United States or Anguilla ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Captain Blanford had been with the auxiliary supply ship of the Peary Arctic expedition during the summer and told us of having left Commander Peary at eighty degrees north latitude in August. The expedition, he told us, would probably winter as high as eighty-three degrees north, and he was highly enthusiastic over the good prospects of Peary's success in at least reaching "Farthest North."
And then the other and equally important part of the lesson, how pluck and courage in themselves could never have solved the problem; how knowledge was essential, and how that knowledge had been gained: some of it from the experience of early explorers, how to avoid the dreaded scurvy, how to build a ship that could withstand the tremendous pressure of the floes; and some from the Eskimos, how to live in that barren region, and how to travel with dogs and sledges; and some, too, from Peary's own early experiences, how he had struggled for twenty years to reach the goal, and had added this experience to that until finally the prize was his.
In my own cabin I had Dickens' "Bleak House," Kipling's "Barrack Room Ballads," and the poems of Thomas Hood; also a copy of the Holy Bible, which had been given to me by a dear old lady in Brooklyn, N. Y. I also had Peary's books, "Northward Over the Great Ice," and his last work "Nearest the Pole."
What qualities of the true explorer does Peary show? What picture do you get of the country in which the travelers journeyed? What do you know of Peary's later expedition? Do you think the descriptions would be so purely objective if they were written by the explorer himself?
Commander Peary's boy, Egingwah, was the brother of my boy Ootah, also married and of good report in his community, and it was he who drove the Morris K. Jesup sledge. If there was any sentiment among the Esquimos in regard to the success of the venture, Ootah and Seegloo by their unswerving loyalty and fidelity expressed it.
Indeed the dogs made life a burden for the poor brutes from the very start. Mrs. Peary was again a member of the expedition, as well as another woman, Mrs. Cross, who acted as Mrs. Peary's maid and nurse. It was on this trip that I adopted the orphan Esquimo boy, Kudlooktoo, his mother having died just previous to our arrival at the Red Cliffs.
By all the lessons that history teaches, Peary's word should have had precedence over Cook's, for Peary was a specialist, while Cook was only an amateur. And yet the general public discounted entirely those lessons, and trusted rather the novice, with what results it is now unnecessary to review, and in nine cases out of ten, the results will be the same.
"You have paid well for your mistake by twelve years of exile, and as for the money, we'll take that back with us." Timmie smiled. "I'll be happy for the first time in twelve years when it's gone," he said. "I say, Major," exclaimed Bruce, "I've been thinking of those white reindeer. Don't you suppose that solves the problem of Peary's white reindeer?"
Burke would come; he knew Burke. A thousand miles overland was nothing to him. Hadn't he wagered five thousand dollars at the club that he would fly to the pole and bring back Peary's flag with no takers? Why, Burke would take him home with as little trouble as a taxicab. And then, aghast, he remembered the complete destruction in the valley. The wireless plant had gone with the rest.
We may differ as to the value of Peary's deed, but that it stands as a type of what success in any undertaking means, no one can deny. And this was the lesson that these eighth-grade pupils were absorbing, the world-old lesson before which all others fade into insignificance, the lesson, namely, that achievement can be gained only by those who are willing to pay the price.
Word Of The Day