PREFACE ix 
diary of the Last Return Party on the Polar Journey. Mrs. 
Wilson has given her husband’s diary of the Polar Jour- 
ney: this is especially valuable because it is the only de- 
tailed account in existence from 87° 32’ to the Pole 
and after, with the exception of Scott’s Diary already pub- 
lished. Lady Scott has given with both hands any records 
I] wanted and could find. No one of my companions in the 
South has failed to help. They include Atkinson, Wright, 
Priestley, Simpson, Lillie and Debenham. 
To all these good friends I can do no more than express 
my very sincere thanks. 
I determined that the first object of the illustrations 
should be descriptive of the text: Wright and Debenham 
have photographs, sledging and otherwise, which do this 
admirably. Mrs. Wilson has allowed me to have any of 
her husband’s sketches and drawings reproduced that I 
wished, and there are many hundreds from which to make 
a selection. In addition to the six water-colours, which I 
have chosen for their beauty, I have taken a number of 
sketches because they illustrate typical incidents in our 
lives. They are just unfinished sketches, no more: and 
had Bill been alive he would have finished them before he 
allowed them to be published. 
As to production, after a good deal of experience, I was 
convinced that I could trust a commercial firm to do its 
worst save when it gave them less trouble to do better. I 
acknowledge my mistake. Ina wilderness of firms in whom 
nothing was first class except their names and their prices, I 
have dealt with R. & R. Clark, who have printed this book, 
and Emery Walker, who has illustrated it. The fact that 
Emery Walker is not only alive, but full of vitality, indi- 
cates why most of the other firms are millionaires. 
When I went South I never meant to write a book: I 
rather despised those who did so as being of an inferior 
