From this point we were able to see in a splendid manner almost the entire length of the channel explored to this time; but we had not yet been able to make a running survey of the regions in our immediate vicinity. To get a better view it was decided to ascend to the interior of the land and scale one of the _noonataks_. In a bay (Buls Bay) to the westward the land offered an easy slope and to it we steamed on the following day. In our preparations for this ascent we made arrangements to camp on the inland ice for a week. A tent was taken, sleeping bags, and fur clothing were gotten out, and bags of provisions were packed, all of which was lashed on two small sledges. Volunteers were called for and those who responded were Arctowski, Danco, Amundsen, and the writer. Led by Gerlache we landed late on the afternoon of the 31st on a little point of land (Cape d’Ursel) with a northern or sunny face. We climbed the steep slopes for five hundred feet, and then camped for the night. The first night was one of stormy discomfort. A wind came out of the bed of a glacier above us, against which we could hardly stand. It took two men to hold up the tent, and the combined efforts of all hands to keep from having our effects scattered over the cliffs but a few yards away. On the 1st of February we made another effort and mounted a few miles into the interior, but fog and wind and crevasses made frequent halts necessary. The sledges were heavily loaded and were difficult to drag, and altogether the work of travelling and the discomfort of camping were such that the life was generally miserable. We succeeded, however, in mounting to the peak of a _noonatak_, with an altitude of about fifteen hundred feet, and from there Gerlache and Danco were able to get the observations necessary for the rough survey of our surroundings. The view before us was even more beautiful, if possible, than anything we had seen since our first entrance into this new white world. To the south-west there was an opening through a new land and into a new sea, which remained for us to explore later. To the north-east, descending into the white airy distance, were the two high banks of the new highway. Before us was a small island, shaped like a biscuit, and like everything antarctic, it was covered with ice to the water’s edge. Around this berg-like island were a number of icebergs, stranded on submerged rocks, and these, by occasional mysterious explosions, sent up the noise and the commotion of a thousand cannons. The opposite shore here retreated, making two large bays. In these bays were a number of islands, beyond which we could see clearly a narrow canal. The land which spread out under the southern and eastern skies offered no promise of a passage eastward; it had a series of black cliffs parallel to the coast about five miles beyond the edge of the sea, and beyond these the white outline of the land rose into the clouds. [Illustration: