Frequent turns in our course exposed both sides of the face to the wind and covered with icicles every hair offering a convenient nucleus. These lines of crystal made an amazing dash of light and color as we looked at each other. But they did not afford much amusement to the individual exhibiting them. Such hairs as had not been pulled from the lips and chin were first weighted, and then the wind carried the breath to the long hair with which we protected our heads, and left a mass of dangling frost. Accumulated moisture from the eyes coated the eyelashes and brows. The humidity escaping about the forehead left a crescent of snow above, while that escaping under the chin, combined with falling breath, formed there a semi-circle of ice. The most uncomfortable icicles, however, were those that formed on the coarse hair within the nostrils. To keep the face free, the Eskimos pull the facial hair out by the roots, the result of which is a rarity of mustaches and beards. Thus, with low temperature and persistent winds, life was one of constant torture on the march; but cooped in snowhouses, eating dried beef and tallow, and drinking hot tea, some animal comforts were occasionally to be gained in the icy camps.

We forced the dogs onward during two days of cheery bluster, with encouraging results. At times we ran before the teams, calling and urging the brutes to leaping progress. On the evening of March 26, with a pedometer and other methods of dead reckoning for position, we found ourselves at latitude 84° 24ʹ, longitude 96° 53ʹ.

The western horizon remained persistently dark. A storm was gathering, and slowly moving eastward. Late in the evening we prepared for the anticipated blast. We built an igloo stronger than usual, hoping that the horizon would be cleared with a brisk wind by the morrow and afford us a day of rest. The long, steady marches, without time for recuperation, necessarily dampened our enthusiasm for a brief period of physical depression, which, however, was of short duration.

Daily we had learned to appreciate more and more the joy of the sleeping bag. It was the only animal comfort which afforded a relief to our life of frigid hardship, and often with the thought of it we tried to force upon the weary body in the long marches a pleasing anticipation.

In the evening, after blocks of snow walled a dome in which we could breathe quiet air, the blue-flame lamp sang notes of gastronomic delights. We first indulged in a heaven-given drink of ice-water to quench the intense thirst which comes after hours of exertion and perspiration. Then the process of undressing began, one at a time, for there was not room enough in the igloo for all to undress at once.

The fur-stuffed boots were pulled off and the bearskin pants were stripped. Then half of the body was quickly pushed into the bag. A brick of pemmican was next taken out and the teeth were set to grind on this bone-like substance. Our appetites were always keen, but a half pound of cold withered beef and tallow changes a hungry man's thoughts effectually.

The tea, an hour in making, was always welcome, and we rose on elbows to take it. Under the influence of the warm drink, the fur coat with its mask of ice was removed. Next the shirt, with its ring of ice about the waist, would come off, giving the last sense of shivering. Pushing the body farther into the bag, the hood was pulled over the face, and we were lost to the world of ice.

The warm sense of mental and physical pleasure which follows is an interesting study. The movement of others, the sting of the air, the noise of torturing winds, the blinding rays of a heatless sun, the pains of driving snows and all the bitter elements are absent. One's mind, freed of anxiety and suffering, wanders to home and better times under these peculiar circumstances; there comes a pleasurable sensation in the touch of one's own warm skin, while the companionship of the arms and legs, freed from their cumbersome furs, makes a new discovery in the art of getting next to one's self.

Early on March 27, a half gale was blowing, but at noon the wind ceased. The bright sun and rising temperature were too tempting to let us remain quiescent. Although the west was still dark with threatening clouds we hitched the dogs to the sleds. We braced ourselves. "Huk! Huk!" we called, and bounded away among the wind-swept hummocks. The crevices of the ice wound like writhing snakes as we raced on. We had not gone many miles before the first rush of the storm struck us. Throwing ourselves over the sleds, we waited the passing of the icy blast. No suitable snow with which to begin the erection of a shelter was near. A few miles northward, as we saw, was a promising area for a camp. This we hoped to reach after a few moments' rest. The squall soon spent its force. In the wind which followed good progress was made without suffering severely. The temperature was 41° below zero, Fahrenheit, and the barometer 29.05.

Once in moving order, the drivers required very little encouragement to prolong the effort to a fair day's march despite the weather. As the sun settled in the western gloom the wind increased in fury and forced us to camp. Before the igloo was finished a steady, rasping wind brushed the hummocks and piled the snow in large dunes about us, like the sand of home shores.

The snowhouse was not cemented as usual with water, as was our custom when weather permitted. The tone of the wind did not seem to indicate danger, and furthermore, there was no open sea water near. Because of the need of fuel economy we did not deem it prudent to use oil for fire to melt snow, excepting for water to quench thirst.

