Chapter XIII: Appendix

In reference to a note on page 180, it seems desirable to reprint below (1) a paragraph which recently appeared in a New York newspaper over the signature of Don Marquis, and (2) a copy of the letter written by Dr. Traprock to Mr. Marquis clearing up the point in question. Ed.

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A great deal of doubt is cast by his strange reticences upon the recent claim of Dr. Walter E. Traprock that he reached the North Pole. Did he, or did he not, find three fingers at the Pole which were frozen off of the hand of Capt. Peter Fitzurse when the Captain grasped the Pole, more than forty years ago, being the first man to lay his hand upon it? If he did not find these fingers, he did not reach the Pole. If he found them, and has said nothing about it, his object in concealing the fact can be nothing else than an unworthy jealousy. Who is this Traprock, anyhow? Capt. Fitzurse intimates that at the proper time he has startling revelations to make. It is significant that Traprock was first heard of a year or two after Dr. Cook ceased to figure in the public prints.

On Board "Kawa" Peck's Slip, N.Y. July 21, 1922.

Don Marquis, Esq. Park Row, New York City.

Dear Sir:--

A number of my friends have called my attention to recent remarks
published over your signature which by insinuation cast a veil of
ambiguity over my identity. I am not used to having veils cast over
me and I resent the practice.

"Who is this person, Traprock?" you ask. "Has he ever been to the
North Pole?"

Let the ice-bergs answer! Let the Polar-pack groan its reply. I scorn
to.

You also ask if by any chance I discovered three fingers frozen to
the Pole. I _did_ find three fingers not frozen to the Pole, but
preserved in an otherwise empty gin bottle. They were cached in a
rude cairn, mute memorials of some brave man who had ventured north
of eighty-six. Of course I at once thought of my friend Fitzurse.
Could they be his? The nails were not black enough, but I could not
be sure.

I took them with me to the Pole, purposing to leave them with my
records, but my plans were modified by the extraordinary attraction
which the fingers had for Ikik, Snak and Yalok, three Eskimo women
whom I found living at the Pole, or to be exact, under it.

How, finally, to preserve peace I divided the fingers giving one to
each to wear as a talisman is an enlivening memory. A few days later,
noticing that Ikik was not wearing her finger I questioned her as to
its whereabouts. "Me eat" she said. The others had done likewise. I
trust that any doubts you may have had in regard to my identity etc.
will be dissipated by these circumstantial details.

Yours, Walter E. Traprock

The Cruise of the Kawa

By Dr. Walter E. Traprock, F.R.S.S. E.U.

A delicious literary burlesque--superlatively amusing. Here are found the _wak-wak_, that horrid super-seamonster; the gallant _fatu-liva_ birds who lay square eggs; the flowing hoopa bowl, and the sensuous _nabiscus_ plant; the tantalizing, tatooing, fabulous folk music; the beautiful, trusting Filbertine women and their quaint marriage customs, as well as the dread results of the white man's coming--all described with a frank freedom, literary charm and meticulous regard for truth which is delightful.

The Cruise of the Kawa stands unique among the literature of modern exploration. Nothing like it has ever come out of the South Seas. It is _the_ travel book of years. Strikingly illustrated, too, from special photographs, it tells pictorially, as well as verbally, the exciting, amusing and entertaining story of an exploration in the South Seas.

G.P. Putnam's Sons New York London