Note 20 — ANNOATOK TO UPERNAVIK

I now learned, also, that the Eskimos had told their tribesmen of their arrival at the mysterious "Big Nail," which, of course, meant less to them than the hardship and unique methods of hunting.

Among themselves the Eskimos have an intimate way of conveying things, a method of expression and meaning which an outsider never grasps. At most, white men can understand only a selected and more simple language with which the Eskimos convey their thoughts. This partly accounts for the unreliability of any testimony which a white man extracts from them. There is also to be considered an innate desire on the part of these simple people to answer any question in a manner which they think will please. In all Indian races this desire to please is notoriously stronger than a sense of truth. The fact that my Eskimos, when later questioned as to my whereabouts, are reported to have answered that I had not gone far out of sight of land, was due partly to my instructions and partly to this inevitable wish to answer in a pleasing way.

While they spoke among themselves of having reached the "Big Nail," they also said—what they later repeated to Mr. Peary—that they had passed few days beyond the sight of land, a delusion caused by mirages, in which, to prevent any panic, I had with good intentions encouraged an artificial belief in a nearness to land.

But we were for weeks enshrouded in dense fogs, where nothing could be seen. The natives everywhere had heard of this, and inquired about it. Why has Mr. Peary suppressed this important information? We traveled and camped on the pack for "seven moons." Why was this omitted? We reached a place where the sun did not dip at night; where there was not enough difference in the height of the day and night sun to give the Eskimo his usual sense of direction. Why was this fact ignored?