At nearly 180 feet up the face of a sheer perpendicular cliff near
Milau is the cave of Riou Ferrand, 45 feet below the brow of the
precipice. The mouth of the grotto is partly blocked by a well-
constructed wall. It has been entered from above and explored. It
yields delicately fine pottery and a spindle-whorl, so that a woman
must have taken refuge here, and here sat spinning and looking down
from this dizzy height on the ruffians ravaging the valley below and
setting fire to her house. Bones of sheep and pigs in the cave showed
that it had been tenanted for some time, and tiles of distinctly Roman
character indicated the period of its occupation. The only possible
means of entering this cavern is, and was, by a rope or a ladder from
above. [Footnote: Martel, _Les Abimes_, Paris, 1894.]

I was in the valley of the Cele in 1892 with my friend M. Raymond Pons,
a daring explorer of _avens_ and caves. There was one cavern in a
precipice on the left bank near Brengues that showed tokens of having
been a refuge, from having a pole across the entrance. M. Pons obtained
a stout rope, and the assistance of half-a-dozen peasants, and was let
down over the brink, and by swinging succeeded in obtaining a foothold
within. He there found evident traces of former occupation. But how was
it entered and left in ancient times? From below it was quite
inaccessible, and from above only by the means he employed--a rope.

At Les Mees in the Basses-Alpes is a very similar cave, with two beams
across fastened at the ends into the rock, which is a conglomerate, at
the height of 350 feet, and quite inaccessible. They are mentioned by
the historian Bartel in 1636 as inexplicable by him, and by the
residents in the place.

A not less perplexing rock shelter is that of Fadarelles in the Gorges