low passage, through which we crept and wriggled after the manner of the serpent, ofttimes exerting no little strength to push beneath the projections overhead. Here a shaft of glassy stalagmite, uniting floor and roof, tried to bar the way, and there it was impossible to advance without scraping against the vitreous threads that hung like hairs from the dripping rocks. We shouted to the others who we thought were ahead of us, but got no reply, and after twenty minutes of this painful progression began to think of returning. Noticing a hollow in the right wall, I asked my comrade to wait while I examined it. Inside was a blind passage and the round orifice of a small tunnel, into which I thrust my head and shoulders and then crawled forward. It was not an inviting hole, being wet and an exceedingly tight fit, and I was on the point of returning when a voice was heard faintly in the distance. Listening intently and creeping on again, I heard the voice more distinctly, and shouted. The voice replied from below. I quickly realised that we two had missed the others, who were following a lower series of passages somewhere beneath us. Unable to turn round, and too far advanced to return up this slippery tunnel, I saw there was nothing for it but to push on, head downwards. In a yard or two, to my unspeakable relief, the hole grew big enough to turn round in, just before I got to the end of it, and saw Messrs. Croft and Puttrell, 12 feet below me, holding out their hands and inviting me to drop. The leap was a little sensational, but I had my turn of enjoyment in witnessing the grace with which my comrade from above, who was now courteously invited to follow me through the water-pipe, took the jump on to the clay floor of the lower tunnel.