"JUST MY LUCK,"

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1416, 17 April 1912, Page 4

"JUST MY LUCK,"

A MODEST EXPLORER. CAPTAIN AMUNDSEN IN MELBOURNE. HIS POWKIUTT, PKKSONALITT. Universal surprise, universal excitement, universal congratulations do not fall to tho lot. of many men. Captain liaohl Amundsen, tho most-talked-of man in the world to-day bustled info the Melbourne Club (in Melbourne) recently, hid himself in tho strangers' room, opened a mail ns formidable as that of a Prime Minister, and, having read his cables, telegrams, and letters, set out to endeavour to convince an interviewer that he had accomplished nothing out of the ordinary. "It was just my luck." In this simple phrase ho summed up tho locating of tho .South Pole.

A loose-framed giant (says the "Sun"), ■ with the rolhiiß gait of a sailor, Captain Amundsen, with his deeply-lined face, and us grey-tipped hair, looks more liko 50 than 39 years, which ho count?. Ho is tho >ypical Viking, with tho flowing locks missing, for baldness is creeping up each .side ni his forehead and on the crown of Ins head, lie has the steady ev«s and tho prominent nose of the man" whose joy in lite is to overcome all obstacles. There is not an ounce of surplus flesh oa his body. In his pepper and salt homespun suit, the strong, flexible muscles can lw seen to piny as ho moves, lie has big. roomy, macular hands—(he hands of a man who has done much hard work—and yet they are hands which hove about tlieni the delicacy of touch which is suggestive- of the surgeon, and the cable message in his hand is as steady as a rock as he reads it. Slow of speech, ho had not a complete mastery of English. Ho speaks with a Norwegian accent. "Pe nir vas ferry warm veil vc vas.mounting der plateau which leads to der bole," lio said in the course of conversation, but as he warms to his subject the accent is less noticeable. Hut the language is nothing. The story is everything. The man sinks his own individuality as if ho were merely an agent, to whom no honour is duo A more modest explorer has hot. come back from either of the Poles, lie is heavy, in the sense that: soma foreigners seem to-be, but. it is the heaviness of strength. One can understand how nobody could get one word about, his feat from him until ho was ready to talk. Enthusiasm, courage, and determination are stamped on his features. If he enters nny room one would instantly feel that subtle magnetism which heralds the appearance of a masterful personality. Like a Holiday Jaunt. He talks about his dash as if it were just a holiday jaunt, specially arranged •by Cook's Bureau, and as he talks tho diffidence of a schoolboy creeps into his 'conversation. Tlio vein of thought carries him forward with a rush of simple but graphic description, and suddenly he pulls himself up. The brightness that has lit up his face vanishes. He tucks away his feet and sits bashfully bolt upright, as if he had been guilty of vainglory. • The published story of his dash of over l<0!) miles by sledge was so excellently ■compacted that there is little he can add to it in a. few minutes' talk. But it is obvious that half a day's gossip would elicit a story of adventure no less exciting than that of Shackleton or Scott. Besides, the intrepid explorer is going to .lecture, and lie is not giving away his ciipy in advance. Therefore, his "story is an ancient tale new told. A peep at the lot* coloured picture?, which he will use to illuminate his lecture, is sum- , cient, however, to convince anyone that it will bo worth going a lung way to hear. ■

"\\ e were most extraordinarily fortunate, said Captain Amundsen. "After the ihrst attempt tho thermometer fell to SS dog. below. Everything favoured'us. The ■men could stand that oold, but the dogs could not'. They had to sloop out in the open air, and the poor beasl.s shivered and .shivered. In our reindeer-skin bags, inside a double covering of (out, awl with .11. Primus ;stove, wo could face tho elements nml-l>nU'l« on. lint the dogs could not do it: When we commenced our real march, however, they were jumping out ot thoir skins with life. We jumped behind the sledws on our skis, and they earned us the day's march of 30 milts at 11 tremendous pace. All we hud to do was to linng mi. In climbing the rising land beyond the barrier wo had, of eonr.se, to to slower. But our luck followed us. Here we expected to be buffeted by blizzards and. to be baffled by fogs, but wo oiily struck one bad blizzard when wo wore <>u a vast plateau at an altitudo of 10,1.00 h, Our faces were badly frozen, and the nain in restoring circulation was excruciating, but what else could one expect ? Warm Near the Pole. "As the leader of the party I was, of course, on ahead. Ono of my assistants stumbled somehow into a crevasse, and had a narrow squeak. 1 somehow missed all the trouble.' Our most curious experience was probably after wo left tho Uevil s Glacier. Wα seemed to be walking along i>. frozen sea. There was the most woiuleilul echo beneath our feet, anil it. seciiiocl a* if we wore on a thin laver of ice spread over immense depths, Wo had good reason to know (lint the surface was deceptive and treacherous. Without anv wariHiie, a man and two of the do«s pitched headlong into hidden holes. JJuit docs not ho saiiic thins sometimes occur even m the cities? Wo got (hem out, and went straight on again. . ' t was warm •■going to tho Pole. The cold was never more than 2.S below zero, and we enjoyed splendid health. None of us was ever sick or sorry. We lived on tho same food the whole time-pemmican, chocolate, biscuits, and powdered milkanil we cooked 'hoosli' on a Primus stove, iwo meals a day were all that we needed. Y\« never ate once we were on the inarch. \\ e had breakfast at about fi o clock, and we had our other meal when- , ever we hod finished the day's run. Wo ato well, slept well, had plenty to occupy our attention, and were in fiiie'fettle wheii «'<; Passed Shackleton's farthest south. the polo is a very uninteresting place. It. is just a vast weird wilderness and waste of ice. There is no life of any Kind. ..-Imagine yourself on a flat plain, which runs on and on for miles in monotonous sterility, and you havo a perfect picture of it. • The instruments, however, proved that it dipped. The dip is not patent to the naked eye, but the instruments showed that it exists. That great ploatean dips right down towards the American continent. Observations Every Hour. "What were our feelings when wo reached the Pole? Frankly, Ido not think we had any 6pecial sensation of elation. You .see we knew for three or four days before that we were going to locate the exact spot, and so we were gradually accustomed to the idea. As a matter of fact, we were five miles out in our first guess of the precise position of the Pole. By means of our scientific instruments, which are tho same as those used every day on ships, and (he sun, we discovered beyond any question the absolute centre. After all, five miles here or there docs not much matter, does it? But we were extra cautious after the Cook trouble, fo for three days four of us separately took observations every hour, and so far as it is humanly possible I think our fixing can be accepted as accurate; "Would it be possible (0 make a (rip risrht across? Yes, I cerfainlv think it would. You would, of course, have to have two ships and two parlies, workinir from (lie opposite points. The expeditions would have- to be laid from each end. and then the party coiiM «o right through. No. a motor-cur would no! bo miv use down there. The crevasses are too frequent and too wide. The' only way to get through it is with iloss. Thev pulled u<, back to our main camp in great style, and il was so warm that we did not net inside our .sleeping 1m.2«. We just lo.v on j top of them in the tents. I know Omt upsel* preconceived nolions about the Aretio region?; but that was our experience." Captain Amundsen ii nn hereditarv «cv mnn. Hip father ai"l his father's father sailed Ihe ocean. Tie was brought up amidst the everlasline snow in Norway, and his brain w,is fired with disease to petielrate (he Anl-n'clic by reading a life of Sir John Franklin.