THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

THE NGKTK-WEST PASSAGE. HOW AMUNDSEN SUCCEEDED WHEBE FRANKLIN FAILED. An amazing story of a man's eucce&s in achieving what man had never hitherto done in all time is told by the man who did it in. Captain Roald Amnndsen's book, "The Norfch-west Passage: Being the Record of a. Voyage of Exploration of the Ship Gjoa in the Yeara i 903-1907." (Constable, 2 vols., 31s 6d net.) — What Amundsen Has Done. — "When a> man sails his ship through the North-west Passage and then writes two ample volumes about his voyage one naturally looks for an elaborate, detailed: account of an achievement that for more than three centuries has lured the Arctic explorer to fruitless effort and filled thepages of romance with thrilling adventure," writes the New York Times in a fine review of the book. "Captain Roaldi Amundcen succeeded where his great predl&cessors, fxom Frobisher to Franklin, failed. He took his little herring-boat of 47 tons, the Gjoa, through the intricacies and perils of the Arctic seas from Christiania in Norway to Cape Nome on the Pacific coast of Alaska. Up .to the time he sailed such a trip meant the circumnavigation of both the Americas, the passing from the Arctic to the Antarctic seas and back again. The entire route of the Gjoa, however, is contained within a strip of north latitude no wider than 15 degrees. — Bjornson's Tribute. — "Countless na.vigator& have proclaimed their belief in the feasibility of the Northwest Passage, but it remained for this i Norwegian skipper to prove the reason- I ableness of their faith. He has made the trip, he is home again in his beloved Nor- , way, and .now he has written a great twovolume work. Amundsen's book is described by his great countryman, Bjorn- i stjerne Bjornson, as 'the most entertain' \ ing amoncr the whole of the North Pole ] literature,' and one of the delicious features of the work is that it has scarcely anything about the North-west Passage, j I in it and nothing, at all of self-laudation I on the part of the author for having accomplished something that no navigator before him has been able to accomplish. f 'And yet, with the skill of the true literary artist, the North-west Passage is there, the real hero of the story, behind all the humorous and sometimes >agic adventures with which this excellent narrator entertains his readers. One feels the thrill of it, the eagerness of the explorer, the concentration of purpose of these seven splendid rugged men who formed the crew of the Gjoa, traversing in their heroic enterprise the- very seas that were once familiar to their ancestral vikings. And there is a touch of the I emotional simplicity of the viking when the goal is actually won and the strain that has been suffered in silence for nearly three years is suddenly broken. — A Dramatic Moment. — '"At 8 a.m. my watch was finished, j and I turned, in. When I had been asleep i some time I became conscious of a rushing to and fro c-n deck. Clearly there was something the matter, and I felt a bit annoyed that they should go on like that for the matter of a bear or a seal. It must be something of that kind, surely. But then Lieutenant Hansen came rush- ' ing down into the cabin and called out the ' ever-memorable words: "Vessel in sight, j sir !" He bolted again immediately, and I was alone. "'The North-west Passage had been j accomplished — my dream from childhood. ' This very moment it was fulfilled I had } a peculiar sensation in my throat ; I was somewhat overworked and tired, and I suppose it was weakness on iryr part, but I could feel tears coining to my eves. I "Vessel in sight !" The words were ' magical. My home and thoee dear to .me ' there at once appeared to me as if stretch- i inp: out their hande — "Vessel in sight!"' | I "' I dressed myself in no time. When ready I stopped a moment before Nansen's portrait on the wall. It seemed as if the j picture had come to life, as if he winked , at me, nodding, "Juet what I thought, my , boy!" I nodded back, smiling and happy, ! and went on deck.' — Four Years in Arctic Seas. — '•The fascination of the book lies in just this whole-hearted kind of simplicity, the sort of sincerity that goes with the doing of great deeds. Amundsen's four years' work in the Arctic seas has undoubtedly added a chapter of great importance to the world's geographical knowledge. He has demonstrated the navigability of the North-west Passage, and in ' so doing he has charted a region of land and ice that has hitherto been only i I guessed at by our geographers. Moreover, I)© has re -discovered the magnetic North i Pole — which has. apparently, a rather aggravating way of shifting its position— and has spent four years in making a ' careful record of its varying magnetic i phenomena, the result of which will be | of lasting value in determining some of I those hidden laws of Nature that have hitherto baffled the speculative scientist. I His ' farthest north,' it is true, falls short ' by some lOdieg of the record acliieved by Peary two yeans ago. But his con- j tribution to science is direct and tangible ' . and of a oharacter that should yield welcome fruit to the future navigator of the '■ polar regions. —A New WoTid Revealed. — "Amunsden's book, however, touches but slightly on these pre-eminently e-ub- : etantial results of "his expedition. Its i cha.rmi ließ in the new world that he has - pictured for us. One thinks of the Arctic • Qircle merely as a 'thrilljng Tegion of thick-ribbed ice,' devoid of _ human inle- : rest, devoid of beauty even — except as beauty of an altogether majestic eort ; may be held to be a quality of those vast

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. white spaces, checkered by icy pinnacles, that stretch away. in. limitless desolation 'to the mysterious plains of the Pole itself. But Amunfiden. has peopled these regionsfor us. Without robbing, them of theirsublimity, he" has made them familiar* filled' them with lat^on "of that- primitive yet eternal type <Jf "neroiem that - asks - for nothing- better, than , the chance to do battle with the griramesjti. forces of Xature and maintain through every hardship a contagious spirit of good j nature and joviality. More than any of j his predecessors, he has succeeded in capturing for his nages the natives of -these .- wildtfj the 'Eskimo, and by living rwithi them in a-'daHy intimacy; -that hak >rper-^r per-^ hops, nevep 1 before been, equalled by an explorer from the civilised world, he has | given us a vivid account of their' charac-.. ! ter, i,heir customs, their beliefs, that! I makes of these children. oC tb© snow a positive reality, instinct with, human passion and human variability. —The Eskimos.— "Several of the Eskimo tribes with which lite thus came in contact saw in him j and his six stalwart companions the first j specimens of the white man's civilisation. j That was at Gjoahavn, where the crew of | the Gjoa passed two years in conducting | their 'magnetic observations.' Eskimo | they scarcely expected to find' in this unknown Tegion, and their coming was sud- ' den and unexpected enough : - i " ' One morning, as we were standing j on the forecastle, promoting the digestion I of our breakfast with a chat and, as usual, 1 keeping an eye on the hillside for reindeer, one of us, pointing toward the north, cries: "Here is more sport!" Immediately preparations were made for the I hunt. But Hanson remained standing by my side, and seemed to X>e 6training hiß uncommonly sharp eyes. "Well, Hansen, have you no mind to shoot reindeer today?" "Ah, yes," he said softly, "but not that sort of reindeer over there — they walk on two legs!" Aitex this startling announcement I rushed down to fetch my field-glass, which I brought to bear on the "reindeer" flock, andy quite right, there were five men. " 'Eiskimo !' "The Gjoa came into contact with 10 different tribes of Eskimo during her cruise, through thet North-west Passage, and from a comparison of them Captain Amundsen states it as his conviction that 'those Eskimo who are living absolutely isolated from civilisation of any kind are undoubtedly the "happiest-, healthiest, most honourable, and most contented among them.' From this he concludes that 't is 'the bounden duty of civilised nations who come into contact with the Eiskimo to safeguard them against contaminating influences, and by laws and stringent regulations protect them against tie many perils and evils of so-called civilisation^ And his 'sincerest wish' for the Nechilli Eskimo, whom he discovered, 'is that civilisation may never reach them.' "