352 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [parti 
quarters. But a severe frost-bite, necessitating the 
amputation of a finger, prevented him from leading 
the main journey. His place was ably filled by his second 
in command, Captain Cagni of the Italian Navy. 
Captain Cagni arranged his scheme for travelling 
with great care. His sledges and tents were on Nansen's 
pattern, but he altered the reindeer-skin sleeping bags 
so as to have room for three persons. Three limited 
parties of four sledges each were to enable the fourth 
extended party to start full after the 45th day. The 
sledges constantly required repairs, and were in worse 
condition every day. Captain Cagni encountered the 
same difficulties as Nansen from lines of pressed-up 
hummocks and lanes of water. He succeeded in getting 
a few miles beyond Nansen's furthest to 86° 33' N. 
Detentions by gales of wind and other misfortunes 
threw out the original scheme, but the most important 
lesson taught by Cagni's journey is the danger of steering 
in a wrong direction, and the absolute necessity for 
frequent observations to obtain true bearings. As he 
approached the land again he found that he was fifty 
miles out in longitude. This shows the necessity for 
taking amplitude observations of the sun whenever it 
is possible. In going towards the Pole it is still more 
essential, for to attempt to reach a point like the Pole 
without a true course constantly verified must inevitably 
lead to error. Cagni and his party suffered great hard- 
ships before they succeeded in reaching the ship again. 
Peary commenced the first of his three attempts to 
reach the North Pole in 1896, when he reported having 
been to 85 0 N., travelling from the north coast of Elles- 
mere Island. His plan was to hire the sledges and dogs 
of the Arctic Highlanders and to get the natives to drive, 
so that the white man merely has to walk alongside. 
The Danes have always travelled in this way ; indeed it 
is a necessity when the white man has no companion or 
only one or two, and nothing could be better for journeys 
along the Greenland coast or over the inland ice. Peary, 
who holds that the fewer white men in an expedition the 
greater its chance of success, also thinks that the Eskimo 
dress of furs is the best, but there is much difference of 
opinion on this point. 
