GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



gotten the hunting circle of my old comrades ; and then he 

 declared that all the young hunters of the tribe would vie with 

 each other in showing me the country which I had never 

 seen before and the animals which I had never slain before. 

 And everything happened according to his promise. Two 

 of the best men in the tribe immediately declared that 

 they would come. No considerations here, and no prepara- 

 tions ; an Eskimo is always equipped for a long voyage. 

 On the following morning we set out on the 1,250 miles long 

 sledge journey, and hunted together for several months and 

 shared the strangest experiences. And we travelled together 

 as comrades, as equals ; they would take no payment for the 

 long time they were with me, away from their families ; no, 

 this was merely an episode in their lives, and they would cer- 

 tainly not be my paid servants. 



In the same way they took part in Peary's voyages, so long 

 as he travelled on land. It is therefore interesting to note the 

 position they took up when the Polar voyage itself commenced. 

 During the first expeditions they agreed with pleasure to go 

 north, because they thought that the voyage might result in 

 meeting with new people, in the discovery of new hunting- 

 grounds, or, at any rate, of land fit for habitation. But later 

 on, when they were told that they risked their lives for a 

 geographical point only, a point somewhere in the desert of 

 pressure-ice where neither men, nor game, nor land existed, then 

 the toil seemed to them so utterly aimless that their participa- 

 tion now required entirely fresh motives. Partly there was the 

 respect for Peary — I have often been told that " he asked with 

 so strong a will to gain his wish, that it was impossible to say 

 no " ; partly, also, there was the wish to possess guns, wood, and 

 knives which were the payment for participation. But their 

 personal interest to reach the goal, their private ambition to 

 arrive there, no longer existed. For twenty years Peary had 

 seen among the Polar Eskimos the base of his expedition, and 

 during this short period these people had jumped from the stone 

 age to the present time in their technical civilization. 



When Peary came there for the first time the tribe was in 

 6 



