298 
* 
THE ANTARCTIC FLAG. 
cliffs, he could get up but a few hundred feet. Here he 
fastened to his walking-pole the Grinncll flag of the 
Antarctic —a well-clierished little relic, which had now 
followed me on two Polar voyages. This flag had been 
saved from the wreck of the United States sloop-of-war 
Peacock, when she stranded oft’ the Columbia River; it 
had accompanied Commodore Wilkes in his far-southern 
discovery of an Antarctic continent. It was now its 
strange destiny to float over the highest northern land, 
not only of America but of our globe. Side by side 
with this were our Masonic emblems of the compass 
and the square. He let them fly for an hour and a half 
from the black cliff over the dark rock-shadowed 
waters, which rolled up and broke in white caps at its 
base. 
He was bitterly disappointed that he could not get 
round the cape, to see whether there was any land 
beyond; but it was impossible. Rejoining Hans, they 
supped off their bread and pemmican, and, after a good 
nap, started on their return on Sunday, the 25th, at 
1.30 p.m. From Thursday night, the 22d, up to Sunday 
at noon, the wind had been blowing steadily from the 
north, and for thirty-six hours of the time it blew a 
gale. But as he returned, he remarked that the more 
southern ice toward Kennedy Channel was less than it 
had been when he passed up. At the mouth of the 
channel it was more broken than when he saw it 
before, but the passage above was clear. About half¬ 
way between the farthest point which he reached and 
the channel, the few small lumps of ice which he ob- 
