COOK'S RETURN 267 



In regard to the full recognition of his feat by Denmark, Dr. Cook re- 

 marked : 



"Daagaard-Jense, inspector of Danish North Greenland, after hearing Ras- 

 mussen and talking with Gov. Kraul of Upernavik, who has seen and read the 

 entire record, telegraphed to the Danish government in Copenhagen his assur- 

 ance of the truth of my declarations and guaranteeing them as authentic. The 

 Danish authorities in Greenland, who are in reality the advisers of the Danish 

 government, have been for nearly four months in possession of all details of 

 my trip. The Danish government and the University of Copenhagen, as well 

 as the Danish Geographical society, have, on their report, taken over the virtual 

 guaranty for the sincerity and authenticity of my records. They have stood up 

 for them, so to speak, before the world. They do not ask me to furnish any 

 further proofs or evidence of any kind, but in justice to Denmark, it is my 

 intention to place the first completed record of my polar journey at the disposal 

 of the University of Copenhagen." 



On September 22 Dr. Cook cheerfully submitted to a gruelling cross exam- 

 ination by forty inquisitors of the daily and periodical press, and before the 

 interview came to a close he had converted even several arrant sceptics into 

 enthusiastic partisans of his right to the title of discoverer of the North Pole. 



It was an occasion for which there had been ample preparation, for the 

 questioners had been informed the day before that he would receive them and 

 they had meanwhile taxed their ingenuity with the devising of all manner of 

 interrogatories and with the aid of geographied experts had prepared test 

 questions. Every one present had framed inquiries which bore upon some 

 point in the accounts of the discovery, which was not quite clear to them. 

 For an hour and a half this business of quizzing proceeded and, in parting, the 

 explorer was surrounded, not by analysis, but by eager converts, several, who 

 were commissioned by their editors to doubt, were wringing Dr. Cook by the 

 hand and expressing their unqualified personal belief in everything he had said. 

 He referred quite casually to the writing of his experiences and at the 

 request of one of the reporters brought out one-third of the manuscript which 

 he had prepared prone upon the floor of a hut with a flat stone for his desk and 

 a blubber lamp for his light. He had with him three small memorandum 

 books, five by eight inches, containing two hundred leaves each. To these 

 he had committed his diary in pencil, for ink will Aot withstand the Arctic chill. 

 When his enforced sojourn in the frozen North gave him time for literary 

 labors he had written 100,000 words in these memorandum books between the 



