks Scott. Fireman James Bently. Patrick Joyce. Patrick Skeans. John Wiseman.

On the 18th MacMillan and Borup with five Eskimos and six sledges had departed for the Greenland coast to establish depots of supplies in case my party should be obliged to make its landing there as in 1906, and also to make tidal readings at Cape Morris Jesup. I, therefore, at once started two Eskimos off for Greenland with a sounding apparatus and a letter informing MacMillan and Borup of our final success. It had been the plan to have Bartlett make a line of ten or five mile soundings from Columbia to Camp No. 8 to bring out the cross section of the continental shelf and the deep channel along it, and Bartlett had got his equipment ready for this purpose. However, I decided not to send him for the reason that he was not in the best physical condition, his feet and ankles being considerably swollen, while he was, moreover, afflicted with a number of Job's comforters. My own physical condition, however, remained perfect during the rest of our stay in the north, with the exception of a bad tooth from which I suffered more or less torture during a space of three weeks.