GETTING RECRUITS 77 



twenty-two men, seventeen women, ten children — 

 and two hundred and forty-six dogs. The Roosevelt, 

 as usual, was loaded almost to the water's edge with 

 the coal that had been crowded into her, the seventy 

 tons of whale meat which we had bought in Labrador, 

 and the meat and blubber of nearly fifty walruses. 



We parted company from the Erik and steamed 

 north on the 18th of August, an intensely disagree- 

 able day, with driving snow and rain, and a cutting 

 wind from the southeast which made the sea very 

 rough. As the two ships separated, they signaled 

 "good-by and good luck" with the whistles, and our 

 last link with civilization was broken. 



Since my return I have been asked if I did not feel 

 deep emotion on parting with my companions on the 

 Erik, and I have truthfully replied that I did not. 

 The reader must remember that this was my eighth 

 expedition into the Arctic, and that I had parted 

 from a supply ship many times before. Constant 

 repetition will take the edge from the most dramatic 

 experience. As w T e steamed north from the harbor 

 of Etah, my thoughts were on the condition of the ice in 

 Robeson Channel; and the ice in Robeson Channel is 

 more dramatic than any parting — save from one's 

 nearest and dearest, and I had left mine three thou- 

 sand miles below at Sydney. We had some three 

 hundred and fifty miles of almost solid ice to negoti- 

 ate before we could reach our hoped-for winter quarters 

 at Cape Sheridan. I knew that beyond Smith Sound 

 we might have to make our slow way rod by rod, and 

 sometimes literally inch by inch, butting and ramming 

 and dodging the mountainous ice; that, if the Roose- 



