MOUFFLON-STALKING IN CYPRUS 375 



Next morning was as bad a clay as its predecessor, 

 and at nine o'clock my old stalker pleaded for an 

 hours delay, saying that the mist would be gone. 

 To which I replied that it would take us that time to 

 get up the hill out of the sanctuary anyhow ; and 

 so we climbed over the shoulder of Khorteri. For 

 some time w^e toiled in vain, but there was no want 

 of fresh tracks, which kept us going through the 

 frequent show^ers along the upper slopes of the 

 Kouphoplatanou Valley. 



At last, a little before noon, we made out a ram at 

 the bottom of a deep gully. There was no time to 

 use the glass, for almost before we had squatted he 

 was on his feet. He did not look to be large, but the 

 light was bad ; and anyhow, with less than a week 

 of the season left, I could not afford to pick and 

 choose, so I drew a bead and pressed the trigger. 



The ^' crack " of the sixty grains' charge re-echoed 

 in a tremendous *' boom " from the mist-covered moun- 

 tains opposite, and the ram was down. As often 

 happens in these cases, his two companions, both rams, 

 which I had not before noticed, stood gazing, amazed, 

 until Anastasi dashed down on the quarry. Had I 

 had licence to kill another I could easily have had 

 a second chance. 



Reloading, I listened with little discouragement to 

 my stalker's cry of dismay at finding the ram had 

 gone on, and rightly, for when I, going round by 

 easier slopes, had got a better view of the spot, I saw 

 him standing over the moufflon, which had only rolled 

 and struggled a score of yards, and w^as dead, indeed, 

 before I got down to him. It \vas a smaller specimen 

 than my other, yellower, and with a more marked 

 white saddle - mark. The '400 Jeffery bullet had 



