as they were on board we started north again.

There was no question of their willingness to follow me; they were only
too glad to go. These men knew from past experience that, once enrolled
as members of my expedition, there was no danger that their wives or
children would suffer from hunger; and they knew also that at the end of
the journey, when we brought them back to their homes, I would turn over
to them the remaining supplies and equipment of the expedition, which
would ensure living for another year in absolute plenty, that, in
comparison with the other members of their tribe, they would indeed be
multi-millionaires.

An intense and restless curiosity is one of the peculiar characteristics
of these people. As an illustration, one winter, years ago, when Mrs.
Peary was in Greenland with me, an old woman of the tribe walked a
hundred miles from her village to our winter quarters in order that she
might see a white woman.

It may perhaps be fairly said that it has been my fortune to utilize the
Eskimos for the purpose of discovery to a degree equaled by no other
explorer, and for that reason it may not seem amiss to suspend the
general narrative long enough to give a little information regarding
their characteristics, the more so as without some knowledge of these
peculiar people it would be impossible for any one really to understand
the workings of my expedition to the North Pole. It has been a
fundamental principle of all my arctic work to utilize the Eskimos for
the rank and file of my sledge parties. Without the skilful handiwork of
the women we should lack the warm fur clothing which is absolutely
essential to protect us from the winter cold, while the Eskimo dog is
the only tractive force suitable for serious arctic sledge work.

The members of this little tribe or family, inhabiting the western coast
of Greenland from Cape York to Etah, are in many ways quite different
from the Eskimos of Danish Greenland, or those of any other arctic
territory. There are now between two hundred and twenty and two hundred
and thirty in the tribe. They are savages, but they are not savage; they
are without government, but they are not lawless; they are utterly
uneducated according to our standard, yet they exhibit a remarkable
degree of intelligence. In temperament like children, with all a child's
delight in little things, they are nevertheless enduring as the most
mature of civilized men and women, and the best of them