the writer's conscience. I could not pretend that I had
fulfilled these conditions; and so I decided to take the undivided
responsibility on my own shoulders. None the less the Committee, having
given me access to its information, is entitled to all the credit of a
formal Official Narrative, without the least responsibility for the
passages which I have studied to make as personal in style as possible,
so that no greater authority may be attached to them than I deserve.

I need hardly add that the nine years' delay in the appearance of my book
was caused by the war. Before I had recovered from the heavy overdraft
made on my strength by the expedition I found myself in Flanders looking
after a fleet of armoured cars. A war is like the Antarctic in one
respect. There is no getting out of it with honour as long as you can put
one foot before the other. I came back badly invalided; and the book had
to wait accordingly.

[Illustration: FROM NEW ZEALAND TO THE SOUTH POLE--Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
del.--Emery Walker Ltd., Collotypers.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, Introduction.

[2] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, vol. i. p. 23.

[3] Ibid. p. 28.

[4] Cook, _A Voyage towards the South Pole_, vol. i. p. 268.

[5] Ibid. p. 275.

[6] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. 9.

[7] Ibid. p. 14.

[8] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. p. 117.

[9] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. pp. 216-218.

[10] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. pp. 244-245.

[11] Leonard Huxley, _Life of Sir J. D. Hooker_, vol. ii. p. 443.

[12] Ibid. p. 441.

[13] Nansen, _Farthest North_, vol. i. p. 52.

[14] Nansen, _Farthest North_, vol. ii. pp. 19-20.

[15] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. 229.

[16] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. i. p. vii.

[17] Ibid. p. 273.

[18] See Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 490.

[19] Wilson, _Nat. Ant. Exp., 1901-1904_, "Zoology," Part ii. pp.
8-9.

[20] Wilson, _Nat. Ant. Exp., 1901-1904_, "Zoology," Part ii. p.
31.

[21] Scott, _Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. p. 327.

[22] Scott, _The Voyage of the Discovery_, vol. ii. pp. 347-348.

[23] See pp. 128-134.

[24] See pp. xxxi-xxxii.

[25] See p. xxviii.

[26] Priestley, _Antarctic Adventure_, pp.