ptional temperature.

We started with about one hundred guests of the Peary Arctic Club on
board the _Roosevelt_, and several members of the Club, including the
president, General Thomas H. Hubbard; the vice-president, Zenas Crane;
and the secretary and treasurer, Herbert L. Bridgman.

As we steamed up the river the din grew louder and louder, the whistles
of the power-houses and the factories adding their salutations to the
tooting of the river craft. At Blackwell's Island many of the inmates
were out in force to wave us their good-bys, and their farewells were
not the less appreciated because given by men whom society had placed
under restraint for society's good. Anyhow, they wished us well. I hope
they are all enjoying liberty now, and, what is better, deserving it.
Near Fort Totten we passed President Roosevelt's naval yacht, the
_Mayflower_, and her small gun roared out a parting salute, while the
officers and men waved and cheered. Surely no ship ever started for the
end of the earth with more heart-stirring farewells than those which
followed the _Roosevelt_.

Just before we reached the Stepping Stone Light, Mrs. Peary, the members
and guests of the Peary Arctic Club, and myself were transferred to the
tug _Narkeeta_ and returned to New York. The ship went on to Oyster Bay,
Long Island, the summer home of President Roosevelt, where Mrs. Peary
and I were to lunch with the President and Mrs. Roosevelt the following
day.

Theodore Roosevelt is to me the most intensely vital man, and the
biggest man, America has ever produced. He has that vibrant energy and
enthusiasm which is the basis of all real power and accomplishment. When
it came to christening the ship by whose aid it was hoped to fight our
way toward the most inaccessible spot on earth, the name of _Roosevelt_
seemed to be the one and inevitable choice. It held up as ideals before
the expedition those very qualities of strength, insistence,
persistence, and triumph over obstacles, which have made the
twenty-sixth President of the United States so great.

In the course of that last luncheon at Sagamore Hill, President
Roosevelt reiterated what he had said to me so many times before, that
he was earnestly and profoundly interested in my work, and that he
believed I would succeed if success were possible.

After luncheon the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, with their three sons,
came on board the ship with Mrs. Peary and me. Mr. Bridgman was on deck,
to w