Not particularly anxious about the outcome of the storm, and with senses blunted by overwork and benumbed with cold, we sought the comfort of the bags. Awakened in the course of a few hours by drifts of snow about our feet, I noted that the wind had burrowed holes at weak spots through the snow wall. We were bound, however, not to be cheated of a few hours' sleep, and with one eye open we turned over. I was awakened by falling snow blocks soon after.

Forcing my head out of my ice-encased fur hood, I saw the sky, cloud-swept and grey. The dome of the igloo had been swept away. We were being quickly buried under a dangerous weight of snow. In some way I had tossed about sufficiently during sleep to keep on top of the accumulating drift, but my companions were nowhere to be seen. About me for miles the white spaces were vacant. With dread in my heart I uttered a loud call, but there came no response.

A short frenzied search revealed a blowhole in the snow. In response to another call, as from some subterranean place came muffled Eskimo shouts. Tearing and burrowing at the fallen snow blocks I made violent efforts to free them, buried as they were in their bags. But to my dismay the soft snow settled on them tighter with each tussle.

I was surprised, a few moments later, as I was working to keep their breathing place open, to feel them burrowing through the snow. They had entered their bags without undressing. Half clothed in shirt and pants, but with bare feet, they writhed and wriggled through the bags and up through the breathing hole.

After a little digging their boots were uncovered, and then, with protected feet, the bag was freed and placed at the side of the igloo.

Into it the boys crept, fully dressed, with the exception of coats. I rolled out beside them in my bag. We lay in the open sweep of furious wind, impotent to move, for twenty-nine hours. Only then the frigid blast eased enough to enable us to creep out into the open. The air came in hissing spouts, like jets of steam from an engine.

Soon after noon of March 29 the air brightened. It became possible to breathe without being choked with floating crystals, and as the ice about our facial furs was broken, a little blue patch was detected in the west. We now freed the dogs of their snow entanglement and fed them. A shelter was made in which to melt snow and brew tea. We ate a double ration.

Hitching the dogs we raced off. The monotonous fields of snow swept under us. Soon the sun burst through separating clouds and upraised icy spires before us. The wind died away. A crystal glory transfigured the storm-swept fields. We seemed traveling over fields of diamonds, scintillant as white fire, which shimmered dazzlingly about us. It is curious to observe an intense fiery glitter and glow, as in the North, which gives absolutely no impression of warmth. Fire here seems cold. With full stomachs, fair weather and a much needed rest, we moved with renewed inspiration. The dogs ran with tails erect, ears pricked. I and my companions ran behind with the joy of contestants in a race. Indeed, we felt refreshed as one does after a cold bath.

Considerable time and distance, however, were lost in seeking a workable line of travel about obstructions and making detours. Camping at midnight, we had made only nine miles by a day's effort. The conditions under which this second hundred miles were forced, proved to be in every respect the most exciting of the run of five hundred miles over the Polar sea. The mere human satisfaction of overcoming difficulties was a daily incentive to surmount obstacles and meet baffling problems. The weather was unsettled. Sudden storms broke with spasmodic force, the barometer was unsteady and the temperature ranged from 20° below zero to 60° below zero. The ice showed signs of recent agitation.

New leads and recent sheets of new ice combined with deep snow made travel difficult. Persistently onward, pausing at times, we would urge the dogs to the limit. One dog after another went into the stomachs of the hungry survivors. Camps were now swept by storms. The ice opened out under our bodies, shelter was often a mere hole in the snow bank. Each of us carried painful wounds, frost bites; and the ever chronic emptiness of half filled stomachs brought a gastric call for food, impossible to supply. Hard work and strong winds sent unquenched thirst tortures to burning throats, and the gloom of ever clouded skies sent despair to its lowest reaches.

But there was no monotony; our tortures came from different angles, and from so many sources, that we were ever aroused to a fighting spirit. With a push at the sled or a pull at the line we helped the wind-teased dogs to face the nose cutting drift that swept the pack mile after mile. Day after day we plunged farther and farther along into the icy despair and stormy bluster.

Throughout the entire advance northward I found there was some advantage in my Eskimo companions having some slight comprehension of the meaning of my aim. Doubtless through information and ideas that had sifted from explorers to Eskimos for many generations past, the aborigines had come to understand that there is a point at the top of the globe, which is somehow the very top of the world, and that at this summit there is something which white men have long been anxious to find—a something which the Eskimo describe as the "big nail." The feeling that they were setting out with me in the hope of being the first to find this "big nail"—for, of course, I had told them of the possibility—helped to keep up the interest and courage of my two companions during long days of hardship.

