CHAPTER XXXII 



WE REACH THE POLE 



THE last march northward ended at ten o'clock 

 on the forenoon of April 6. I had now made 

 the five marches planned from the point at 

 which Bartlett turned back, and my reckoning showed 

 that we were in the immediate neighborhood of the goal 

 of all our striving. After the usual arrangements for 

 going into camp, at approximate local noon, of the Co- 

 lumbia meridian, I made the first observation at our 

 polar camp. It indicated our position as 89° 57'. 



We were now at the end of the last long march 

 of the upward journey. Yet with the Pole actually 

 in sight I was too weary to take the last few steps. 

 The accumulated weariness of all those days and nights 

 of forced marches and insufficient sleep, constant 

 peril and anxiety, seemed to roll across me all at once. 

 I was actually too exhausted to realize at the moment 

 that my life's purpose had been achieved. As soon 

 as our igloos had been completed and we had eaten 

 our dinner and double-rationed the dogs, I turned in 

 for a few hours of absolutely necessary sleep, Henson 

 and the Eskimos having unloaded the sledges and got 

 them in readiness for such repairs as were necessary. 

 But, weary though I was, I could not sleep long. It 

 was, therefore, only a few hours later when I woke. 

 The first thing I did after awaking was to write these 



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