Sitting as we were with our faces towards Buttermere, the great wall bore away to the left, and our scree gully marked its eastern limit. A horizontal crack extended for several feet across the wall, starting from the top of the pitch below us. Only its end could be seen, but by carefully working down to the corner on the left, and looking across the face, we could see the way it cut clean into the rock. This was the notorious _hand-traverse_, by which it was just possible to reach our scree gully from the ledge below without the preliminary descent into the Savage Gully. A few minutes’ halt and we continued our course. There was no doubt or difficulty in reaching the Low Man, and thence following the ridge to the junction with the West Climb. A quarter of an hour saw us at the High Man cairn, and another five minutes at the foot of the Central Jordan. The ropes were stowed away again in the sack, and Robinson rapidly strode across the screes and down the corridor behind the Shamrock. In a phenomenally short time we were crossing the Liza stream, and, without being allowed to halt, a bee-line was drawn for us over to Scarth Gap by our untiring leader. Luckily for his followers, the name of this pass, which is sometimes called Scarf Gap, reminded him of a very good story concerning another famous climber who went to an evening party without a dress-tie. We were told the story and recovered breath sufficiently to continue our journey to Buttermere. I wish now that I had not been so fatigued, so that I might have remembered the whole anecdote and given it here in all detail. THE HAND-TRAVERSE.--Nearly two years after the ascent described in the previous section, Dr. Collier showed me a way of avoiding the Savage Gully in the North Climb by following a direct route to the upper screes. The plan is to work to the extreme east corner of the ledge that succeeds the ‘mantelshelf,’ and when a narrow overhanging chimney is reached, to swarm up the steep buttress on its left. It looks particularly dangerous, but there is an excellent hold for the hands just round the corner of the buttress, and when the first three feet of ascent are accomplished the rest feels comparatively easy.