94 THE NORTH POLE 



"One fight more," I said in 1902; but I had only 

 reached 84° 17'. 



"One fight more," I had said in 1905; but I had 

 only reached 87° 6'. 



And now, at Payer Harbor again, on August 18, 

 1908, it was still "One fight more!" Only this time I 

 knew it was the last, in truth, whatever the result. 



At ten o'clock that night we were steaming past 

 the desolate, wind-swept and ice-ground rocks of Cape 

 Sabine, the spot that marks one of the most somber 

 chapters in arctic history, where Greely's ill-fated 

 party slowly starved to death in 1884 — seven sur- 

 vivors only being rescued out of a party of twenty- 

 four! The ruins of the rude stone hut built by these 

 men for shelter during the last year of their lives can 

 still be seen on the bleak northern shore of Cape Sabine, 

 only two or three miles from the extreme point. It 

 is doubtful if a more desolate and unsheltered location 

 for a camp could be found anywhere in the arctic 

 regions, fully exposed to the biting winds from the 

 north, cut off by the rocks back of it from the rays of 

 the southern sun, and besieged by the ice pack surg- 

 ing down from Kane Basin in the north. 



I first saw the place in August, 1896, in a blinding 

 snowstorm, so thick that it was impossible to see more 

 than a few yards in any direction. The impressions of 

 that day will never be forgotten — the pity and the 

 sickening sense of horror. The saddest part of the 

 whole story for me was the knowledge that the catas- 

 trophe was unnecessary, that it might have been 

 avoided. My men and I have been cold and have been 

 near to starvation in the Arctic, when cold and hunger 



