Читать книгу Beyond Adventure - Roy Chapman Andrews - Страница 23

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After several more perilous days, the Roosevelt won through to the Arctic Ocean and was berthed in a niche in the ice foot at Cape Sheridan, but not in a safe position. It was the best they could do, for heavy floes lined the shore. Hunting parties were sent out to the inland Lake Hazen district and returned with musk oxen, caribou, hares, and salmon trout. Peary says: "The char (?) of North Grant Land is a beautiful mottled fish, weighing sometimes as much as eleven or twelve pounds . . . I would spear one of these beauties and throw him on the ice to freeze, then pick him up and throw him down so as to shatter the flesh under the skin, lay him on the sledge, and as I walked away pick out morsels of the pink flesh and eat them as one would eat strawberries." The caribou was a new species which Peary had discovered in Ellesmere Land in 1902. It is a beautiful animal, snow white except for a small saddle of light brown. Dr. J. A. Allen named it Rangifer pearyi. The brown patch is so inconspicuous that Captain Bartlett, who had killed hundreds, would not believe it was anything but pure white until I showed him skins in the museum. I won a five-dollar bet from Bob.

On March 6th, the dash for the Pole began, with supporting parties leaving caches of food and alcohol and then returning to the main base. The temperature was low—from fifty to sixty-two below zero—but the sun was gradually creeping up so as to make a complete circuit of the horizon. The men were beset by unprecedented storms, which drove the ice eastward, and at the "Big Lead" were held up for six days before they could cross on young ice that swayed and undulated under their weight. The supporting-party system, which was designed to give food for the return, was completely disrupted by the strong internal movement of the ice pack that continually opened leads and threw up almost impassable barriers; some were hundreds of feet in height. Peary decided upon a Polar dash with Henson, in spite of insufficient supplies. Forced marches with little sleep and acute danger from opening ice, took them to 87° 6' N.—the "fartherest north" reached by any human being. That was a poor substitute for the Pole, but it had to do. There was no possibility of going farther with any chance of a safe return. It was with a heavy heart that Peary set his face toward Greenland. His observations showed that the unusual eastward drift of the ice made that coast the nearest land.