68 NEAREST THE POLE 



outlines of the Roosevelt loomed. I quote from my 

 journal as follows: 



The Roosevelt lies below me, on one side the frozen 

 shore of the Arctic "Ultima Thule," on the other 

 the great white disk of the central Polar Sea with its 

 mysteries and its terrors, its story of heroic effort, 

 and its still unconquered secret. No other ship has 

 been so far north in this region and but one other 

 ship has reached so high a latitude anywhere in the 

 entire circuit of the Polar Sea, and that one did not 

 attain her vantage ground by stress. of continued battle, 

 as has the Roosevelt, but drifted to her position — 

 helpless and inert in the grasp of the ice. 



Yet the Roosevelt lies there, sturdy but graceful, 

 her slender masts piercing the fog and falling snow; 

 a nimbus-circled glow of light at every port, 

 and a broad bar of yellow luminance from the galley 

 lamp shining forward over her and out through the 

 mist, just as if she were a steamer anchored in the 

 North River in a foggy night. 



As I look at her a whole series of pictures rises 

 before me. The bright days at Bucksport, Maine, 

 when I and one other watched her grow into sturdy 

 shape under the fostering care of her builder, Captain 

 Dix; the launching, when Mrs. Peary, smashing an 

 ice-encased bottle of wine against the steel-clad 

 stem, christened her '' Roosevelf ; New York Harbour, 

 with the tribute to her mission, from all the sur- 

 rounding craft; that black night in the straits of 

 Belle Isle; the fog-shrouded swell of the North 

 Atlantic and Davis Strait; the familiar black cliffs 



