198 . KANE, MODEL OF PEARY 



"'Listen Petersen! Oars — men? What is it?' and he listened quietly 

 at first, and then trembling, said, in a half-whisper, 'Dannemarkers !' " 



It was a vessel from Uppernavik, one of the large Greenland ports, and 

 in a few days the explorers reached this point from which their return to 

 America was easy. 



A meeting with Dr. Kane after the latter's rescue, is described graphically 

 by his brother. After telling of a terrible gale in Baffin's Bay, he said : 



"After this gale we had little or no more trouble with the ice ; one or two 

 trifling detentions of a few days brought us to the open water. We had drifted 

 so far to the south that Lievely was nearer than Upernavik, and Captain Hart- 

 stein determined to put in there. We had a heavy gale the night after we 

 left the ice ; but so glad were we all to get clear of it, that I heard no complaints 

 about rough weather. It cleared away beautifully towards morning, and we 

 were all on the deck, admiring the clear water, and the fantastic shapes of the 

 water-washed icebergs. All hands were in high spirits; the gale had blown in 

 the right direction, and in a few hours we should be in Lievely. The rocks of 

 its land-locked harbor were already in sight. We were discussing -our news by 

 anticipation, when the man in the crow's nest cried out, 'A brig in the harbor !' 

 and the next minute, before we had time to congratulate each other on the 

 chance of sending letters home, that she had hoisted American colors — a deli- 

 cate compliment, we thought, on the part of our friends, the Danes. 



"I believe our captain was about to return it, when, to our surprise, she 

 hoisted another flag, the veritable one which had gone out with the Advance, 

 bearing the name of Mr. Henry Grinnell. At the same moment, two boats 

 were seen rounding the point, and pulling towards us. Did they contain our 

 lost friends ? Yes ; the sailors had settled that. 'Those are Yankees, sir ; no 

 Danes ever feathered their oars that way,' said an old whaler to me. 



"For those who had friends among the missing party, the few minutes that 

 followed were of bitter anxiety; for the men in the boats were long-bearded 

 and weather-beaten; they had strange, wild costumes; there was no possibility 

 of recognition. Dr. Kane, standing upright in the stern of the first boat, with 

 his spy-glass slung around his neck, was the first identified ; then the big form 

 of Mr. Brooks ; in another moment all hands of them were on board of us. 



"It was curious to watch the effects of the excitement in different people, — 

 the intense quietude of some, the boisterous delight of others; how one man 

 would become intensely loquacious, another would do nothing but laugh, and 

 a third would creep away to some out-of-the-way corner, as if he were afraid 



