PEARY AT THE POLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 78

PEARY AT THE POLE.

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS GREAT DISCOVERY. By the courtesy of the proprietors of Nash’s Magazine English papers have been enabled to publish an extract from Commander Peary’s story of “The Discovery of The North Pole.” The first instalment of tbs story, “the greatest feature ever offered a magazine,” appears in the February number of Nash’s. There have been times during the last 15 years (writes the. explorer) when I feared that I might never achieve the purpose which had become the dominating •idea of my existence. But on the 6th day of April, 1909, all memory of these moments of depression disappeared in the fierce surge of emotion with which I recognised that at last, at last, I had won the peerless prize, and justified myself to those who have believed in me all these years—those who have helped me not only with , their money but with their unswerving faith and loyalty. Though I ■could not take them with me to the Pole, the thought of them was in iny heart that day. —First Sensations.— If it were .possible for a man to arrive at 90deg north latitude without being utterly exhausted, body and brain, a series of unique sensations and thoughts would no doubt be recorded ; but the attainment of the Pole was the culmination of days and weeks of forced marches, phj-sical discomfort, insufficient sleep, and ■racking anxiety. ■ There is a wise provision of Nature that the human consciousffiesfi can grasp only such degrees of intense feeling as the brain can endure; and the silent guardian of the earth’s remotest place will accept no man as a guest until he has been tried and tested by the severest ordeals. My most impelling desire, when I knew for a certainty that I had reached my goal, was for a little rest; but after two or three hours of absolutely fatigue-im-pelled sleep, a,state of mental exaltation ’ made further rest impossible. For more than a score of years that mathematical point on the earth’s surface had been the object of my every effort. To attain it I had dedicated my whole being, physical, mental, and moral ; had risked my , life a hundred times and the lives of those I who had been glad to take the chances I with me'; had given all my own money | and the money of my friends. That last | journey was rny eighth into, the Arctic, j I had spent in those regions 18 years out of the 23 between my thirtieth and my fifty-third year, and the five years which I had spent in civilisation during that period had been mainly occupied with i preparations for Arctic journeys. . . ." And on April 6,1909, while quartering the locality in every direction and taking my observations, l‘ tried to-realise that after 23 years of struggles and discouragements, some of them too intimate and personal ever to be written down, I had j at last succeeded in placing the flag of my distant country at the goal of the world’s desire. . " . i - —Thirty Hours at the Pole.— i _ We arrived at 90deg north at 10 o’clock ; in the morning of April 6, and we left there about 4 o’clock in the .afternoon of April 7. Only by our watches, of course, ■ could we distinguish the morning from the afternoon, as the, sun at that point swings round and round the heavens at a certain altitude, and it is always da.yI light at that season of the year, i During Those 50 hours at the Pole 1 | made the necessary observations for posij.tion, went some 10 miles beyond my camp | and some eight miles to the right of it, | planted my flags, .deposited my records, j took photographs, studied the horizon | through my telescope for possible land, I and. sought for a. suitable place to make : a sounding. I have a special affection for my little cabin of the Rocsevelt. Its size and the comfort of the bathroom adjoining were the only luxuries which I allowed myself, dhe cabin is plain, of matched, yellow pine painted white. Its conveniences are the evolution of long experience in the Arctic regions. It has a wide built-in bunk, an ordinary writing desk, several book units, a wicker chair, an office chair, J * chest of drawers, these latter being wrrs Peary’s contributions to my comfort' Hanging over the pianola Is a photograph of Mr Jesup, and on the side wall is one of President Roosevelt, autographed. Then there are the flags—the silken one made by Mrs Peary which I have carried for years, the flag of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Alumni Association, the flag of the Navy League l , and the peace flag of the Daughter's of the American Revolution. (There is also a photograph of our home on Eagle Island, and a fragrant made bv my daughter Marie from the pine needles of that island. The pianola., a gift from my friend, H. H. Benedict, had been my pleasant companion on the previous voyage. —Graves of Former Heroes.— Several hundred miles beyond the Arctic Circle we came to a most significant point in our upward journey, marking, as it did, the grimness of the task before ns. No civilised man could die in this north without his grave having a deep meaning for those who come afterwards ; and constantly as we sailed on these voiceless reminders of heroic bones told their silent but powerful story. At the sofithern limit of Melville Bay we passed the Duck Islands, where is the little graveyard of the Scottish .whalers who were the pioneers in forcing the passage of Melville Bay, and who died there waiting for the ice to open. These graves date back to the beginning of the nineteenth centurv. From this point on the Arctic highway is marked by the graves of those who have fallen in the

