vert to that stage of life by
leaps and bounds, and to emerge from it by the same sudden means. Many
and many a time, for periods covering more than twelve months, I have
been to all intents an Esquimo, with Esquimos for companions, speaking
their language, dressing in the same kind of clothes, living in the same
kind of dens, eating the same food, enjoying their pleasures, and
frequently sharing their griefs. I have come to love these people. I
know every man, woman, and child in their tribe. They are my friends and
they regard me as theirs.

After the first return to civilization, I was to come back to the
savage, ice- and rock-bound country seven times more. It was in June,
1893, that I again sailed north with Commander Peary and his party on
board the _Falcon_, a larger ship than the _Kite_, the one we sailed
north in on the previous expedition, and with a much larger equipment,
including several burros from Colorado, which were intended for ice-cap
work, but which did not make good, making better dog-food instead.
Indeed the dogs made life a burden for the poor brutes from the very
start. Mrs. Peary was again a member of the expedition, as well as
another woman, Mrs. Cross, who acted as Mrs. Peary's maid and nurse. It
was on this trip that I adopted the orphan Esquimo boy, Kudlooktoo, his
mother having died just previous to our arrival at the Red Cliffs.
After this boy was washed and scrubbed by me, his long hair cut short,
and his greasy, dirty clothes of skins and furs burned, a new suit made
of odds and ends collected from different wardrobes on the ship made him
a presentable Young American. I was proud of him, and he of me. He
learned to speak English and slept underneath my bunk.

This expedition was larger in numbers than the previous one, but the
results, owing to the impossible weather conditions, were by no means
successful, and the following season all of the expedition returned to
the United States except Commander Peary, Hugh J. Lee, and myself. When
the expedition returned, there were two who went back who had not come
north with us. Miss Marie Ahnighito Peary, aged about ten months, who
first saw the light of day at Anniversary Lodge on the 12th of the
previous September, was taken by her mother to her kinfolks in the
South. Mrs. Peary also took a young Esquimo girl, well known among us as
"Miss Bill," along with her, and kept her for nearly a year, when she
gladly permitted her to return to Greenla