viii INTRODUCTION 



for adventure, and a keen and farsighted intelligence — 

 all these must go to the make-up of the successful arctic 

 explorer; and these, and more than these, have gone to 

 the make-up of the chief of successful arctic explorers, of 

 the man who succeeded where hitherto even the best and the 

 bravest had failed. 



Commander Peary has made all dwellers in the civi- 

 lized world his debtors; but, above all, we, his fellow Ameri- 

 cans, are his debtors. He has performed one of the great 

 feats of our time; he has icon high honor for himself and 

 for his country; and we welcome his own story of the 

 triumph which he won in the immense solitudes of the 

 wintry North. 



Theodore Roosevelt. 



The White Nile, March 12, 1910. 



