FOREWORD xxix 



dent which sorely taxed his patience as well as his body, 

 and which is mentioned here as it illustrates the grit 

 and stamina of his moral and physical make-up. As 

 his ship, the Kite, was working its way through the ice 

 fields off the Greenland shore, a cake of ice became 

 wedged in the rudder, causing the wheel to reverse. 

 One of the spokes jammed Peary's leg against the 

 casement, making it impossible to extricate himself 

 until both bones of the leg were broken. The party 

 urged him to return to the United States for the win- 

 ter and to resume his exploration the following year. 

 But Peary insisted on being landed as originally planned 

 at McCormick Bay, stating that the money of his 

 friends had been invested in the project and that he 

 must "make good" to them. The assiduous nursing 

 of Mrs. Peary, aided by the bracing air, so speedily 

 restored his strength that at the ensuing Christmas 

 festivities which he arranged for the Eskimos, he out- 

 raced on snowshoes all the natives and his own men ! 



In the following May, with one companion, Astrup, 

 he ascended to the summit of the great ice cap which 

 covers the interior of Greenland, 5000 to 8000 feet in 

 elevation, and pushed northward for 500 miles over a 

 region where the foot of man had never trod before, 

 in temperatures ranging from 10° to 50° below zero, 

 to Independence Bay, which he discovered and named, 

 July 4, 1892. Imagine his surprise on descending 

 from the tableland to enter a little valley radiant with 

 gorgeous flowers and alive with murmuring bees, where 

 musk oxen were lazily browsing. 



This sledding journey, which he duplicated by an- 

 other equally remarkable crossing of the ice cap three 



