2 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION UUNE 



The journey was planned to last six weeks, with a stay of sev- 

 eral days near the rookery, but was shortened by the extreme cold 

 and consequent consumption of their store of fuel, and the tem- 

 pest which drove the party back from Cape Crozier. 



To the report written by Dr. Wilson various notes and details 

 are added in square brackets from Mr. Cherry-Garrard's diary. 

 This diary, be it said, was never written for publication. It was 

 a private record, for private remembrance. It tells of incidents 

 and impressions in their personal bearing, and so telling, inciden- 

 tally preserves the fuller human colouring that has been sedu- 

 lously stripped away from Dr. Wilson's objective record, written 

 with a more strictly scientific outlook. 



Such notes have a manifold value. Every personality receives 

 its own impression of the same incidents, recalls a different aspect, 

 throws sidelights from a different angle. The young traveller 

 records for himself a fresh and vivid personal impression, un- 

 diminished by reshaping into the perhaps necessary reticence of 

 an official report. Not least, also, he gives us details about his 

 chief which Dr. Wilson could not or would not have set down. 



His own share in the expedition is the more remarkable be- 

 cause, short-sighted as he was, he could not wear his spectacles 

 under such conditions. 



With the help of these notes, the reader can fill in somewhat 

 of those lights and shades which the official report, addressed to 

 a Polar explorer, needed not to add. Now that the other two 

 comrades in the adventure are no more, Mr. Cherry-Garrard has 

 been prevailed upon to let his diary be used as it is used here. 

 Let him be assured that his chief fear is groundless the fear that 

 in allowing such very personal jottings to be quoted, he should be 

 imagined to magnify his own share in the expedition, instead of 

 insisting, as he would have insisted in a public report, on the won- 

 derful work of his friends, the strength, the steadfastness, and the 

 serenity with which they carried it through. There was never an 

 angry word from beginning to end, even in the most trying times. 

 These unpremeditated notes help to make Wilson and Bowers 

 stand out in their true colours. 



Tuesday, June 27, 1911. Leaving the hut at Cape Evans 

 shortly before 1 1 A.M., Bowers, Cherry-Garrard and I started 

 for our first march accompanied by Simpson, Meares, Griffith 

 Taylor, Nelson and Gran, who all helped us to drag our two 