Naturally enough, I could not expect their interest in the Pole itself to be great. Their promised reward for accompanying me, a gun and knife for each, maintained a lively interest in them. After a ceaseless warfare lasting seven days, on March 30 the eastern sky broke in lines of cheering blue. Whipped by low winds the clouds broke and scurried.

Soon the western heavens, ever a blank mystery, cleared. Under it, to my surprise, lay a new land. I think I felt a thrill such as Columbus must have felt when the first green vision of America loomed before his eye.

My promise to the good, trusty boys of nearness to land was unwittingly on my part made good, and the delight of eyes opened to the earth's northernmost rocks dispelled all the physical torture of the long run of storms. As well as I could see, the land seemed an interrupted coast extending parallel to the line of march for about fifty miles, far to the west. It was snow covered, ice-sheeted and desolate. But it was real land with all the sense of security solid earth can offer. To us that meant much, for we had been adrift in a moving sea of ice, at the mercy of tormenting winds. Now came, of course, the immediate impelling desire to set foot upon it, but to do so I knew would have side-tracked us from our direct journey to the Polar goal. In any case, delay was jeopardous, and, moreover, our food supply did not permit our taking time to inspect the new land.[13]

This new land was never clearly seen. A low mist, seemingly from open water, hid the shore line. We saw the upper slopes only occasionally from our point of observation. There were two distinct land masses. The most southern cape of the southern mass bore west by south, but still further to the south there were vague indications of land. The most northern cape of the same mass bore west by north. Above it there was a distinct break for 15 or 20 miles, and beyond the northern mass extended above the eighty-fifth parallel to the northwest. The entire coast was at this time placed on our charts as having a shore line along the one hundred and second meridian, approximately parallel to our line of travel. At the time the indications suggested two distinct islands. Nevertheless, we saw so little of the land that we could not determine whether it consisted of islands or of a larger mainland. The lower coast resembled Heiberg Island, with mountains and high valleys. The upper coast I estimated as being about one thousand feet high, flat, and covered with a thin sheet ice. Over the land I write "Bradley Land" in honor of John R. Bradley, whose generous help had made possible the important first stage of the expedition. The discovery of this land gave an electric impetus of driving vigor at just the right moment to counterbalance the effect of the preceding week of storm and trouble.

Although I gazed longingly and curiously at the land, to me the Pole was the pivot of ambition. My boys had not the same northward craze, but I told them to reach the land on our return might be possible. We never saw it again. This new land made a convenient mile-post, for from this time on the days were counted to and from it. A good noon sight fixed the point of observation to 84° 50ʹ, longitude 95° 36ʺ. We had forced beyond the second hundred miles from Svartevoeg. Before us remained about three hundred more miles, to my alluring, mysterious goal.

BEYOND THE RANGE OF LIFE

WITH A NEW SPRING TO WEARY LEGS BRADLEY LAND IS LEFT BEHIND—FEELING THE ACHING VASTNESS OF THE WORLD BEFORE MAN WAS MADE—CURIOUS GRIMACES OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN—SUFFERINGS INCREASE—BY PERSISTENT AND LABORIOUS PROGRESS ANOTHER HUNDRED MILES IS COVERED

XVII

Two Hundred Miles From The Pole

A curtain of mist was drawn over the new land in the afternoon of March 31, and, although we gazed westward longingly, we saw no more of it. Day after day we now pushed onward in desperate northward efforts. Strong winds and fractured, irregular ice, increased our difficulties. Although progress was slow for several days we managed to gain a fair march between storms during each twenty-four hours. During occasional spells of icy stillness mirages spread screens of fantasy out for our entertainment. Curious cliffs, odd-shaped mountains and inverted ice walls were displayed in attractive colors.

Discoveries of new land seemed often made. But with a clearing horizon the deception was detected.

The boys believed most of these signs to be indications of real land—a belief I persistently encouraged, because it relieved them of the panic of the terror of the unknown.

On April 3, the barometer remained steady and the thermometer sank. The weather became settled and fairly clear, the horizon was freed of its smoky vapors, the pack assumed a more permanent aspect of glittering color. At noon there was now a dazzling light, while at night the sun kissed the frozen seas behind screens of mouse-colored cloud and haze. At the same moment the upper skies flushed with the glow of color of the coming double-days of joy.

As we advanced north of Bradley Land the pack disturbance of land-divided and land-jammed ice disappeared. The fields became larger and less troublesome, the weather improved, the temperature ranged from 20° to 50° below zero, the barometer rose and remained steady, the day sky cleared with increasing color, but a low haze blotted out much of the night glory which attended the dip of the nocturnal sun. With dogs barking and rushing before speeding sleds, we made swift progress. But the steady drag and monotony of the never changing work and scene reduced interest in life.

