Note 10 — Chapter XXXI

These were a small United States flag (boat's ensign), which had been carried in the South Sea Expedition of Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., and afterwards in the Arctic Expeditions of Lieut. Comg. DeHaven and Dr. Kane; a little United States flag which had been committed to Mr. Sonntag by the ladies of the Albany Academy; two diminutive Masonic flags intrusted to me,—one by the Kane Lodge of New York, the other by the Columbia Lodge of Boston; and our Expedition signal-flag, bearing the Expedition emblem, the Pole Star—a crimson star, on a white field—also a gift from fair hands. Being under the obligation of a sacred promise to unfurl all of these flags at the most northern point attained, it was my pleasing duty to carry them with me—a duty rendered none the less pleasing by the circumstance that, together, they did not weigh three pounds.