Striking inland, we passed through a number of valleys with steep rocky walls and a flat floor between, like railway-cuttings on a large scale, and at length reached a little stream winding eastward towards the channel. Following it down a short distance, we found it entering a gorge, with mountains a thousand feet high on either side. Soon the only way to advance was by wading amongst the boulders in the bed of the stream, with overhanging walls of black rock on either side, so close that we could almost touch both with outspread hands. No wonder the “Discovery’s” autumn sledge-crews had found this a rough road. Finally, the ravine ended in a very unexpected manner. A vast bank of snow and ice sloped across from mountain to mountain, and the stream disappeared under it and into an icy cave. We followed the stream, and found ourselves in Chatel’s Grotto, so called after a blue-jacket in the autumn sledge-party that had pronounced it a most comfortable camping-place. The roof was of white ice, streaked with veins of sand, and groined into all sorts of fantastic shapes. An opening overhead let in some rays of light through festoons of icicles as thick as a man’s body. On either side curious sloping shelves of ice projected out over the stream. It was decidedly a picturesque spot, and if the water in which we stood had not been so intensely cold, we might have taken longer time over our sketch. Here we were close to the coal-seam, but the worst part of the road was yet to come. The stream passed out of the far end of the grotto through a dark tunnel, so low that we had to stoop to avoid knocking our heads against the ice of the roof, and so dark that we were obliged to feel our way along by the sides, stumbling and floundering amongst the pools and boulders. Presently, however, light shone through at the other end, and we emerged into a continuation of the gorge. A bend of the stream brought us to the spot we sought. Right and left rose two great mountain slopes, with the rivulet running between them. The lower twenty or thirty feet of the right bank was a perpendicular wall of coal, streaked with yellow sulphurous lines. The surface had become brittle by exposure to the weather, but a few blows of a pick revealed a depth of shining black fuel, to all appearance as good as any we had on board. [Illustration: CHATEL’S GROTTO.]