terrible fight with cold and hunger. These mounds bring home to any thoughtful person the meaning of Arctic exploration. The men who lie there were not less courageous, not lees intelligent, than the members of my own party; they were simply more unfortunate. . . . Passing the Duck Islands on the upward voyage, approaching Cape York in 1908, and thinking of the graves there, I little dreamed that a loved member of my own party, Professor Ross G. Marvin, who ate at my table and acted as my secretary, was fated to add his name to this longlist of Arctic victims, and that his grave, in uncounted fathoms of black water, was to be the most northerly grave of this earth. We reached Cape York on the first day of August. Cape York is the bold bluff headland which marks the southern point of the stretch of Arctic coast inhabitated by my Eskimos, the most notherly' human beings in the world Among' His Own Eskimos.— -It was with a peculiar feeling of satisfaction that I saw the men putting out to meet me in their tiny craft, like black specks on the water; and 1 realised that i was once more in contact w r ith these faithful dwellers of the iSorth, who had been my constant companions lor so many years through all trie varying circumstances and fortunes of my Arctic work, and from whom I was again to select the pick and flower of the hunters of the whole tribe, extending from Cape York to Etah, to assist me in this last determined effort to win the prize. Since 1891 i have been living and working with these people, gaining their absolute confidence, making them my debtors for things which I have given them, earning their gratitude by saving, time after time, the lives of their wives and children by supplying them with food when they were on the verge of starvation. Also 1891 <I have been training them in .my methods; or, to put' it another way, I have, been teaching them how to modify and concentrate their wonderful ice technique and endurance so as to make them useful fo'r my purpose. I have studied their individual characters, as any man studies the human tools with which he expects to accomplish results, until I know just which ones to select for a I quick, courageous dash—just which dogged, unswerving ones" would, if nesessary, walk straight through hell for the object I had placed before them. I know every man, woman, and child in the tribe from Cape York to Etah, and there are' between two hundred and twenty and two hundred and thirty of them now. Prior to 1891 they had never been further north than their own habitat. I went to these people years -. ago, and my first work .was from their country as a base. Much nonsense has been talked by travellers in remote lands about the aborigines regarding white men who come there as gods; but I have never placed muc-h credence in these stories. My own experience has been that the average aborigine is just as content with his own way as we are with ours, just as convinced of his own superior knowledge, and chat he adjusts himself with his own knowledge in regard to things in the same way that we do. The Eskimos _ are not brutes; they are just as human as white people. They know that I am their friend, and they have proved themselves mine. The Natives' Curiosity.— An intense and restless curiosity is one of the peculiar characteristics of these people. As an illustration, one jwinter, years ago, when Mrs Peary was in Greenland with me, an old woman of the tribewalked a hundred miles from her village to our winter quarters in order that she might see a white woman. Arrived at our house, and seeing Mrs Peary, she sat down beside 'the stove and went into hysterics of laughter, as a child -would laugh at the sight of some strange and grotesque animal. We are as great curiosities to them as they are to us. These Eskimos are one of the most important tools in all my programme of Arctic work; I have been able to utilise them as no explorer ever has before. In the light of recent events I have sometimes wondered if the mission of their life on earth/ after having lived for generation after generation isolated 'in that littles Arctic oasis, was not to assist in the discovery of the Pole.