72 THE EXPLORER'S RETURN 



LAUGHS AT THE SCOFFERS. 



"As I was sitting at the pole I could not help smiling at the people who 

 on my return would call the whole expedition a humbug. I was sure the 

 people would say that I had bought my two witnesses and that my notebook 

 with my daily observations had been manufactured on board this ship. 



"The only thing I can put up against this is what the York Eskimos have 

 told Knud Rasmussen. That tube which I buried under the flag contains a 

 short statement about my trip. I couldn't leave my visiting card, because 

 I didn't happen to have one with me. 



"Perhaps I should have staid there longer had it not begun to freeze us 

 in our idleness. The Eskimos were uneasy and the dogs howled fearfully. 

 On April 23, therefore, I again turned my nose southward, which was much 

 easier, as you cannot turn your nose in any other direction when you stand 

 at the pole." 



Describing the return journey, Dr. Cook said : 



"Fortune now smiled. We made twenty miles a day until we reached 

 the ominous eighty-seventh degree. Then I felt the ice moving eastward, 

 carrying us with it. A terrible fog swept around us and kept us there for 

 three weeks. We got no farther than the eighty-fourth degree. Then began 

 a heavy walk towards Heibergsland and another three weeks of fog. When 

 that cleared I saw we had drifted southwest of Ringnesland, where we found 

 open water and tower high screw ice, which stopped our way eastward. 



"We now began to suffer hunger. Our provisions were becoming ex- 

 hausted and we were unable to find depots. We entered Ringnesland and on 

 June 20 found the first animals on our return — bear and seal. We shot a bear. 

 ■ "And now our goal was the whalers at Lancaster Sound. We followed 

 the drift ice to the south. Eighty miles a day, but were stopped by pack ice 

 jn Wellington Channel, which was impassable either by boat or sledge. Here 

 was lots of game, but we did not dare shoot it. We had taken only a hundred 

 bullets to the pole and now only fifteen were left. We went into Jones Sound 

 after walrus and found open calm water. We met polar wolves, with which 

 some of our dogs made friends and ran away. 



^ "Now we spent day and night in an open boat ten miles from shore. 

 This lasted for two months, while storms often raged over our head. At 

 last we got ashore again, but we had no fuel and were obliged to eat birds 

 raw. One day we found fuel, and what a feast we had. But we suffered 



