6th April the Pole was reached.

"The Pole at last!" writes Peary in his diary. "The prize of three
centuries! My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last! I cannot
bring myself to realise it. It all seems so simple and commonplace."

Flags were at once hoisted on ice lances, and the successful explorer
watched them proudly waving in the bright Arctic sunlight at the Pole.
Through all his perilous expeditions to the Arctic regions, Peary had
worn a silken flag, worked by his wife, wrapped round his body. He
now flew it on this historic spot, "which knows no North, nor West,
nor East."

[Illustration: PEARY'S FLAG FLYING AT THE NORTH POLE, APRIL 1909. By
the courteous permission of Admiral Peary, from his book _The North
Pole_, published by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton.]

Not a vestige of land was to be seen; nothing but ice lay all around.
They could not stay long, for provisions would run short, and the ice
might melt before their return journey was accomplished.

So after a brief rest they started off for Cape Columbia, which they
reached after a wild rush of sixteen days. It had taken them
thirty-seven days to cover the four hundred and seventy-five miles
from Cape Columbia to the Pole, from which they had returned at the
rate of thirty miles a day.

The whole party then started for the _Roosevelt_, and on 18th July
she was taken from her winter quarters and turned towards home. Then
came the day when wireless telegraphy flashed the news through the
whole of the civilised world: "Stars and Stripes nailed to the North
Pole."

The record of four hundred years of splendid self-sacrifice and
heroism unrivalled in the history of exploration had been crowned at
last.

CHAPTER LXXIII

THE QUEST FOR THE SOUTH POLE

An American had placed the Stars and Stripes on the North Pole in 1909.
It was a Norwegian who succeeded in reaching the South Pole in 1911.
But the spade-work which contributed so largely to the final success
had been done so enthusiastically by two Englishmen that the
expeditions of Scott and Shackleton must find a place here before we
conclude this _Book of Discovery_ with Amundsen's final and brilliant
dash.

The crossing of the Antarctic Circle by the famous _Challenger_
expedition in 1874 revived interest in the far South. The practical
outcome of much discussion was the design of the _Discovery_, a ship
built expressly for scientific exploration, and the appointment of
Captain Sco