GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



heard old Eskimos tell of situations wherein they were in danger 

 of death, in such a manner that the audience knotted themselves 

 with laughter. 



It may be that in this matter we highly civilized, cultured 

 beings meet a quality in the so-called primitive natives — 

 whom otherwise we honour with all our gracious superiority — 

 a mysterious and humorous contempt of death which almost 

 makes the ideas danger and death merge into one. For in- 

 stance, consider the way in which some families, which during 

 Peary's last expedition but one had remained behind near 

 the big lakes at the back of Fort Conger, managed to make their 

 way home all the distance down to the Cape York district. 

 The men, some with a team of two, some of three, dogs, with- 

 out provision for the journey, brought their wives and children 

 the hundred miles' long journey southward, first across the 

 Kennedy channel to the land, continually hunting for food like 

 beasts of prey as they travelled. Some of the women had new- 

 born babes in the bags on their back, others were in an advanced 

 stage of pregnancy, whilst others, again, gave birth to their 

 children as they travelled the toilsome, dangerous way, advanc- 

 ing foot by foot, pushing and pulling the sledges along down to 

 their homes. And they arrived quite unmoved by the fight for 

 existence, bubbling with merriment as never before, everyone 

 from the oldest down to the youngest babe strutting with health. 



Anyone looking at the map will understand the magni- 

 ficence of this deed. The hunters' sagacity and the constitution 

 of the Eskimo race achieved in this undertaking one of their 

 most glorious triumphs ; it is a leaf out of the history of Polar 

 travelling which ought to be known by everyone, even by those 

 to whom the North Pole is only a name. 



It was in the year 1907. At that time I came from Elles- 

 mere Land with two Eskimos, when outside Cape Inglefield 

 we ran across sledge tracks which we did not for a moment doubt 

 were due to the rearguard of Peary's great army of offence 

 against the North Pole. Their probable fate had been the sub- 

 ject of discussion among the tribe throughout the winter. We 

 were confronted by two tracks — one from a team of four dogs, 

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