COOK'S STORY OF HIS DISCOVERY OF NORTH POLE 35 



embarked on its voyage to the Pole. It consisted of eleven men and 

 103 dogs, drawing eleven heavily laden sledges. The expedition 

 left the Greenland shore and pushed westward over the troubled ice 

 of Smith Sound. As we pushed over the ice fields some dogs had 

 to be killed to provide food for others, so that on one stage of the 

 journey there were forty-eight left, and on the last stage only twenty- " 

 six, with one sledge and my two most faithful Eskimos. Other ex-r 

 plorers have always done their expeditions with tremendous impedi- 

 menta and all sorts of luxuries. I journeyed with two Eskimos and 

 lived as an Eskimo. After leaving land, with its animals and birds, 

 I lived entirely on pemmican, dried meat and fat, thus abandoning 

 everything which belongs to civilized life. It was with faint hope 

 of seeing my friends again that I plunged into the land of eternal 

 loneliness in winter, of endless night. It was always the same, one 

 day like another, going onward to the North with nothing in sight 

 upon the great white desert, with no sound, with no sun. The gloom 

 of the long night was relieved only by a few hours of daylight. The 

 chill of the winter was felt at its worst. 



"As we crossed the heights of Ellesmere Sound to the Pacific 

 slope the temperature sank to minus 83 Fahrenheit, the coldest of 

 the journey. Several dogs were frozen and the men suffered severely, 

 but we soon found the game trails, along which the way was easy. 

 In this march we secured 101 musk oxen, seven bears and 335 hares. 

 My favorite meat was musk ox. I dislike bear, seal, walrus and dog. 

 I tired of fox, which the Eskimos like very much. For three months 

 I lived on eider ducks and gulls alone. The musk ox has a hump 

 back and low horns, so a lasso falls off. He charges everything that 

 gets near him, so we formed a loop from ropes and he put his head 

 in. It took us two months to learn that trick. 



"We missed the depots which previously had been established, 

 but we came accidentally upon one of Sverdrup's depots, where we 

 found provisions and instruments in a most excellent state of preser- 

 vation. Owing to the smallness of my expedition our requirements 