The blankness of the mental desert which moved about us as we ran along was appalling. Nothing changed materially. The horizon moved. Our footing was seemingly a solid stable ice crust, which was, however, constantly shifting eastward. All the world on which we traveled was in motion. We moved, but we took our landscape with us.

At the end of the day's march we were often too tired to build snow houses, and in sheer exhaustion we bivouacked in the lee of hummocks. Here the overworked body called for sleep, but my mind refused to close the eyes. My boys had the advantage of sleep. I envied them. Anyone who has suffered from insomnia may be able in a small degree to gauge my condition when sleep became impossible. To reach the end of my journey became the haunting, ever-present goading thought of my wakeful existence.

As I lay painfully trying to coax slumber, my mind worked like the wheels of a machine. Dizzily the journey behind repeated itself; I again crossed the Big Lead, again floundered in an ice-cold open sea. Dangers of all sorts took form to harass me. Instead of sleep, a delirium of anxiety and longing possessed me.

Beyond the eighty-fourth parallel we had passed the bounds of visible life. Lying wakeful in that barren world, with my companions asleep, I felt what few men of cities, perhaps, ever feel—the tragic isolation of the human soul—a thing which, dwelt upon, must mean madness. I think I realized the aching vastness of the world after creation, before man was made.

For many days we had not seen a suggestion of animated nature. There were no longer animal trails to indicate life; no breath spouts of seal escaped from the frosted bosom of the sea. Not even the microscopic life of the deep was longer detected under us. We were alone—alone in a lifeless world. We had come to this blank space of the earth by slow but progressive stages. Sailing from the bleak land of the fisher folk along the out-posts of civilization, the complex luxury of metropolitan life was lost. Beyond, in the half savage wilderness of Danish Greenland, we partook of a new life of primitive simplicity. Still farther along, in the Ultima Thule of the aborigines, we reverted to a prehistoric plane of living. Advancing beyond the haunts of men, we reached the noonday deadliness of a world without life.

As we pushed beyond into the sterile wastes, with eager eyes we constantly searched the dusky plains of frost, but there was no speck of life to grace the purple run of death.[14]

During these desolate marches, my legs working mechanically, my mind with anguish sought some object upon which to fasten itself. My eyes scrutinized the horizon. I saw, every day, every sleeping hour, hills of ice, vast plains of ice, now a deadly white, now a dull gray, now a misty purple, sometimes shot with gold or gleaming with lakes of ultramarine, moving towards and by me, an ever-changing yet ever-monotonous panorama which wearied me as does the shifting of unchanging scenery seen from a train window. As I paced the weary marches, I fortunately became unconscious of the painful movement of my legs. Although I walked I had a sensation of being lifted involuntarily onward.

The sense of covering distance gave me a dull, pleasurable satisfaction. Only some catastrophe, some sudden and overwhelming obstacle would have aroused me to an intense mental emotion, to a passionate despair, to the anguish of possible defeat.

I was now becoming the unconscious instrument of my ambition; almost without volition my body was being carried forward by a subconscious force which had fastened itself upon a distant goal. Sometimes the wagging of a dog's tail held my attention for long minutes; it afforded a curious play for my morbidly obsessed imagination. In an hour I would forget what I had been thinking. To-day I cannot remember the vague, fanciful illusions about curiously insignificant things which occupied my faculties in this dead world. The sun, however, did relieve the monotony, and created in the death-chilled world skies filled with elysian flowers and mirages of beauty undreamed of by Aladdin.

My senses at the time, as I have said, were vaguely benumbed. While we traveled I heard the sound of the moving sledges. Their sharp steel runners cut the ice and divided the snow like a cleaving knife. I became used to the first shudder of the rasping sound. In the dead lulls between wind storms I would listen with curious attention to the soft patter of our dogs' feet. At times I could hear their tiny toe nails grasping at forward ice ridges in order to draw themselves forward, and, strangely—so were all my thoughts interwoven with my ambition—this clenching, crunching, gritty sound gave me a delighted sense of progress, a sense of ever covering distance and nearing, ever nearing the Pole.

In this mid-Polar basin the ice does not readily separate. It is probably in motion at all times of the year. In this readjustment of fields following motion and expansion, open spaces of water appear. These, during most months, are quickly sheeted with new ice.

In these troubled areas I had frequent opportunities to measure ice-thickness. From my observation I had come to the conclusion that ice does not freeze to a depth of more than twelve or fifteen feet during a single year. Occasionally we crossed fields fifty feet thick. These invariably showed signs of many years of surface upbuilding.

It is very difficult to estimate the amount of submerged freezing after the first year's ice, but the very uniform thickness of Antarctic sea ice suggests that a limit is reached the second year, when the ice, with its cover of snow, is so thick that very little is added afterward from below.

