One may know a man better after six months with him beyond the Arctic circle than after a lifetime of acquaintance in cities.

There is a something--I know not what to call it--in those frozen spaces, that brings a man face to face with himself and with his companions; if he is a man, the man comes out; and, if he is a cur, the cur shows as quickly.
First and most valuable of all was Bartlett, master of the _Roosevelt_, whose ability had been proved on the expedition of 1905-6.

Robert A.
Bartlett, "Captain Bob," as we affectionately call him, comes from a family of hardy Newfoundland navigators, long associated with arctic work.

He was thirty-three when we last sailed north.

Blue-eyed, brown-haired, stocky, and steel-muscled Bartlett, whether at the wheel of the _Roosevelt_ hammering a passage through the floes, or tramping and stumbling over the ice pack, with the sledges, or smoothing away the troubles of the crew, was always the same--tireless, faithful, enthusiastic, true as the compass.
Matthew A.Henson, my negro assistant, has been with me in one capacity or another since my second trip to Nicaragua, in 1887.