PEARY'S EXPEDITIONS 281 



nearly four thousand feet high, he looked across to 

 Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond 

 it over the region leading down to the farthest north 

 of the Duke of Orleans. " It was almost impossible," 

 he says, "to believe that we were standing upon the 

 northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the 

 summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant 

 sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing 

 between the rocks around our feet, and a herd of musk- 

 oxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley 

 I had found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and 

 had seen the bullet-like flight and heard the energetic 

 buzz of the humble-bee." 



Next year he and his wife were out again to take up 

 their quarters at a house they built at Bowdoin Bay, 

 where, in September, their daughter was born. In 

 March, 1894, he started for another journey across 

 Greenland, with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, 

 but severe weather drove him back after travelling 

 some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter 

 instead of returning in the Falcon, he set out in the 

 spring, and under almost desperate circumstances 

 managed to reach and return from Independence Bay. 



Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which 

 he spent four winters in the Arctic regions and almost 

 met with Petersen's fate by a venturesome winter 

 sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his 

 feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in 

 Grinnell Land he proved beyond doubt that it was 

 continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had been admitted 

 by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, 

 he continued it up to 83 54', along Hazen Land, prac- 