Increase in size after that is probably the result mostly of addition to the superstructure. Frequent falls of snow, combined with alternate melting and freezing in summer, and a process similar to the upbuilding of glacial ice, are mainly responsible for the growth in thickness of the ice on the Polar sea.

The very heavy, undulating fields, which give character to the mid-Polar ice and escape along the east and west coasts of Greenland, are, therefore, mostly augmented from the surface.

Continuing north, at no time was the horizon perfectly clear. But the weather was good enough to permit frequent nautical observations. Our course was lined on uninteresting blank sheets. There were elusive signs of land frequent enough to maintain an exploring enthusiasm, which helped me also in satisfying my companions. For thus they were encouraged to believe in a nearness to terrestrial solidity. At every breathing spell, when we got together for a little chat, Ah-we-lah's hand, with pointed finger, was directed to some spot on the horizon or some low-lying cloud, with the shout of "Noona?" (land), to which I always replied in the affirmative; but, for me, the field-glasses and later positions dispelled the illusion.

Man, under pressure of circumstances, will adapt himself to most conditions of life. To me the other-world environment of the Polar-pack, far from continental fastness, was beginning to seem quite natural.

We forced marches day after day. We traveled until dogs languished or legs failed. Ice hills rose and fell before us. Mirages grimaced at our dashing teams with wondering faces. Daily the incidents and our position were recorded, but our adventures were promptly forgotten in the mental bleach of the next day's effort.

Night was now as bright as day. By habit, we emerged from our igloos later and later. On the 5th and 6th we waited until noon before starting, to get observations; but, as was so often the case, when the sun was watched, it slipped under clouds. This late start brought our stopping time close to midnight, and infused an interest in the midnight sun; but the persistent haze which clouded the horizon at night when the sun was low denied us a glimpse of the midnight luminary.

The night of April 7 was made notable by the swing of the sun at midnight, above the usual obscuring mist, behind which it had, during previous days, sunk with its night dip of splendor. For a number of nights it made grim faces at us in its setting. A tantalizing mist, drawn as a curtain over the northern sea at midnight, had afforded curious advantages for celestial staging. We were unable to determine sharply the advent of the midnight sun, but the colored cloud and haze into which it nightly sank produced a spectacular play which interested us immensely.

Sometimes the great luminary was drawn out into an egg-shaped elongation with horizontal lines of color drawn through it. I pictured it as some splendid fire-colored lantern flung from the window of Heaven. Again, it was pressed into a basin flaming with magical fires, burning behind a mystic curtain of opalescent frosts. Blue at other times, it appeared like a huge vase of luminous crystal, such as might be evoked by the weird genii of the Orient, from which it required very little imagination to see purple, violet, crimson and multi-colored flowers springing beauteously into the sky.

These changes took place quickly, as by magic. Usually the last display was of distorted faces, some animal, some semi-human—huge, grotesque, and curiously twitching countenances of clouds and fire. At times they appallingly resembled the hideous teeth-gnashing deities of China, that, with gnarled arms upraised, holding daggers of flame and surrounded by smoke, were rising toward us from beyond the horizon.

Sometimes in our northward progress these faces laughed, again they scowled ominously. What the actual configurations were I do not know; I suppose two men see nothing exactly alike in this topsy-turvy world.

Rushing northward with forced haste, unreal beauties took form as if to lure us to pause. Clouds of steam rising from frozen seas like geysers assumed the aspects of huge fountains of iridescent fire. As the sun rose, lines of light like quicksilver quivered and writhed about the horizon, and in swirling, swimming circles closed and narrowed about us on the increasingly color-burned but death-chilled areas of ice over which we worked. Setting amid a dance of purple radiance, the sun, however, instead of inspiring us, filled us with a sick feeling of giddiness. What beauty there was in these spectacles was often lost upon our benumbed senses.

Nowhere in the world, perhaps, are seen such spectacles of celestial glory. The play of light on clouds and ice produces the illusion of some supernatural realm.

We had now followed the sun's northward advance—from its first peep, at midday, above the southern ice of the Polar gateway, to its sweep over the northern ice at midnight. From the end of the Polar night, late in February, to the first of the double days and the midnight suns, we had forced a trail through darkness and blood-hardening temperature, and over leg-breaking irregularities of an unknown world of ice, to a spot almost exactly two hundred miles from the Pole! To this point our destiny had been auspiciously protected. Ultimate success seemed within grasp. But we were not blind to the long line of desperate effort still required to push over the last distance.

Now that we had the sun unmistakably at midnight, its new glory before us was an incentive to onward efforts. Previous to this the sun had been undoubtedly above the horizon, but, as is well known, when the sun is low and the atmospheric humidity is high, as it always is over the pack, a dense cloud of frost crystals rests on the ice and obscures the horizon. During the previous days the sun sank into this frosty haze and was lost for several hours.

