Captain Boothby’s design of publishing his journals was never carried
out in his lifetime, and now, six-and-seventy years after he wrote the
above introduction, they are brought out for the first time in book
form. Incorporated with them are his letters to the various members
of his family, which, having been written without any thought of
reproduction, are perhaps even more vivid and natural than the journal
itself. These carry on the narrative, and bridge over what might
otherwise have been gaps in its continuity.