MOUFFLON-STALKING IN CYPRUS 367 



had taken to himself a companion, very possibly an 

 animal the reader will hear of again. 



How to write of the 27th and 28th of November ! 

 On the former day Anastasi led me up to a herd 

 feeding in a gully on the northern side of Kourkoumi. 

 I fired, resting my elbow on my knee, at a young 

 ram standing on a rock. I fancied I heard the bullet 

 tell, especially as I afterwards saw him standing in 

 the bottom with his head hanging. Then he followed 

 the herd down the ravine. 



Anastasi hurried me off in the vain hope of another 

 shot at one of the others, and then returned, saying — 



" We have one, anyway ! " 



Alas ! careful search failed to discover blood, and I 

 could not induce the old man to follow far. 



The glen was a mass of low scrub and gorse, and 

 I still believe the poor beast lies dead somewhere 

 amongst it, but I never saw him again. If it was a 

 miss, I have some excuse for it, as for three days 

 and three sleepless nights I had been suffering from 

 acute neuralgia. 



Next day was warm. With my head wrapped up 

 in flannel, I sallied out again, and in the valley of 

 the Kouphoplatanou, not far below Exo Mylos, the 

 wildest spot I had yet seen in this wild country, 

 the old man brought me up again to a ram with two 

 attendant ewes, picking up acorns in a little gully. 



At some fifty yards' range I scored — a clean miss ! 

 Sometimes I think the very perfection of my rifle 

 was to blame, and that being so near to, and a good 

 deal above, the moufflon, I aimed too much below 

 him, making the allowance which would have been 

 desirable with the old black - powder Express, and 

 actually undershot him — a thing, as all sportsmen 



