THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC 49 



take them with us against that wind would have been 

 impossible. 



Having done this, we started on our journey. This 

 lay, first of all, across half a mile of clear blue ice, 

 swept by the unbroken wind, which met us almost 

 straight in the face. We could never stand up, so 

 had to scramble the whole distance on ' all fours,' 

 lying flat on our bellies in the gusts. By the time we 

 had reached the other side we had had enough. Oun 

 faces had been rather badly bitten, and I have a very 

 strong recollection of the men's countenances, which 

 were a leaden blue streaked with white patches of 

 frostbite. Once across, however, we reached the 

 shelter of some large boulders on the shore of the 

 island, and waited here long enough to thaw out our 

 noses, ears, and cheeks. A scramble of another six 

 hundred yards brought us to the half-finished igloo, 

 into which we found that the rest of the party had 

 barricaded themselves, and, after a little shouting 1 , they 

 came and let us in, giving us a warm welcome and 

 about the most welcome hot meal that I think any 

 of us had ever eaten." 



Mr. Harry Whitney, the American sportsman who 

 travelled as far as Etah, in Greenland, with Commander 

 Peary's Polar expedition in 1908, spent the succeeding 

 fourteen months among the Eskimos. He adopted their 

 mode of life, shared with them their privations and 

 their dangers, and lent his aid in their incessant fight 

 for existence. A short extract from the record of his 

 experiences will give an idea of his life in the Arctic 

 regions l : " Teddy linguah and I had everything ready 

 for the start northward when suddenly Inute, a young 

 1 See Bibliography, 7. 





