TIDINGS I ROM THE POLAR EXPLORING COLONY. 593 



spot, as a signal station, a relief party will be sent each succeeding year in the 

 early summer, taking new and well-fitted men to be substituted for those who 

 may desire, for any reason, to return. Thus has been begun a bold attack upon 

 the North Pole, which, for being yearly and methodical and slow, will, it is the 

 thought, be the more powerful and sure in the end. 



Senator Conger so wedded himself to the interest of this expedition last year 

 as in a great measure to have been the instrument of its success. In his honor 

 the place at which the house is built by the explorers, at Lady Franklin Bay, 

 is called Fort Conger. It is believed by the friends of the expedition that the 

 $300,000 promised as next year's appropriation will be granted and a new expe- 

 dition sent off as early as the last. In this behalf it is urged as now more proba- 

 ble than at any earlier period that the Pole will be neared first by Americans, 

 who with such steady and bold endeavor will not admit of final defeat. 



Following the last news of Dr. Pavy, written in September, 1880, and com- 

 municated Uy the Globe- Democrat in January, 1881, was a letter written at God- 

 haven, (Disco Island,) Greenland, April 15, 1881, and sent by a Danish vessel 

 via Europe, from which a few extracts of sentiment or travel have been obtained, 

 as also some from letters of later date up to the return of the Proteus in Septem- 

 ber, 1881. "At last," writes the Doctor, "after eight long months of silence, 

 which has remained unbroken by a word from the South world, where our inter- 

 est and affection lies centered, we are expecting a vessel from Denmark which 

 will bring truly according to song, ' tidings from afar.' How often, when per- 

 haps 100 miles from any human inhabitant, in the desert of the Arctic, driving 

 my Esquimaux dogs and sledge over rough and dangerous ice, surrounded by 

 cliffs and precipices of death, I might truly say, have I become totally oblivious 

 to these wild, almost unearthly, desolate scenes, and amidst cold, and snow, and 

 piercing wind, have suffered my mind, always warm with imagination, to carry 

 me back to the sunny South and St. Louis. In the dark days I have seen dark 

 hours, mentally, for it is all but superhuman to conquer the melancholy power of 

 a six-months' night, upon even the most buoyant spirit. Amidst the heat of this 

 mental battle I have received almost a material comfort and ease of mind during 

 the worst hours of anxiety, in reflecting upon what the end will be toward which 

 the aggregate of these dark hours and unhappy fates will tend — a glorious gleam 

 of scientific knowledge from out the darkness, which will light up a long unknown 

 history of the Arctic North, and even enhance to me what is now most beauteous, 

 the land where all is sun and light and civilization — the enlightened South. 



"The sun so long obscure is climbing higher at this date, the days are wax- 

 ing longer, and within a few weeks we will have news from that dear land where 

 our hearts, if not our ambitions are. To us it has been an oft-repeated question, 

 What has passed in the world during these months? Will any expedition be sent 

 to Greenland for our aid or otherwise ? What has been the fate of the gallant 

 DeLong and the Jeannette ? There is a feverish desire for news, which, in other 

 regions where distractions and diversions are, cannot be conceived of. It is al- 

 most the fever of disease which would seem to bear itself into medicinal avenues 



