PREFACE 
HIS book has been the burden of the holidays of 
three years — in Switzerland, in Scotland, and in 
the United States — and it expresses the result of the 
reading of thirty. Though I have never been within 
two thousand miles of the Antarctic Circle it has been 
my good fortune to possess the personal friendship of 
all, or almost all, the living explorers and promoters of 
exploration in the Antarctic Regions, and I have been 
privileged to speed the parting ships of every Antarctic 
expedition which left a British port, from the sailing 
of the Dundee fleet in 1892 to that of the Terra Nova, in 
1903, though to my regret on each occasion I shared the 
unhappy fate of the stowaways, and was landed before 
my native shores were left behind, or at the farthest 
before the tropics were reached. 
I have based this history of Antarctic exploration as 
far as possible on original narratives and on the conversa- 
tion of the men who themselves took part in it. In this 
respect I owe a special debt to three: to Sir Joseph 
Hooker, the last survivor of the Erebus, who, in addition 
to much other kindness, has read the proofs of the earlier 
chapters, including those dealing with Sir James Clark 
Ross’s expedition; to Sir John Murray, of the Chal- 
lenger, whose friendship and scientific guidance for more 
than twenty years have been the most effective parts of my 
education ; and to His Excellency Professor Georg von 
Neumayer, the charm of whose personality and the 
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