New Year's Day came starlit and cold. The year had dawned in which I was to essay the task to which I had set myself, the year which would mean success or failure to me. The past year had been gracious and bountiful, so, in celebration, Francke prepared a feast of which we both ate to gluttonous repletion. This consisted of ox-tail soup, creamed boneless cod, pickles, scrambled duck eggs with chipped smoked beef, roast eider-duck, fresh biscuits, crystallized potatoes, creamed onions, Bayo beans and bacon, Malaga grapes, (canned), peach-pie, blanc-mange, raisin cake, Nabisco biscuits and steaming chocolate.
The day was spent in making calls among the Eskimos. In the evening several families were given a feast which was followed by songs and dances. This hilarity was protracted to the early hours of morning and ended in an epidemic of night hysteria. When thus afflicted the victims dance and sing and fall into a trance, the combination of symptoms resembling insanity.
In taking account of our stock we found that our baking powder was about exhausted. This was sad news, for a breakfast of fresh biscuits, butter and coffee was one of the few delights that remained for me in life. We had bicarbonate of soda, but no cream of tartar. I wondered whether we could not substitute for cream of tartar some other substance.
Curious experiments followed. The juice of sauerkraut was tried with good results. But the flavor, as a steady breakfast food, was not desirable. Francke had fermented raisins with which to make wine. As a wine it was a failure, but as a fruit acid it enabled us to make soda biscuits with a new and delicate flavor. Milk, we found, would also ferment. From the unsweetened condensed milk, biscuits were made that would please the palate of any epicure. My breakfast pleasure therefore was still assured for many days to come.
EN ROUTE FOR THE POLE
THE CAMPAIGN OPENS—LAST WEEKS OF THE POLAR NIGHT—ADVANCE PARTIES SENT OUT—AWAITING THE DAWN
X
The Start with Sunrise of 1908
Two weeks of final tests and re-examination of clothing, sledges and general equipment followed the New Year's festivities. On January 14 there was almost an hour of feeble twilight at midday. The moon offered light enough to travel. Now we were finally ready to fire the first guns of the Polar battle. Scouts were outside, waiting for the signal to proceed. They were going, not only to examine the ice field for the main advance, but to offer succor to a shipwrecked crew, which the natives believed was at Cape Sabine.