346 WONDERS OF ANTARCTIC WORLD 



waistcoats. There are two species of them in the Antarctic circle — the Adelie 

 penguins and the Emperor penguins. 



The penguins are declared to be the most amusing creatures in existence. 

 When annoyed by an explorer the cock bird ranges up and down in front of his 

 wife, his eyes flashing anger, and his feathers erect in a ruffle round his head. 

 He stands there for a minute or two breathing out threats and then putting his 

 head down dashes for the man and rains blows upon him with his flippers. 

 When making love he waves his flippers to and fro and gazes heavenward, as 

 if he were reciting the most exquisite poetry. 



The greatest rookeries of the Emperor penguins are on Ross Island. This 

 bird stands four feet high and weighs from eighty to ninety pounds. It hatches 

 its eggs in absolute darkness in August, during the coldest month of the Ant- 

 arctic year, when the temperature often falls to 68 degrees below zero. The 

 Emperor penguin carries its single egg, and later its chick in a place between 

 its right foot and its abdomen. 



To return to the Arctic region, many remarkable facts have lately been 

 learned, and it is said that the Eskimo, though gradually becoming civilized, 

 does not welcome the white man's coming. Beside his igloo he sits and listens 

 to the tribal rumors of the coming events. He hears the weird, garbled tale of 

 how a "civilized man," a "kabhena," has reached the north pole. He hears that 

 other white men will come after him. And he sits and grieves for his people ; 

 for the advance of the white man means to him only what it has meant to all 

 the primitive people who thus have been "discovered" — extermination. 



"Civilization of your kind we do not want," says the Eskimo to the ex- 

 plorer or missionary. "It is good, perhaps, for you and for your countries. It 

 is not good here in the north. We cannot live under it. As we live now so 

 must we live if we are to exist. It is our life ; and life is good here among these 

 ice cliffs when it is lived in our own way. We are content. So have our fore- 

 fathers lived from time immemorial. And so will we live as long as we remain 

 on earth. Force us to live as you live, make us accept your civilization, and 

 we perish. We have seen it. We know what it does to us. It kills the Es- 

 kimo. Leave us to our ways, leave us to our country, or the Eskimo will be 

 wiped off the face of the earth." 



Such is the Eskimo's reception of the great news. It is something like a 

 shock to our self-satisfaction and opinion that our civilization is best for all 

 people, whether they like it or not. How can those poor people up there in the 

 frozen north spurn the benefits that civilization holds forth to them ? How can 



