I carried it wrapped about my body on every one of my expeditions northward after it came into my possession, and I left a fragment of it at each of my successive "farthest norths": Cape Morris K.Jesup, the northernmost point of land in the known world; Cape Thomas Hubbard, the northernmost known point of Jesup Land, west of Grant Land; Cape Columbia, the northernmost point of North American lands; and my farthest north in 1906, latitude 87 deg.

6' in the ice of the polar sea.

By the time it actually reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn and discolored.
A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal of earth--the place where I and my dusky companions stood.
It was also considered appropriate to raise the colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which I was initiated a member while an undergraduate student at Bowdoin College, the "World's Ensign of Liberty and Peace," with its red, white, and blue in a field of white, the Navy League flag, and the Red Cross flag.
[Illustration: PEARY'S IGLOO AT CAMP MORRIS K.JESUP, APRIL 6, 1909; The Most Northerly Human Habitation in the World.

In the Background Flies Peary's North Polar Flag Which He Had Carried for Fifteen Years] After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told Henson to time the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with the greatest enthusiasm.

Thereupon, I shook hands with each member of the party--surely a sufficiently unceremonious affair to meet with the approval of the most democratic.