A well had to be descended 165 feet deep. Then came a redan, a slope, and this had to be gone down and a second ladder of ropes attached. The second well was 135 feet. Then a second inclined plain or redan, and a third well 60 feet; after that a succession of slides and drops in stages for another 60 feet. Then a well of 150 feet. It demands no little daring to descend into such an abyss entirely shut off from the light of day, and where a few falling stones caused by the vibration of the ladder might prove fatal. FOOTNOTES: [7] A. Janet, _Annuaire du Club Alpin_, 1891. [8] _Les Abîmes_, Paris, 1894. CHAPTER IX THE WOOD OF PAÏOLIVE Curiosity of the wood—How the rock disintegrated—Extraordinary shapes—A labyrinth—La Gleyzasse—Hermitage—the King of Païolive—The Royalists of 1792—Jalès—The Bailli of Suffren—Taking the inventories. Le Bois de Païolive is in repute among the inhabitants of the plain and its great cities as one of the wonders of the world, at least of that self-contained world of France, in which is everything, outside of which nothing. Païolive is _Pagus Olivæ_. Curious the wood is, but cannot compare with Mourèze or Montpellier le Vieux, which have characteristics in common with it. The characteristics are these. There is an extensive elevated platform of cretaceous limestone of very unequal consistency. The result of this inequality has been that the softer matter has been washed away, whether at the retreat of the Tertiary ocean, or whether by atmospheric degradation alone is uncertain, leaving the cores of greater resistance isolated, as turrets, obelisks, bridges. And these cores themselves containing soluble matter have been riddled in all directions by the rain that, resting on them for a moment, has been then absorbed, and has carried forth through every crevice what it was able to dissolve. But even the masses of hardest texture are so soft that the rain soaking into them and then running out at every perforation has furrowed the white face with its trickling tears. The wood measures three miles in each direction, and a guide is needed through the labyrinth of galleries and masses of insulated rock, all buried in a wood of oaks, here and there cleared for mulberry plantations. It lies beside the road from the station of S. Paul le Jeune to Les Vans, and reaches to the river Chassezac, that has cut its way through the plateau in a profound ravine. In fact, the same formation continues on the further side of the stream, but the shapes of the rocks assumed there are less eccentric. A guide lives in a cottage where a road to the right joins that coming from S. Paul, and he charges three francs for showing visitors the principal sights in the wood, five francs for a complete exploration.