The Doctor’s Chimney deserves to be popular. It is a perfectly safe climb, and offers excellent practice for the arms. On the whole it is probably a little easier than the Oblique Chimney, especially when descended, for it is so narrow that there is little need to seek footholds until the level of the pinnacle is reached. It has the advantage over its more famous rival of being easily hit off in misty weather; for a scree gully is then less mistakable than a rocky sheep walk, and a wire fence than a ‘bottle-shaped’ pinnacle. Such, then, was our digression before making for the foot of the Central Gully. Another party of friends had comfortably ensconced themselves in various corners on the small crag opposite the chimney, and were interested observers of our performance. They smoked cigarettes and offered advice freely; their day’s work was done, and to watch others still hard at it was perfect luxury. When we emerged panting from the top they threw away their cigarette ends and strolled down to Wastdale for tea. It required much moral strength to refrain from joining them, but there was the Great Central still on hand, and that other little chimney to prospect. If it were as difficult as report said, then we were bound to stay and climb it. So we worked round to the end of the wire fence and looked for our gully. Its name perhaps suggests a great gap in the mountain side, visible for miles round, and as unavoidable by the wanderer on this side of Gable as the Edgware Road is said to be by the Frenchman in London. But if this be so the name is misleading. Many people fail to find the gully in bad weather. Its entrance from below is narrow and its exit above is ill defined. A short distance to the east of the Doctor’s Chimney the scree-walk up the crag, that leads past the relics of the smuggler’s inclosure, insures a safe passage to the top of the cliff. This scree gully faces Kirkfell, and but for the usually poor light on this north face of the mountain it might be easily recognized from that side. Scarcely a hundred yards away from the end of the fence the narrow opening of the Central Gully may be found; from Beckhead it appears in profile, and is not-always manifest. Walking eastwards along the scree beneath the crags, it is the first really obvious passage into the heart of the mountain after leaving the Doctor’s Chimney; the easy scree walk is not much impressed in the face, and in a mist it has often been entirely overlooked. Even in cloudy weather the first pitch of our gully can be discerned a few feet above us, and identified by the buttress that partially divides it, the chock-stone in its right branch, and the fine-looking ‘jammed-stone pinnacle’ that shows up a little higher on the left.