ve had from Mrs. Bowers her son's
letters home, and from Lashly his diary of the Last Return Party on the
Polar Journey. Mrs. Wilson has given her husband's diary of the Polar
Journey: this is especially valuable because it is the only detailed
account in existence from 87 deg. 32' to the Pole and after, with the
exception of Scott's Diary already published. 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.
Then I have had reproduced nearly all the sketches and panoramas drawn by
him on the Polar Journey and found with him where he died. The half-tone
process does not do them justice: I wish I could have had them reproduced
in photogravure, but the cost is prohibitive.

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. In a 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, indicates 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 brand to those who did things and said
nothing about them. But that they say nothing is too often due to the
fact that they have nothing to say, or are too idle or too busy to learn
how to say it. Every one who has been through such an extraordinary
experience has much to sa