r I
felt that the end of our journey had come. When we handed him the pan of
mercury the hour was within a very few minutes of noon. Lying flat on
his stomach, he took the elevation and made the notes on a piece of
tissue-paper at his head. With sun-blinded eyes, he snapped shut the
vernier (a graduated scale that subdivides the smallest divisions on the
sector of the circular scale of the sextant) and with the resolute
squaring of his jaws, I was sure that he was satisfied, and I was
confident that the journey had ended.

The Commander gave the word, "We will plant the Stars and Stripes--_at
the North Pole_!" and it was done; on the peak of a huge paleocrystic
floeberg the glorious banner was unfurled to the breeze, and as it
snapped and crackled with the wind, I felt a savage joy and exultation.
Another world's accomplishment was done and finished, and as in the
past, from the beginning of history, wherever the world's work was done
by a white man, he had been accompanied by a colored man. From the
building of the pyramids and the journey to the Cross, to the discovery
of the North Pole, the Negro had been the faithful and constant
companion of the Caucasian, and I felt all that it was possible for me
to feel, that it was I, a lowly member of my race, who had been chosen
by fate to represent it, at this, almost the last of the world's great
work.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN

Benjamin Banneker was born in the State of Maryland, in the year 1732,
of pure African parentage; their blood never having been corrupted by
the introduction of a drop of Anglo-Saxon. His father was a slave, and
of course could do nothing towards the education of the child. The
mother, however, being free, succeeded in purchasing the freedom of her
husband, and they, with their son, settled on a few acres of land, where
Benjamin remained during the lifetime of his parents. His entire
schooling was gained from an obscure country school, established for the
education of the children of free negroes; and these advantages were
poor, for the boy appears to have finished studying before he arrived at
his fifteenth year.

Although out of school, Banneker was still a student, and read with
great care and attention such books as he could get. Mr. George
Ellicott, a gentlemen of fortune and considerable literary taste, and
who resided near to Benjamin, became interested in him, and lent him
books from his large library. Among thes