Welsh Journals

least fifty years and probably a great deal longer. This, to us, epitomises the real fascination of caving-a feeling which might even be compared to that which must have been experienced by Howard Carter when he first entered the burial chamber of Tutankhamen. To break into an undiscovered cave is not like visiting a strange town, or even country, for people have been there before-even if you yourself haven't-for it is one place on this earth where no-one has ever trod and which none has seen. As for our other discoveries-well, not one is as yet important but the same feeling of intense interest and genuine excitement per- sisted throughout all our efforts to extend these caves. One of the Llethrid caves when first discovered consisted of a smallish earthy depression some six feet deep with a sort of rabbit- hole extending steeply inwards, down which stones could be pitched to tumble intriguingly into the distance. Now, after weeks of really hard labour we have a passage in which we can move comfortably, extending in about forty feet and down about thirty-five feet. The whole place appears to be a kind of partially blocked crevasse with extremely narrow stalactite-coated walls and of, as yet, an unplumbed depth. This lack of width is the trouble and we are having to use a cold chisel and hammer to try to dislodge sufficient stalagmite (which is up to four inches thick in places) in order to gain the necessary inches to force a way down. What lies beneath ? is the question. An enormous quantity of debris has been dropped (at first inadvertently but latterly intentionally) down the depths, yet there has not been the slightest sign of its be- coming filled. It must lead somewhere, but where ? This is the sort of maddening and inescapable question that keeps arising when caving. Do you wonder that to solve it we are driven to scrape away earth like animals (very often with our bare hands), toil like miners, crawl in mud like worms, get coated in clay and wet to the skin and in the process become more exuberantly happy and more alive than ever before ? Now you know our story. Should any of you Gower ramblers chance to come across three peculiar people peering anxiously at rock faces, digging trial pits all over the countryside, or becoming tightly lodged in tiny tunnels, it will be us cave-hunting M. Clague Taylor.