Observations on April 8[15] placed camp at latitude 86° 36ʹ, longitude 94° 2ʹ. Although we had made long marches and really great speed, we had advanced only ninety-six miles in the nine days. Much of our hard work had been lost in circuitous twists around troublesome pressure lines and high, irregular fields of very old ice. The drift ice was throwing us to the east with sufficient force to give us some anxiety, but with eyes closed to danger and hardships, double days of fatigue and double days of glitter quickly followed one another.

Everything was now in our favor, but here we felt most of the accumulating effect of long torture, in a world where every element of Nature is hostile. Human endurance has distinct limits. Bodily abuse will long be counterbalanced by man's superb recuperative power, but sooner or later there comes a time when out-worn cells call a halt.

We had lived for weeks on a steady diet of withered beef and tallow. There was no change, we had no hot meat, and never more to eat than was absolutely necessary to keep life within the body. We became indifferent to the aching vacant pain of the stomach. Every organ had been whipped to serve energy to the all important movement of our legs. The depletion of energy, the lassitude of overstrained limbs, manifested themselves. The Eskimos were lax in the swing of the whip and indifferent in urging on the dogs. The dogs displayed the same spirit by lowered tails, limp ears, and drooping noses, as their shoulders dragged the sleds farther, ever farther from the land of life.

A light life-sapping wind came from the west. We battled against it. We swung our arms to fight it and maintain circulation, as a swimmer in water. Veering a little at times, it always struck the face at a piercing angle. It froze the tip of my nose so often that that feature felt like a foreign bump on my face. Our cheeks had in like manner been so often bleached in spots that the skin was covered with ugly scars. Our eyes were often sealed by frozen eyelashes. The tear sack made icicles. Every particle of breath froze as it left the nostrils, and coated the face in a mask of ice.

The sun at times flamed the clouds, while the snow glowed in burning tones. In the presence of all this we suffered the chill of death. All Nature exulted in a wave of hysteria. Delusions took form about us—in mirages, in the clouds. We moved in a world of delusions. The heat of the sun was a sham, its light a torment. A very curious world this, I thought dumbly, as we pushed our sleds and lashed our lagging dogs. Our footing was solid; there was no motion. Our horizon was lined with all the topographic features of a solid land scene, with mountains, valleys and plains, rivers of open water; but under it all there was the heaving of a restless sea. Although nothing visibly moved, it was all in motion. Seemingly a solid crust of earth, it imperceptibly drifts in response to every wind. We moved with it, but ever took our landscape with us.

Of the danger of this movement, of the possibility of its hopelessly carrying us away from our goal, and the possibility of ultimate starvation, I never lost consciousness. Although the distance may seem slight, now that we had gone so far, the last two hundred miles seemed hopelessly impossible. With aching, stiffened legs we started our continuing marches without enthusiasm, with little ambition. But marches we made—distance leaped at times under our swift running feet.

It sometimes now seems that unknown and subtle forces of which we are not cognizant supported me. I could almost believe that there were unseen beings there, whose voices urged me in the wailing wind; who, in my success, themselves sought soul peace, and who, that I might obtain it, in some strange, mysterious way succored and buoyed me.

OVER POLAR SEAS OF MYSTERY

Externally there was reason for rejoicing. The sky had cleared, the weather improved, a liquid charm of color poured over the strange other-world into which we advanced. Progress was good, but the soul refused to open its eyes to beauty or color. All was a lifeless waste. The mind, heretofore busy in directing arm and foot, to force a way through miniature mountains of uplifted floes, was now, because of better ice, relieved of that strain, but it refused to seek diversion.

The normal run of hardship, although eased, now piled up the accumulated poison of overwork, and when I now think of the terrible strain I fail to see how a workable balance was maintained.

As we passed the eighty-sixth parallel, the ice increased in breadth and thickness. Great hummocks and pressure lines became less frequent. A steady progress was gained with the most economical human drain possible. The temperature ranged between 36° and 40° below zero, Fahrenheit, with higher and lower midday and midnight extremes. Only spirit thermometers were useful, for the mercury was at this degree of frost either frozen or sluggish.

Although the perpetual sun gave light and color to the cheerless waste we were not impressed with any appreciable sense of warmth. Indeed, the sunbeams by their contrast seemed to cause the frost of the air to pierce with a more painful sting. In marching over the golden glitter, snow scalded our faces, while our noses were bleached with frost. The sun rose into zones of fire and set in burning fields of ice, but, in pain, we breathed the chill of death.

