GETTING RECRUITS
When on August 1 the Roosevelt steamed out from Cape York, she had on board several Eskimo families which we had picked up there and at Salvo Island. We also had about one hundred dogs, bought from the Eskimos. When I say "bought," I do not mean paid for with money, as these people have no money and no unit of value. All exchange between them is based on the principle of pure barter. For instance, if one Eskimo has a deerskin which he does not need, and another has something else, they exchange. The Eskimos had dogs which we wanted, and we had many things which they wanted, such as lumber, knives and other cutlery, cooking utensils, ammunition, matches, et cetera. So, as the Yankees say, we traded.
PEARY DISTRIBUTING UTENSILS TO WIVES OF HIS HUNTERS AT ETAH
Steaming in a northwesterly course from Cape York, we passed the "Crimson Cliffs," so named by Sir John Ross, the English explorer, in 1818. This vivid name was applied to the cliffs by reason of the quantities of "red snow" which can be seen from a ship miles out at sea. The color is given to the permanent snow by the Protococcus nivalis, one of the lowest types of the single, living protoplasmic cell. The nearly transparent gelatinous masses vary from a quarter inch in diameter to the size of a pin-head, and they draw from the snow and the air the scanty nourishment which they require. Seen from a distance, the snow looks like blood. This red banner of the Arctic has greeted me on all my northern journeys.
Sailing by these cliffs, which extend for thirty or forty miles, my thoughts were busy with the work before us. First and most necessary of all was the task of gathering our arctic personnel of Eskimos and dogs, already begun before we left Cape York.
Our next stop, after Cape York, was on August 3, at North Star Bay, Oomunnui, as the natives call it, on Wolstenholm Sound. Here I found the Erik, which had become separated from us in Davis Strait several days before during heavy weather. At Oomunnui we took on two or three families of Eskimos and more dogs. Ooqueah, one of my North Pole party, came aboard at this place; Seegloo had joined us at Cape York.
