TO the lecturer the introduction is the most interesting part of his lecture, in that it is generally so complimentary that his feeling of guilt and a sense of his own inferiority mars somewhat his whole discourse. My cabin boy, Kennett Rawson, suffers no handicap in this respect. His work is finished. Whatever I may write will not affect its status. His narrative stands as a testimonial of the influence of good and much reading. Very few will believe that such language is natural for a fourteen

ONE warm June evening I was sitting up in my room supposedly studying, but actually all thoughts of study had long since gone where most good resolutions go. Who can study on a mild June evening anyway? I can study almost any other time, but on such occasions my thoughts go fluie, and I am off to Treasure Island or with Jules Verne. I was somewhere in those latitudes when a rap sounded on my door. I thought just retribution had overtaken me in the form of a master; so I opened a text book, scatt

THE next day was to be a very interesting one. In the first place the Commander was coming in the evening, and secondly the cook was arriving. The time-honored tradition on shipboard is that next in importance to the captain comes the cook. My stomach was in full accord with this theory, and I was anxious to see the arbiter of its destiny. As soon as I got to know him I knew my trust had not been misplaced. Martin Vorce was the best cook and had the finest disposition I ever saw wrapped up in hu

AT noon the next day, Sunday, June 21st, we put to sea from the last outpost of the United States that we should see until our return. As we circled the islands, a fishing boat filled with enthusiastic members of the Civitan Club, who had come all the way from Minneapolis to see us off, came alongside and throwing huge codfish aboard shouted the last farewells we heard in home waters from fellow citizens. In a few moments a Bay of Fundy fog had swallowed us up, and the curtain had dropped on the

DR. GRENFELL’S staff were down at the dock to welcome us, and they soon made us realize that American hospitality is the same the world around. Although Labrador is English territory, the hospital is manned and, to improvise an expression, “womanned” by Americans. A doctor, three nurses and three college men, all of whom had volunteered to serve for the summer, made up the staff of the hospital. In every way possible they strove to make our stay in Battle Harbor an enjoyable one, and they certai

IT was with regret that at dawn on the day following we bade farewell to Battle Harbor and the hospitable Grenfell workers and squared away for Hopedale whence we would make the long leg to Greenland. While on the way to Hopedale we crossed the mouth of Hamilton Inlet, a great fiord or arm of the sea that penetrates the land for a hundred miles. From this fiord extends a river containing one of the largest waterfalls in the world, the Grand Falls of the Hamilton River. Early the next morning we

HOPEDALE, with the exception of Makkovik, which harbors only two families, is the southernmost settlement of the Eskimos and one of the principal posts of the Moravian missions. Unknown to the world at large, the Moravians have been carrying on a wonderful missionary work on this desolate coast and great have been their services. In the first place they have formed the one barrier between the primitive Eskimo and the ruin which has been the inevitable accompaniment of contact with the white race

NO sooner were we at anchor in Hopedale Harbor than I noticed the approach of several large boats filled with strange-looking, brown folk, different from any I had ever before seen. For a moment I was at a loss to explain them; then suddenly I remembered that we had arrived in Eskimo Land. I stared with interest and surprise. These were not the kind of people I had seen in pictures! These were not the grotesque, fur-swathed barbarians that my mind had conceived. With the exception of dark skin a

AFTER enduring a week of insufficient tides and diabolical attacks on the part of the mosquitoes, we at last managed to put in place the new propeller. What a sigh of relief we all gave when the last nut was screwed on and the little Bowdoin was once more in trim to continue her voyage. We were at last through with Labrador and Hopedale, and ready to square away for that land of many myths—Greenland. Once more we wended our way through Windy Tickle and Jack Lane’s Bay, where we bade farewell to

AFTER we had been in port a good part of the morning, the Peary hoisted anchor and started towards the mouth of the harbor, and we needs must follow suit. In the meantime we had loaded up with water and had had a brief rest from our sea voyage. We wanted to reach Etah on August 1st at the latest, and as it was then well along in July it was necessary to make as much haste as was convenient. Therefore, we pushed straight on from Disko Island to South Upernavik as fast as wind and tide would permi

EARLY on the morning of August 1st, we broke through the last of the pack of Cape York and laid our course around the shore ice as yet unbroken from the Cape. In a short time we had rounded it and were finally out of Melville Bay, a departure which caused no sorrow on the part of any of us. The body of water which we had now entered was known as Smith Sound, a name given it by William Baffin in honor of one of his supporters. It stretches from Cape York to beyond Etah where it opens out into Kan

WHILE we were in Etah, Dr. Koelz, the expedition’s naturalist, decided that he would like to travel a few miles up the Greenland shore to collect specimens. As he needed someone to help him row the dory and run the outboard motor which he intended to use, I volunteered to go with him. This arrangement being approved by the Commander, we cast off from the ship at about ten o’clock on the night of August 15th. With us journeyed two Eskimos, Panikpa and Kanga, who wished to reach the Eskimo settlem

THE formation of new ice on the surface of Etah Fiord grimly brought home to us the dread reality that the relentless Arctic winter was now all but upon us. To flee before this dire warning was our only recourse, and the Commander ruefully gave the word to pack up and make all speed for home. The elements had barred our way to the great unknown area of the Polar Sea, but we had at least carried the outer ramparts through our new and untried means of attack by air. Now the time for temporizing ha

AFTER several days of the gay and intimate life of this “Venice of the North,” so-called because of its many waterways and numerous islands, and the Latin temperament of its inhabitants, we regretfully set sail for Godthaab. There we loaded fuel oil and also visited some very interesting Norse ruins dating back to the year 1000 A.D. These were sixty miles up a fiord, not far from the spot where Nansen came down from the ice-cap after his first crossing of Greenland. On the way to these ruins we