as actually too exhausted to realize at
the moment that my life's purpose had been achieved. As soon as our
igloos had been completed and we had eaten our dinner and
double-rationed the dogs, I turned in for a few hours of absolutely
necessary sleep, Henson and the Eskimos having unloaded the sledges and
got them in readiness for such repairs as were necessary. But, weary
though I was, I could not sleep long. It was, therefore, only a few
hours later when I woke. The first thing I did after awaking was to
write these words in my diary: "The Pole at last. The prize of three
centuries. My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot
bring myself to realize it. It seems all so simple and commonplace."

Everything was in readiness for an observation[1] at 6 P.M., Columbia
meridian time, in case the sky should be clear, but at that hour it was,
unfortunately, still overcast. But as there were indications that it
would clear before long, two of the Eskimos and myself made ready a
light sledge carrying only the instruments, a tin of pemmican, and one
or two skins; and drawn by a double team of dogs, we pushed on an
estimated distance of ten miles. While we traveled, the sky cleared, and
at the end of the journey, I was able to get a satisfactory series of
observations at Columbia meridian midnight. These observations indicated
that our position was then beyond the Pole.

[Illustration: THE DOUBLE TEAM OF DOGS USED WITH THE RECONNOITERING
SLEDGE AT THE POLE, SHOWING THEIR ALERTNESS AND GOOD CONDITION

(Each Dog had Received Nearly Double the Standard Ration of One Pound of
Pemmican Per Day)]

Nearly everything in the circumstances which then surrounded us seemed
too strange to be thoroughly realized; but one of the strangest of those
circumstances seemed to me to be the fact that, in a march of only a few
hours, I had passed from the western to the eastern hemisphere and had
verified my position at the summit of the world. It was hard to realize
that, in the first miles of this brief march, we had been traveling due
north, while, on the last few miles of the same march, we had been
traveling south, although we had all the time been traveling precisely
in the same direction. It would be difficult to imagine a better
illustration of the fact that most things are relative. Again, please
consider the uncommon circumstance that, in order to return to our camp,
it now became necessary to turn and go north again for a fe