194 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



been worth the name, though they might have starved to the point 

 of extreme weakness. Physical suffering may well have accompa- 

 nied the mental anguish in such cases as that of the Greely Expe- 

 dition at Cape Sabine, for with them hunger was kept at a tanta- 

 lized wakefulness for half a year by food enough to keep up appe- 

 tite though it could not sustain strength. They knew each day 

 they would not get enough and doubted — three out of four of them 

 rightly — whether summer and the relief ship would find them alive. 

 Simple starvation, that comes to death in a few weeks, any one 

 should choose readily in preference to, for instance, cancer, which 

 will carry off one in nine of our friends who have passed middle 

 life. But no moral trial can have been harder, no death more cruel, 

 than that of Greely's men. 



In the light of the four succeeding years I still approve of the 

 rejoicing of May 7th and the light-heartedness with which we then 

 looked towards the future. Relying merely on memory, I should 

 now be unable to realize that four days later a mental reaction had 

 set in and we were again in the depths of gloom. Summer with 

 its adverse traveling conditions was making itself more and more 

 felt. What we now feared was no immediate disaster but failure 

 to make a landing on Banks Island so as to meet the Star at the 

 appointed rendezvous. My diary entry for May 11th says some- 

 thing of that kind: 



"The lead that stopped us yesterday closed during the night 

 by the young ice fast to our floe coming in touch with the opposite 

 'shore.' Storkerson, who had this watch, did not consider the 

 young ice a safe bridge for crossing and neither did Ole, who had 

 the watch from two o'clock to four-thirty. When he called me for 

 my watch I at once investigated the young ice and found it rotten 

 and treacherous but six inches thick, and so decided to take chances. 

 We crossed safely at 6:10. Traveled about E. 10° N. 12 miles to 

 12:54 o'clock (A. M. May 11th) where we stopped to melt some 

 snow for drinking. The ice crossed to-day was 75 per cent, of it 

 one or more years old. There was much soft snow everywhere and 

 the body of the sled frequently dragged in it — this is another of the 

 many times we have missed the toboggan-bottomed skd which 

 Wilkins took ashore. The going to-day was fairly level. Crossed 

 three leads of four-inch young ice, rotten because of the warm 

 weather — this is dangerous work, but we have been on short rations 

 for a week — the dogs are living on our skin clothes — so it is up to 

 us to take a few chances. I shall never again willingly (and I 



