PEARY'S THRILLING NARRATIVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81916, 15 January 1907, Page 4

PEARY'S THRILLING NARRATIVE.

WHY THE DASH TO Till'. MtUTJI ] I'UI.E EAI LED. | "A 11EI.L OF SUATTEKEI) ICE." A thrilling taie of lb.- da-h for the North INilo is toM by ( IVrry in a telegraphic menage to tin? Now York Herald from Chateau l>ay, taihradorl giving full detai s of the enterprise from llith when the Roosevelt silled from Utah. North Greenland,,. After leaving Ktuh on her \v«iy north, the Roofvolt soon encountered ice, says Renter's New York correspondent. This made progress dan gerous and diiticult. On September M\. Cap.; ISheridan was reached. Th2 ice then enclosed and held the ship, and slio was fust there fur some days. The ice jambvd, damaging tlw propeller and rudder and unmercifully squeezing the vessel, which on the l>A\ was lifted till her propeller showed. The vessel was not floated ag.iin nil til the following summer. and this position perforce became headquarters. Supplies and equipments wrc landed on October 12th, and from the summil of Black Cape Peary saw the sun for the last time. Not till March Oth was it again seen,

It was on February 21*t that Peary started on his sledge trip in the direction of the Pole. Three marches brought him to Cape Ilecla, where the entire outfit assembled. The encamp mcnt comprised Rartlett. Wo'f. Marvin, Henson, Clarke. Ryan, Peary, twenty one Esquimaux, and 120 dogs. The plan concerted was to proceed in one main and iive or six division parties, which Peary hoped/ wou'd be able advance supplies and maintain communications with the selected base.

.siTPotmxu pAiri'iE* lost. At latitude 84.3$ Peary established a cache, in which instruments were placed for the supporting parlies. Pre ceded by llcn&oiij he then continued his journey, but three days later it began to blow heavily. The gale lasted six days, during which they were driven seventy miles eastward by the drifting of a, large. Hoc ou which tIKVv \i r - re encamped. Two of the Esquimaux weiv then sunt back for news. Tliev returned in seventy four hours and reported lint the ice was wide open to the south, and that they luul seen nothing of (he suppoitinj; parties. 'Tt was evident." continues Com mander l'eary, •'that 1 could no long er count 011 the slightest degree upon the supporting parties, and that whatever was to be done must be dene I>y a dash at Storm C'.inip, as our stop ping p'aee was called. Everything was abandoned that was not absolutely necessary, and we bent every energy on establishing a record.''

FURTHEST NORTH. By forced marches Peary on April 21st reached S7.o(ideg. "i thanked God," he says, "with as good a grace as possible for what wc had been able to accomplish, though it was but an empty bauble compared with the splendid jewel for which i wis strain ing my life. J3ut looking at my remaining dogs ami the nearly empiy sledges, and bearing in mind the moving ice and the nearly unknown quan tity of a big lead between us and the nearest land, 1 felt that I had cut the margin as narrow as could reasonably be expected.

"My flags were put out from the summit of the highest pinnacle lu-ar us, and a hundred feet or so beyond this I left a bottle containing a brief record and a piece of the Hag I had carried around the northern c(nd ot Greenland six years before. Then we returned to our last 'igloo' (lodge), making no camp here.'' •As the little party of explorers retraced their steps* the wind blew squarely in their faces. Jt was ac companicd by a line drift of snow, which cut like needles, nearly blinding them. Whenever the trail" was lost two Esquimaux were sent westward to pick it up again, if a lead (a wide crack in the ice) were encountered, one Esquimaux went east and another wc*t until a passage over was found. COOKING THE DOGS. ! After harking back to latitude 84. a big lead was encountered over which no crossing could be found. The party camped on a big Ho: 1 , which drifted steadily eastward. JI ere the dog* were driven away, and the sedge* broken up to cook the dog meal, which the pmty at •. s On the lifth day the two Esquimaux reported young ice a few miles dis tant, which the party eventually ero-sed on snow-shoes. "This wa> our chance or never/' writes Piaw. "The thin film crusting the black wa tcr beat and yielded beneath us. send j ing undulations in every dire lion. 1 I don't tare for another similar ex perieiiec. During tlie remainder ol this march and the next week W" cut away slowly tlyough such a he'l ol shattered ice as 1 hops never to see i

On May 12th the little parly drag ged themselves into the ice at the foot o; tiie Greenland coast at Cap,} Ncumayer. where they found four hares. "No one." he Fays, •"can imagine how delicioHs they were. 7 '

Peary here found fresh sledg.tracks. After a two hours' seep he sent two Esquimaux to follow' th" track. They returned n.-\t day with Clarke and his three Esquimaux, skull faced and wavering in gall Shorty afterwards seven mu>k oxen were secured. and for two days the party ate aud slept. BATTERED BY STORMS.

The remainder of the march back to the Roosevelt was accomplished without any extraordinary incident, and on July 31st tho vessel steamed for Thank God Jlnrbor. On August 251 h she was delayed bv the ice in Lady Franklin May, where the case seemed so hopeless that the explorers prepared for a second year's sojourn in the frozen North, but the Roose ve't managed to get free, and the vox ape wns resumed.

At Etah th n ship was beached for four days for repiiir-;. When more opi n water was reached storm aft.-r storm was encountered, and the Roosevelt was beaten back and forth for days. Hebron. Labrador, was r"ach ed on October Pith. and from that point details ot tii • relunf journey lave airoudj* been re^orU'd.