In January, 1888, a man of Camprieu disappeared, and there was reason to suspect he had committed suicide. As his body could not be found, it was supposed that he had flung himself down the abyss of the Bonheur; and, in fact, when M. Martel searched the cavern he found the body wedged into a spot where, in the cave itself, the stream disappears underground for a while, to again reappear and continue its subterranean course. It goes through these vagaries twice, and perpetrates seven cascades. "To avoid repetitions," says M. Martel in his account of the exploration, "I will say no more of the magic of magnesium light under vaults lofty as Gothic naves; I must only ask of the reader to figure, if he can in the profound night of these caverns, the deafening roar of the falling water, the dispersion of the party groping in all directions for passages, the flicker of the feeble candles, the distant calls and signals, whistles, and horns, the cords strained, and the ladders set up against steep walls, our silhouettes magnified against the walls in shadows, and profiled against the boiling torrent, all under vaults 150 feet high and at the extremity of galleries of 300 feet. "One portion of our course was effected only by a series of gymnastics, according to the width of the gallery that varied from three feet to ten feet, according to how far the ledges were practicable—so we crept along, a few yards above the torrent, clinging to the rock with our fingers, our breasts against the wall, or else wading in the water up to our armpits. Often our candles went out, caused by our rapid movements, or by the rush of wind that swept through the tunnel; the drip of our soaked clothes, the difficulty of communication amidst the roar of the falling water, increased our difficulties tenfold." Where the Bonheur escapes into daylight there is an immense rift in the rocks, and out of this the stream leaps in a fall of some dignity. Up to 1888 it was not thought possible that the Bonheur could be the stream that issued at Bramabiau, for anything thrown in above never issued below. But the exploration by M. Martel solved the mystery. The stream sinks, filters through the rock, leaving above that which is thrown in, and issues limpid at the cascade that rushes from the entrance. The descent of the Aigoual on the side of Valleraugue is by a thousand steps hewn in granite and schist, and at the bottom of this is the vegetable garden of the officials of the Observatory.