WAS in the parlor of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Since my last visit to the city, I had circumnavigated the globe. During the last three years, I had not only again visited the leading points of interest for tourists in Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia, but had extended my travels into the frozen regions of the far south, on a whaling voyage. Yet I had not found that for which I was searching.
My failure had brought a feeling of intense sadness and depression which I shall not attempt to describe. For fifteen years I had been a wanderer on the high seas. I had traversed every latitude from Greenland to the South frigid zone and was now mentally asking "Where shall I go next?" I had determined that I would not give up this long continued search until it was crowned with success, or death had intervened, as long as there was one spot on earth unexplored.
Thus pondering in my own mind what to do next, I picked up an evening paper and abstractedly glanced over its pages in the attempt to form an idea of its contents by reading the headlines. In the editorial columns my eye rested on the caption:
"OFF TO THE NORTH POLE."
This was travel into a region I had not penetrated. I was at once interested and glancing down the column I read the comments of the editor. "The discovery of America," he said, "was the attempt to discover a more direct and consequently a nearer route to India by sailing westward. The object sought for was not found, but the search gave to the overcrowded and oppressed millions of Christendom a new world, where they might work out their destiny in conformity with the ideal of the founder of their religion, beyond the reach of the political and religious despotisms of the old world; and why may not this venture, even though it fails to reach the pole, ultimate in discoveries of inestimable value to mankind? We hope so, and hence we wish the most abundant success to the expedition now being organized in this city, by an experienced traveler and navigator, Capt. Raphael Ganoe."
The paper dropped from my hand; I was overcome; my senses were paralysed; my heart almost ceased to beat; my brain for a moment was deprived of the power of thought. As the full import of this unexpected revelation dawned upon me, I arose and paced the floor.
"My God," I exclaimed, "this cannot be, it must not be, but how can I prevent it? All the arrangements are perfected. I cannot, I dare not, under the circumstances, speak the word that possibly might prevent this perilous undertaking." I was powerless. But I soliloquized, "If I cannot prevent it, I must join the expedition, for never again will I permit him to leave me."
My mind was made up. I was in the prime of life, about thirty-five years of age, and had traveled extensively. I was familiar with ocean navigation and versed in all the sciences taught in our higher institutions of learning. I would make application for the position of scientist, and failing in that would enlist before the mast as a common sailor, if nothing better offered.