Everywhere I went crowds pressed about me. I shook hands until the flesh of one finger was actually worn through to the bone. Hundreds of people daily came to see me.
About this time, too, my bewildered brain began to realize that I was also the object of most ferocious attacks from many quarters. I had no time to read the newspapers, and these charges and suspicions filtered in to me through reporters and friends. Usually they reached me in an exaggerated or a distorted form.
There began at this time the publication of innumerable fake interviews and stories misrepresenting me.[25] One interviewer quoted me as saying that Dagaard Jensen had seen my records, and therefore confirmed my claim to the people in Copenhagen; another that I said Governor Kraul of Greenland had reported talking with my Eskimos, who had confirmed my report. Dagaard Jensen justly denied this by cable, as I had made no such statement. That about Governor Kraul was absurd on the face of it, as he was a thousand miles away from my Eskimos. I have no means of knowing the embarrassing statements attributed to me—things which were variously denied, and which hurt me. There was not time for me to consider or answer them.
Then came the blow which almost stunned me—the news that Harry Whitney had not been allowed by Peary to bring my instruments and notes home with him.
During the long night at Cape Sparbo I had carefully figured out and reduced most of my important observations. The old, rubbed, oily, and torn field notes, the instrumental corrections and the direct readings were packed with the instruments, and these were mostly left with Mr. Whitney. The figures were important for future recalculation, but otherwise had not seemed materially important to me, for they had served their purpose. I had with me all the important data, such as is usually given in a traveler's narrative. No more had ever been asked before.
Under ordinary circumstances, these instruments and papers would not have been of great value, but under the public excitement their importance was immensely enhanced.
I had publicly announced that Mr. Whitney would bring these with him on the boat in which he was to return. Had there been no notes and no instruments, I hardly should have said this were I perpetrating a fraud, for I should have known that the failure of Mr. Whitney to supply these would provoke widespread suspicion. This is just what happened. Had I foreseen the trouble that resulted, I should have taken my instruments with me to Upernavik, and have supplied my observations and notes at once.
As I have said before, I believed in an accomplishment which I felt was largely personal, for which a world excitement was not warranted and in which I had such a sure confidence that I never thought of absolutely accurate proof. This was my folly—for which fate made me pay. Imagine my dismay, the heartsickness which seized me when, through the din of tumult and excitement, in the midst of suspicion, came the news that Mr. Whitney had been forced by Mr. Peary to take from the Roosevelt and bury the very material with which I might have dispelled suspicion and quelled the storm of unmerited abuse.
The instruments carried on my northern trip, and left with Mr. Whitney, and which he had seen, consisted of one French sextant; one aluminum surveying compass, with azimuth attachment, bought of Keuffer & Essen, New York; one glass artifical horizon, set in a thin metal frame, adjusted by spirit levels and thumbscrews, bought of Hutchinson, Boston; one aneroid barometer, aluminum, bought of Hicks; an aluminum case with maximum and minimum spirit thermometer; other thermometers, and one liquid compass.
Other instruments used about stations were also left. With these were papers giving some instrumental corrections, readings, and comparisons, and other occasional notes, and a small diary, mostly loose leaves, containing some direct field reading of instruments and meteorological data. These took up very little space; and, if I remember correctly, all were snugly packed in one of the instrument cases.