In camp a grip of the knife left painful burns from cold metal. To the frozen fingers ice cold water was hot. With wine-spirits the fire was lighted, while oil delighted the stomach. In our dreams Heaven was hot, the other place was cold. All Nature was false; we seemed to be nearing the chilled flame of a new Hades.

We now changed our working hours from day to night, beginning usually at ten o'clock and ending at seven. The big marches and prolonged hours of travel with which fortune favored us earlier were no longer possible. Weather conditions were more important in determining a day's run than the hands of the chronometers.

That I must steadily keep up my notes and the records of observations was a serious addition to my daily task. I never permitted myself to be careless in regard to this, for I never let myself forget the importance of such data in plotting an accurate course.

I kept my records in small notebooks, writing very fine with a hard pencil on both sides of the paper. At the beginning of the journey I had usually set down the day's record by candle light, but later, when the sun was shining both day and night, I needed no light even inside the walls of the igloo, for the sunlight shone strongly enough through the walls of snow. Shining brilliantly at times, I utilized the opportunity it afforded, every few marches, to measure our shadows. The daily change marked our advance Poleward.

When storms threatened, our start was delayed. In strong gales the march was shortened. But in one way or another we usually found a few hours in each turn of the dial during which a march could be forced between winds. It mattered little whether we traveled night or day—all hours and all days were alike to us—for we had no accustomed time to rest, no Sundays, no holidays, no landmarks, or mile-posts to pass.

To advance and expend the energy accumulated during one sleep at the cost of one pound of pemmican was our sole aim in life. Day after day our legs were driven onward. Constantly new but similar panoramas rolled by us.

Our observations on April 11, gave latitude 87° 20ʹ, longitude 95° 19ʹ. The pack disturbance of the new land was less and less noted as we progressed in the northward movement. The fields became heavier, larger and less crevassed. Fewer troublesome old floes and less crushed new ice were encountered. With the improved conditions, the fire of a racing spirit surged up for a brief spell.

We had now passed the highest reaches of all our predecessors. The inspiration of the Farthest North for a brief time thrilled me. The time was at hand, however, to consider seriously the possible necessity of an early return.

Nearly half of the food allowance had been used. In the long marches supplies had been more liberally consumed than anticipated. Now our dog teams were much reduced in numbers. Because of the cruel law of the survival of the fittest, the less useful dogs had gone into the stomachs of their stronger companions. With the lessening of the number of dogs had come at the same time a reduction of the weight of the sledge loads, through the eating of the food. Now, owing to food limitations and the advancing season, we could not prudently continue the onward march a fortnight longer.

We had dragged ourselves three hundred miles over the Polar sea in twenty-four days. Including delays and detours, this gave an average of nearly thirteen miles daily on an airline in our course. There remained an unknown line of one hundred and sixty miles to the Pole. The same average advance would take us to the Pole in thirteen days. There were food and fuel enough to risk this adventure. With good luck the prize seemed within our grasp. But a prolonged storm, a deep snowfall, or an active ice-pack would mean failure.

In new cracks I measured the thickness of the ice. I examined the water for life. The technical details for the making and breaking of ice were studied, and some attention was given to the altitude of uplifted and submerged irregularities. Atmospheric, surface water and ice temperatures were taken, the barometer was noted, the cloud formations, weather conditions and ice drifts were tabulated. There was a continuous routine of work, but like the effort of the foot in the daily drive, it became more or less automatic.

Running along over seemingly endless fields of ice, the physical appearances now came under more careful scrutiny. I watched daily for possible signs of failing in the strength of any of us, because a serious disability would now mean a fatal termination. A disabled man could neither continue nor return. Each new examination gave me renewed confidence and was another reason to push human endurance to the limit of straining every fibre and cell.

As a matter of long experience I find life in this extreme North is healthful so long as there is sufficient good food, so long as exertion is not overdone. A weakling would easily be killed, but a strong man is splendidly hardened and kept in perfect physical trim by sledging and tramping in this germless air. But, as I have said, sufficient food and not too much exertion are requisites to full safety, and in our case we were working to the limit, with rations running low. Still, the men responded superbly.

Our tremendous exertion in forcing daily rushing marches, under occasional bursts of burning sunbeams, provoked intense thirst. Following the habit of the camel, we managed to take enough water before starting to keep sufficient liquid in the stomach and veins for the ensuing day's march. Yet it was painful to await the melting of ice at camping time.

In two sittings, evening and morning, each of us took an average of three quarts of water daily. This included tea and also the luxury of occasional soup. Water was about us everywhere in heaps, but before the thirst could be quenched, several ounces of precious fuel, which had been sledged for hundreds of miles, must be used. And yet, this water, so expensive and so necessary to us, became the cause of our greatest discomfort. It escaped through pores of the skin, saturated the boots, formed a band of ice under the knee and a belt of frost about the waist, while the face was nearly always encased in a mask of icicles from the moist breath. We learned to take this torture philosophically.

