"I have a prejudice about book-writing, for I think a man has no occasion to write of his deeds and doings until he is on the point of finishing his work. Then, when he has nothing else to do, he may sit down and detail the labours of his life."<br><br>This was the opinion of Captain Wiggins, expressed in the course of a lecture in Sunderland in 1895. Yielding to the urgent wishes of many friends, he fully intended to write some day an account of his "deeds and doings." But the period of leisure never came to him; he died in harness, and therefore the literary records of adventurous British seamen lack a volume which could not have failed to be a realistic and vivid autobiography.<br><br>All who knew Captain Wiggins personally, including friends in Russia and Siberia, and all who followed his brave efforts in Arctic seas and in Russian territory, will agree that a life like his demands a literary memorial. The present volume is an attempt to give effect to that conviction.