INTRODUCTION Ixiti 
come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for 
complaint... .” 
It is, it must be, of the first importance that a system, I 
will not say perfected, but developed, to a pitch of high 
excellence at such a cost should be handed down as com- 
pletely as possible to those who are to follow. I want to so 
tell this story that the leader of some future Antarctic ex- 
pedition, perhaps more than one, will be able to take it up 
and say: ‘‘I have here the material from which I can order 
the articles and quantities which will be wanted for so many 
men for such and such a time; I have alsoa record of how 
this material was used by Scott, of the plans of his journeys 
and how his plans worked out, and of the improvements 
which his parties were able to make on the spot or suggest 
for the future. I don’t agree with such and such, but this 
is a foundation and will save me many months of work in 
preparation, and give me useful knowledge for the actual 
work of my expedition.” If this book can guide the future 
explorer by the light of the past, it will not have been 
written in vain. 
But this was not my main object in writing this book. 
When I undertook in 1913 to write, for the Antarctic Com- 
mittee, an Official Narrative on condition that I was given 
a free hand, what I wanted to do above all things was 
to show what work was done; who did it; to whom the 
credit of the work was due; who took the responsibility ; 
who did the hard sledging ; and who pulled us through 
that last and most ghastly year when two parties were 
adrift, and God only knew what was best to be done; 
when, had things gone on much longer, men would un- 
doubtedly have gone mad. There is no record of these 
things, though perhaps the world thinks there is. Gener- 
ally as a mere follower, without much responsibility, and 
often scared out of my wits, I was in the thick of it all, and 
I know. 
Unfortunately I could not reconcile a sincere personal 
confession with the decorous obliquity of an Official Narra- 
tive; and I found that I had put the Antarctic Committee 
in a difficulty from which I could rescue them only by 
