FROM " BIG LEAD " TO 87° 6' N. LAT. 135 



As can perhaps be imagined, I was more than anxious 

 to keep on, but as I looked at the drawn faces of my 

 comrades, at the skeleton figures of my few remaining 

 dogs, at my nearly empty sledges, and remembered 

 the drifting ice over which we had come and the un- 

 known quantity of the "big lead" between us and the 

 nearest land, I felt that I had cut the margin as nar- 

 row as could reasonably be expected. I told my men 

 we should turn back from here. 



My flags were flung out from the summit of the 

 highest pinnacle near us, and a hundred feet or so 

 beyond this I left a bottle containing a brief record 

 and a piece of the silk flag which six years before I 

 had carried around the northern end of Greenland. 



Then we started to return to our last igloo, making 

 no camp here. 



