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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



anchorage at the farthest north of any 

 previous navigation back to civilization 

 with all her priceless cargo of Arctic 

 heroes. To take the second in command 

 from this important post for a forlorn 

 hope was beyond the borders of rash- 

 ness — it was tempting Providence. Read 

 the story of the Polaris expedition, and 

 you will find that by all good rights Bart- 

 lett should never have left his ship. 



But overcome by his regard for his 

 faithful assistant, by the knowledge of 

 Bartlett's great value to the land party, 

 as well as by his desire to do honor 

 to our kindred race, living under the 

 cross of Saint George, he was given the 

 post of honor — the advance, when it 

 meant that had the expedition ended at 

 latitude 87° 48' north, the second in 

 command would become the first in 

 honor, for he first reached this parallel 

 two hours ahead of the main party. As 

 it is, Bartlett hangs on his escutcheon 

 "The Highest North" up to that time, to 

 give away only to his chief in the still 

 higher claim of "no north, no south, no 

 east, no west." 



Even if Peary dared do so, he could 

 not have given the charge of his highly 

 honored returning party to any other 

 man under his command and do justice 

 to those faithful children of his who were 

 entitled to his protection. As far as a 

 witness to Peary reaching the pole is 

 concerned, if he needed one, he had the 

 best one living— Hensen — a faithful col- 

 ored man whose truthfulness had been 

 tested in twenty-three years of manly and 

 intelligent effort with his chief. Besides 

 this, he was a man fully competent to at 

 least record observations, and it is be- 

 lieved he could have made them himself. 



I have often been asked what is Com- 

 mander Peary's real title in the navy, and 

 some have questioned the propriety of 

 my calling him Commander. While 

 Commander Peary is not a commander in 

 the navy, he belongs to one of the most 

 important and highly respected corps of 

 the service — the Corps of Civil Engi- 

 neers — and really outranks, or soon will 

 do so, every commander in the navy. 



However this may be, if, after being 



in command of the Peary Arctic expedi- 

 tions for nearly twenty-three years, dis- 

 playing the highest degree of executive 

 and administrative ability, he is not a 

 commander, then I do not know what 

 the term implies. 



The North Polar Arctic Expedition of 

 1 908- 1 909, led by Commander Peary, 

 was not a "dash to the pole," as it is 

 popularly termed by the public, but was 

 a grand campaign laid out on truly mili- 

 tary lines like one of Napoleon's brilliant 

 inspirations, and as original in concep- 

 tion as any of that great soldier's. Peary 

 first went through a long span of years 

 in the study of Arctic conditions and in 

 the preparation of the force he was to 

 handle. This, when ready, was followed 

 by an advance of his lines from the east, 

 and resulted in the discovery of the in- 

 sularity of Greenland, and that the route 

 to the pole was not landward. He then 

 retreated to reconnoiter and find a weak 

 point in his adversary's defenses. After 

 a while he tried to blaze another trail, but 

 was driven back by the elements, those 

 great forces of nature before which man 

 is impotent. While his advance here 

 was made from a base west of the posi- 

 tion first attempted, it led him into fields 

 where the ice was broken, and the leads — 

 "those nightmares of Arctic explorers," 

 as Peary calls them — left him no recourse 

 but to retreat again-. 



The final assault on the North Pole, 

 the best defended and long resisting 

 stronghold of nature, was begun from a 

 point still farther west, where the land 

 jutted out into the Arctic Sea of ice much 

 nearer the pole than any other land from 

 which an advance was possible. From 

 here was begun that "last of the world's 

 great stories" which so simply and mod- 

 estly, and yet so graphically, has been 

 told by him. 



The forces were led up by divisions 

 with marvelous precision and discharged 

 their weapons, the only ones possible to 

 use in this campaign — provisions — and 

 then fell back, leaving the Commander 

 on the one hundred and thirtieth-mile 

 line to begin the real "dash to the pole." 

 From this point began the "Charge of 



