have made it to their interest to do what I want done. For example,
the best all-round man on a long sledge journey got more than the
others. A record was always kept of the game secured by each Eskimo, and
the best hunter got a special prize. Thus I kept them interested in
their work. The man who killed the musk ox with the finest set of horns
and the man who killed the deer with the most magnificent antlers were
specially rewarded. I have made it a point to be firm with them, but to
rule them by love and gratitude rather than by fear and threats. An
Eskimo, like an Indian, never forgets a broken promise--nor a fulfilled
one.

It would be misleading to infer that almost any man who went to the
Eskimos with gifts could obtain from them the kind of service they have
given me; for it must be remembered that they have known me personally
for nearly twenty years. I have saved whole villages from starvation,
and the children are taught by their parents that if they grow up and
become good hunters or good seamstresses, as the case may be,
"Pearyaksoah" will reward them sometime in the not too distant future.
Old Ikwah, for example, who is the father of the girl for whose
possession hot-hearted young Ooqueah of my North Pole party fought his
way with me to the goal, was the first Eskimo I had, away back in 1891.

This young knight of the Northland is an illustration of the fact that
sometimes an Eskimo man or woman may be as intense in his or her affairs
of the heart as we are. As a rule, however, they are more like children
in their affections, faithful to their mates from a sort of domestic
habit, but easily consoled for the loss of them by death or otherwise.

[Illustration: DECK SCENE ON THE ROOSEVELT]

CHAPTER VI

AN ARCTIC OASIS

In a little arctic oasis lives the meager and scattered handful of the
Eskimo population--a little oasis along the frowning western coast of
Northern Greenland between Melville Bay and Kane Basin. This region is
three thousand miles north of New York City, as a steamer goes; it lies
about half way between the Arctic Circle and the Pole, within the
confines of the great night. Here, taking the mean latitude, for one
hundred and ten days in summer the sun never sets; for one hundred and
ten days in winter the sun never rises, and no ray of light save from
the icy stars and the dead moon falls on the frozen landscape.

[Illustration: THE ICE CLIFFS OF HUBBARD GLACIER]

There is a s