stay at the Pole. During the
dark moments of that return journey in 1906, I had told myself that I
was only one in a long list of arctic explorers, dating back through the
centuries, all the way from Henry Hudson to the Duke of the Abruzzi, and
including Franklin, Kane, and Melville--a long list of valiant men who
had striven and failed. I told myself that I had only succeeded, at the
price of the best years of my life, in adding a few links to the chain
that led from the parallels of civilization towards the polar center,
but that, after all, at the end the only word I had to write was
failure.

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARD CAPE CHELYUSKIN]

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARD SPITZBERGEN]

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARD CAPE COLUMBIA]

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARD BERING STRAIT]

(The Four Directions from the Pole)

But now, while quartering the ice in various directions from our camp, I
tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and
discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my
country at the goal of the world's desire. It is not easy to write about
such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with
the last of the great adventure stories--a story the world had been
waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story which was to be
told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, the flag that
during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of
home and everything I loved--and might never see again.

[Illustration: RETURNING TO CAMP WITH THE FLAGS, APRIL 7, 1909]

The thirty hours at the Pole, what with my marchings and
countermarchings, together with the observations and records, were
pretty well crowded. I found time, however, to write to Mrs. Peary on a
United States postal card which I had found on the ship during the
winter. It had been my custom at various important stages of the journey
northward to write such a note in order that, if anything serious
happened to me, these brief communications might ultimately reach her at
the hands of survivors. This was the card, which later reached Mrs.
Peary at Sydney:--

"90 NORTH LATITUDE, April 7th.

"_My dear Jo_,

"I have won out at last. Have been here a day. I
start for home and you in an hour. Love to the
"kidsies."

"BERT."

In the afternoon of the 7th, after flying our flags and taking our
photo