148 



GAME THE IBEX. 



g IR> J W as " raised" as the Yankees term it, in one of the 

 " inland, or perhaps more properly styled, the middle counties of 

 " England, it matters not which. But I remember when almost 

 * ' a child, being taken to the stables at the farm, to see what was in 

 " those days considered a great curiosity in that part of the country, 

 " namely, a goat and a formidable animal it looked to my young 

 " mind. I remember too being told that it came from the Welsh 

 " mountains, where numbers of its fellows were to be found in a 

 " wild state. What a land of romance was the far distant Wales 

 " to the imagination of my youth ! and what wonders did I not 

 " conceive of the mountains where even goats ran wild ! Alas ! how 

 " completely dissipated when I visited that part of the country in 

 " after-life. To one whose ideas of hills had been restricted to a 

 " view of the distant Surrey hills, the thought of the mountains in 

 " Wales was as of something stupendous, wonderful and appalling ; 

 "coupled as they were in my juvenile mind with all the adven- 

 " tures I had heard or read of, regarding travellers lost in snow, St. 

 " Bernard and its dogs, and all the interesting romances connect- 

 " ed with such like wonderful tales. These ideas held fast pos- 

 " session of me for many and many a year, till at last the vision was 

 " dispelled by a visit to the land itself, after close on twenty years' 

 " residence in India and how disappointing ! Snowdon, the far- 

 " famed mountain, what was it ? an ordinary hill, looking so small, 

 " swallowed up as it were by the surrounding elevations. To my 

 " mind, Cader Iddris is far finer ; a bold, craggy mountain, the very 

 " spot where the wild goat would love to dwell. It became a matter 

 " for regret that I had not seen the mountain districts of my native 

 " land ere visiting the far east. 



" My next acquaintance with the wild-goat was obtained through 

 ' that dearly loved old volume (a household Penates) of Robinson 

 " Crusoe, from the print of his triumphal return to his hut, bearing 

 " the old mother goat he had slain on his shoulders, and the little kid 

 " following at his heels. Dear old Crusoe ! Where is the boy of my 

 " time, who has not as I have done, longed to be a Robinson 

 '* Crusoe ? I fear for the present generation if they love not 



