rly stages of our journey as we
were in 1905. In fact, every omen was auspicious from the very start, so
auspicious indeed that perhaps the more superstitious of the sailors
thought our luck was too good to last, while one member of our
expedition was continually "knocking on wood," just as a precaution, as
he expressed it. It would be rash to say that his forethought had much
to do with our success, but it eased his mind, at all events.

As we steamed steadily northward the nights grew shorter and shorter,
and lighter and lighter, so that when we crossed the Arctic Circle, soon
after midnight on July 26, we were in perpetual daylight. I have crossed
the Circle some twenty times, going and coming, so the fine edge of that
experience has been somewhat dulled for me; but the arctic "tenderfeet"
among my party, Dr. Goodsell, MacMillan, and Borup, were appropriately
impressed. They felt as one feels in crossing the equator the first
time--that it is an event.

The _Roosevelt_, steaming ever northward, was now well on her way to one
of the most interesting of all arctic localities. It is the little oasis
amid a wilderness of ice and snow along the west coast of northern
Greenland midway between Kane Basin on the north and Melville Bay on the
south. Here, in striking contrast to the surrounding country, is animal
and vegetable life in plenty, and in the course of the last hundred
years some half dozen arctic expeditions have wintered here. Here, too,
is the home of a little tribe of Eskimos.

[Illustration: SNOWY OWL, CAPE SHERIDAN]

[Illustration: BRANT-GOOSE]

[Illustration: SABINE'S GULL]

[Illustration: RED-THROATED DIVER, MALE AND FEMALE]

[Illustration: KING EIDER, DRAKE]

This little refuge is about a 3,000 mile sail from New York and about
2,000 miles as the bird flies. It is about 600 miles north of the Arctic
Circle and about half way from that great latitudinal mark to the Pole
itself. Here the great arctic night averages one hundred and ten days in
winter, during which time no ray of light falls upon the sight, save
that of the moon and the stars, while in summer the sun is visible every
moment for an equal number of days. Within the limits of this little
country is found the favorite haunt of the reindeer, which find
sufficient pasturage. But we are interested for the present in this
unique spot only in passing and for the reason that here we picked up
the little denizens of the frigid zone who were to h