AN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2170, 26 September 1895, Page 15

AN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS. St. John's, September 21. Lieutenaht Peary and his companions in the Arctic expedition have returned to Newfoundland, all well. London, September 21. Gruesome accounts have been received of the straits to which Lieutenant Peary and party were put. The party were bo far reduced that they had to eat their dogs, which are said to have been frozen standing. The scientific results of the expedition were fairly successful. September 22. Lieutenant Peary spent the winter in hunting and carryiDg stores to a large Inland icecap in Greenland. He steered northward from Bowdoin in April, and reached Independence Bay, but was unable to find a ton and a-half of provifcionu stored there in 1894 owing to the snow. He was sboit of food and medicines either for an advance or a return, whereupon the Esquimaux deserted. A herd of musk oxen averted starvation, and he was compelled to return. He marched 100 miles per week, and reached 8000 ft above the sea level. The sufferings of the party were awful. Lee early became ill, and was conveyed in a sledge. He subsisted on raw seal flesh, walrus, and reindeer. The strong dogg ate the weaker ones, and members of the expedition killed the remainder. The party then dragged the sledges themselves till compelled to abandon them. Before they reached the rescue steamer Kite they subsisted on coal oil. Lieutenant Peary's negro servant Heneon was faithful to him to the last, The relief expedition secured a quantity of flora and fauna, also two of the finest meteorites in the world.