288 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 



by native runners, telling me of Peary's wonderful feat 

 in reaching the North Pole. Of course, we were all 

 overjoyed ; and, in particular, we Americans could not i 

 but feel a special pride in the fact that it was a fellow- 

 countryman who had performed the great and note- 

 worthy achievement. A little more than a year had 

 passed since I said good-bye to Peary as he started on 

 his Arctic quest. After leaving New York in the 

 Roosevelt, he had put into Oyster Bay to see us, and 

 we had gone aboard the Roosevelt, had examined with 

 keen hitercst how she was fitted for the boreal seas and 

 the boreal winter, and had then waved farewell to the 

 tall, gaunt explorer as he stood looking toward us over 

 the side of the stout little ship.^ 



On September 21 Kermit and Tarlton started south- 

 west toward Lake Hannington, and Cuninghame and I 

 north toward the Guaso Nyero. Heller was under the 

 weather, and we left him to spend a few days at Meru 

 Boma, and then to take in the elephant skins and other 

 museum specimens to Nairobi. 



As Cuninghame and 1 were to be nearly four weeks 

 in a country Math no food supplies, we took a small 

 donkey safari to carry the extra food for our porters, 

 for in these remote places the difficulty of taking in 

 many hundred pounds of salt, as well as skin tents, and 

 the difficulty of bringing out the skeletons and skins of 

 the big animals collected, make such an expedition as 

 ours, undertaken for scientific purposes, far more cum- 

 bersome and unwieldy than a mere hunting trip, or 

 even than a voyage of exploration, and treble the 

 labour. 



^ When I reached Neri I received from Peary the following 

 cable : "" Your farewell was a royal mascot. The Pole is ours. — 

 Peary." 