With our dogs bounding and tearing onward, from the eighty-seventh to the eighty-eighth parallel we passed for two days over old ice without pressure lines or hummocks. There was no discernible line of demarcation to indicate separate fields, and it was quite impossible to determine whether we were on land or sea ice. The barometer indicated no perceptible elevation, but the ice had the hard, wavering surface of glacial ice, with only superficial crevasses. The water obtained from this was not salty. All of the upper surface of old hummock and high ice of the Polar sea resolves into unsalted water. My nautical observations did not seem to indicate a drift, but nevertheless my combined tabulations do not warrant a positive assertion of either land or sea; I am inclined, however, to put this down as ice on low or submerged land.

The ice presented an increasingly cheering prospect. A plain of purple and blue ran in easy undulations to the limits of vision without the usual barriers of uplifted blocks. Over it a direct air-line course was possible. Progress, however, was quite as difficult as over the irregular pack. The snow was crusted with large crystals. An increased friction reduced the sled speed, while the snow surface, too hard for snowshoes, was also too weak to give a secure footing to the unprotected boot. The loneliness, the monotony, the hardship of steady, unrelieved travel were keenly felt.

Day after day we pushed along at a steady pace over plains of frost and through a mental desert. As the eye opened at the end of a period of shivering slumber, the fire was lighted little by little, the stomach was filled with liquids and solids, mostly cold—enough to last for the day, for there could be no halt or waste of fuel for midday feeding. We next got into harness, and, under the lash of duty, paced off the day's pull; we worked until standing became impossible.

As a man in a dream I marched, set camp, ate and tried to rest. I took observations now without interest; under those conditions no man could take an interest in mathematics. Eating became a hardship, for the pemmican, tasteless and hard as metal, was cold. Our feet were numb—it seemed fortunate they no longer even ached.

The arduous task of building a snowhouse meant physical hardship. In this the eyes, no longer able to wink, quickly closed. Soon the empty stomach complained. Then the gastric wants were half served. With teeth dropping to the spasm of cold and skins in an electric wave of shivers to force animal heat, the boys fell to unconscious slumbers, but my lids did not easily close. The anxiety to succeed, the eagerness to draw out our food supply and the task of infusing courage into my savage helpers kept the mind active while the underfed blood filled the legs with new power.

There was no pleasurable mental recreation to relieve us; there was nothing to arouse the soul from its icy inclosure. To eat, to sleep, endlessly to press one foot ahead of the other—that was all we could do. We were like horses driven wearily in carts, but we had not their advantages of an agreeable climate and a comfortable stable at night. Daily our marches were much the same. Finishing our frigid meal, we hitched the dogs and lashed the sleds.

In the daily routine of our onward struggle, there was an inhuman strain which neither words nor pictures could adequately describe. The maddening influence of the sameness of Polar glitter, combined as it was with bitter winds and extreme cold and overworked bodies, burned our eyes and set our teeth to a chronic chattering. To me there was always the inspiration of ultimate success. But for my young savage companions, it was a torment almost beyond endurance. They were, however, brave and faithful to the bitter end, seldom allowing hunger or weariness or selfish ambition or fierce passions seriously to interfere with the effort of the expedition. We suffered, but we covered distance.

On the morning of April 13, the strain of agitating torment reached the breaking point. For days there had been a steady cutting wind from the west, which drove despair to its lowest reaches. The west again blackened, to renew its soul-despairing blast. The frost-burn of sky color changed to a depressing gray, streaked with black. The snow was screened with ugly vapors. The path was absolutely cheerless. All this was a dire premonition of storm and greater torture.

No torment could be worse than that never-ceasing rush of icy air. It gripped us and sapped the life from us. Ah-we-lah bent over his sled and refused to move. I walked over and stood by his side. His dogs turned and looked inquiringly at us. E-tuk-i-shook came near and stood motionless, like a man in a trance, staring blankly at the southern skies. Large tears fell from Ah-we-lah's eyes and froze in the blue of his own shadow. Not a word was uttered. I knew that the dreaded time of utter despair had come. The dogs looked at us, patient and silent in their misery. Silently in the descending gloom we all looked over the tremendous dead-white waste to the southward. With a tear-streaked and withered face, Ah-we-lah slowly said, with a strangely shrilling wail, "Unne-sinig-po—Oo-ah-tonie i-o-doria—Ooh-ah-tonie i-o-doria!" ("It is well to die—Beyond is impossible—Beyond is impossible!")