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There was little left for them to eat but small fish, for you see the whites had taken away or destroyed their food supplies. "One day, in 1891, an American vessel discovered an entire village of Esquimos starving, being reduced to eating their dogs, and it was thought quite time that the government did something for these people whose land they had bought.
A fine and plucky young man, whose cheerful manner and ready willingness had made him a prime favorite; and he had done his work like an old campaigner. At the time of Borup's turning southward, Captain Bartlett, with two Esquimos, started out to the north to make trail. He was to act as pioneer.
Even the Esquimos catch it, and frequently Charley has to interrupt the upward development of some ambitious native, who has suddenly perceived the need of ablutions, and has started to scrub himself in the water that is intended for cooking purposes. If the husky has not gone too far, the water is not wasted, and our stew is all the more savory.
He is the "life of the funeral" and by his cheerfulness has kept our spirits from sinking to a dead level, and when the Esquimos commenced to get cranky, by his diplomacy he brought them to think of other subjects than going back to the ship.
When we "hit the beach for fair" it was early in the morning of April 23, 1909, nearly seventeen days since we had left the Pole, but such a seventeen days of haste, toil, and misery as cannot be comprehended by the mind. We who experienced it, Commander Peary, the Esquimos, and myself, look back to it as to a horrid nightmare, and to describe it is impossible for me.
Alcoholic drinks are not known among this tribe; but, of late, tobacco is extensively used. Previous to 1902, before the arrival of the Danes, tobacco was an unknown quantity. The cleanliness of the Esquimos leaves room for much improvement. With reference to their morals, strictly speaking they are markedly lax.
One of the first questions which Commander Peary was asked when he returned home from his long, patient, and finally successful struggle to reach the Pole was how it came about that, beside the four Esquimos, Matt Henson, a Negro, was the only man to whom was accorded the honor of accompanying him on the final dash to the goal.
We see the tree with its strange system of water-works, pumping the sap up through pipes and mains; we see the chemical laboratory in the branches mixing flavor for the orange in one bough, mixing the juices of the pineapple in another; we behold the tree as a mother, making each infant acorn ready against the long winter, rolling it in swaths soft and warm as wool blankets, wrapping it around with garments impervious to the rain, and finally slipping the infant acorn into a sleeping bag, like those the Esquimos gave Dr.
The four Esquimos who stood with Commander Peary at the North Pole, were the brothers, Ootah and Egingwah, the old campaigner, Seegloo, and the sturdy, boyish Ooqueah. Four devoted companions, blindly confident in the leader, they worked only that he might succeed and for the promise of reward that had been made before they had left the ship, which promise they were sure would be kept.
The system of our marches from now on was that the first party, or pioneers, which consisted of Captain Bartlett, myself, and our Esquimos, should be trail-making, while the second party, consisting of Commander Peary and Marvin, with their Esquimos, should be sleeping; and while the first party was sleeping, the second should be traveling over the trail previously made.
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