A few years ago the Great Western opened what they called the Wrington Vale Light Railway up the valley of the Yeo, which borders Mendip on the north. A few miles beyond its present terminus lie the two Harptrees, in the heart of a sequestered countryside of great pastoral beauty. Here, where nowadays all the pursuits are agricultural, a great deal of mining was carried on in years gone by, the relics of which are still visible in the surface workings, grown over with grass. In the upland ravines of Lamb's Bottom, near the top of the Mendip plateau, these are very numerous, and seem to be the work of both lead miners and searchers for black oxide of manganese. Early in the eighteenth century a cavern of prodigious size and beauty was discovered in this locality; but, by one of those curious accidents which are by no means infrequent in the history of caves, it was lost, and its site remained unknown for a hundred and twenty years. Its fame, however, was cherished by the country folk, and the tradition of its fabulous wonders induced a lord of the manor, a quarter of a century ago, to offer a heavy monetary reward, which led to its rediscovery in the year 1880. This new exploration made some noise at the time, and a fair number of people ventured on a descent. The difficulties were smoothed down considerably. Ladders were fixed in the shaft, which was strengthened by timber supports, and in difficult parts of the lower galleries; solid beds of arragonite were cut through, and a heavy structure of timber, carrying a windlass, was built out on the verge of an abyss, to make accessible the floor of the Great Chamber. Lamb's Lair is even alluded to, though incorrectly, in the fourth edition of Murray's Guide--that for 1882--and, for a while, great was the renown of its unparalleled beauties. Then, as usually happens with cave scenery when there is any difficulty or any peril involved, the novelty and the popularity of Lamb's Lair waned; and now for a long period the cave has been derelict, the timber erections have become rotten and dangerous, and the only visit during many years previous to the one I am about to describe nearly resulted in a catastrophe. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE. _Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._] [Illustration: PLAN AND SECTION OF THE GREAT CAVERN OF LAMB'S LAIR.]