VOYAGE OF THE "ROOSEVELT" 283 



A month out from New York, the Roosevelt left 

 Eitah laden deep with coal from the Eric that had 

 awaited her there, and having on board over fifty 

 Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two 

 hundred Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions 

 at Bache Peninsula, she worked up through open 

 water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where 

 the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally 

 rammed his way across to the eastern side, and so con- 

 tinued northwards. When off Cape Lupton the ship 

 received such rough treatment that the rudder was 

 twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as 

 she ground along the face of the ice-foot " with a 

 motion and noise like that of a railway-car which has 

 left the rails " ; but this was the only time she was in 

 serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting 

 for six days in Newman Bay to repair damages and 

 make ready for a final effort, she was headed westward 

 to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a con- 

 tinuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot 

 at Cape Sheridan, a little north of the old winter 

 quarters of the Alert, and found her wintering place, 

 like her, just as the Polar pack closed in against the 

 shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter 

 Bay, twenty-seven miles further north, but the state 

 of the ice made this impossible. 



Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred 

 and fifty musk oxen had been shot by the 1st of Novem- 

 ber, and there were numbers of hares and several herds 

 of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson in his 

 second voyage three hundred years ago. During the 

 very mild winter eighty of the dogs died, and when 



