The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-12-16

drifted down on the ship. and while the
craft hung to her moorings. the rudder
and rudder post We're torn away, but
the hull was rot damage
WORST DANGER NEARER HOME
Commander Peary said:
Finding the north pole is not near
| ly so dangerous as it was TO try 10
avoid being shipwrecked on the New
| foundland coast.
we had an awful time. We spent
| eleven days in Battle Harbor fighting
| the undertow, which threatened to tear
US from the rocks to which we We're
| secured. We broke our best anchor and
| lost countless ropes Abreast of Cape
| St. George the wind headed US last
Saturday. For three days we beat
back and forth in and out of st.
Georges bay. trying TO save the Roose-
welt.
The vessel is leaking now a little
aft. due to the damaged sternpost Our
rudder guy was carried away and We
had to call at Bonnie bay and put
boat over to make repairs"
Asked # dissatisfaction of the crew
affected the chances of the expedition.
Peary said;
NO; one or two of the men tried to
make trouble. but have since grown
ashamed of themselves. It is not true
that I refused to let them leave the
ship. They might have gone had they
wanted TO. Capt. Bartlett and myself
would have brought her back. The
men, had food, and their complaint
was that / did not go in for a fresh
supply. as 1 promised. on the way back
from through Kale basin.
THAT I did not is because I did not
want another polar disaster for the
world TO talk about
DASH FOR THE POLE
The explorer told of his dash for the
POLE when he reached "farthest
north" He said.
Altogether we were fifty-seven days
on the ice trip. We left the ship on
February % and returned on April 81.
The plan was for a light pioneer party,
with picked dogs, to advance and to be
reinforced at various points and times
by relief parties with food.
THE first party was to move for.
ward. leaving the cache behind. Then
the other parties were to come up be-
hind, fifty miles apart, each with food
which was to be catched. The party
then was to return for more.
we arranged that Capt. Bartlett,
sailing master of the ship; Ross Mar
vim naturalist; DR.. Louis ]. Wolff,
surgeon; Matt Henson, my negro as
sistant; Clark, a fireman of Massachu>
sets, and Ryan, another fireman o;
Newfoundland, were to make up relief
parties of the 40 Eskimos.
When we got ready to start on Feb
ruary % and left the ship with the Es-
kimo to avoid confusion We made Cape
Hekla the rendezvous. From this point
to the pole was only 420 nautical miles,
bat as it afterward proved l Travelled
considerably more than this, but, OF
course, not in a straight direction.
The second division had instructions
to leave Hekla four days after 1 did.
The third was to come four days after
the second. This plan was carried out
to the letter. Each party had a speci-
fic compass, set just as at sea, for the
ice field
Everything went along swimming
ly, and with Matt Henson and the six
Eskimos who formed my party we
managed to push forward at times at
the rate of forty miles a day Or more.
AT latitude So we met a wide lead
of open water. and it took US SIX day.
to cross it. because the new ice wa.
himsy and we had to nurse small por- !
tons of provisions across at a time. !
we met fourteen Or flfteea
leads in a single days march. After !
getting clear of the open water we ran
into six days gale. We could not
nj
derous wind. All we could do was to
try to live under the lee of our sledges. /,
The dogs suffered untold agony. One !
went mad from the bites of the others
and I had to shoot it, l feared that
we We're all to be lost, so l decided
that we must communicate with the !
relief party. I sent four Eskimos back
in search of the second party but they
with the news that we were
separated from the cache
We had only nineteen days rations
of musk OK, walrus and pemmican left
then, and it looked blue in that awful
Niagara of kissing snow. 1t was i'm
possible to recover the cache of buried
biscuit, milk and pea soup, but we had
to push forward. We went along in
fair shape after the gale abated. but
when we reached latitude S53S we dis
covered that the whole Polar sea, in
motion. was setting US eastward faster
than we could travel north
CANNOT DRIFT TO POLE
Does not that help out Nansen's
claim that the pole can be reached in
a ship by drifting?' was asked
Not at ALL said Peary. Last win
ter was one in a hundred for an open
sea. The Polar sea is usually station
airy from ice. Observation showed that
1 had gone seventy miles to the east
ward when l sent back the Eskimo to
help me out. There was no pushing
forward after that, so we made our
way back to the Roosevelt
Mr.. Peary was noncomrnittaI on the
question. Will you try again." which
was the first asked him, but Capt
Bartlett fairly roared:
Go again" Sure, he'll go again, and