HAUNTS OF THE TAHR. 65 



now lay jammed together where they had here found a 

 resting-place below. Such travelling was tiresome for our 

 laden men, though they made nothing of the difficulty. At 

 length we emerged on to a rocky ridge which ran up the 

 left side of a vast amphitheatre. From the naked crags and 

 snow-streaked summits that almost encircled it, deep rifts, 

 gullies, and broad landslips of stones and debris ran down 

 its precipitous sides, until they terminated in a wilderness 

 of partially wooded, rocky ravines far away below. Some 

 idea of the proportions of this huge natural amphitheatre 

 may be formed when I say that as we clambered along we 

 might have been compared to ants creeping over the ruined 

 walls of the Colosseum at Eome. Here and there amidst 

 this chaos were steep verdant slopes, on which several small 

 herds of tahr were quietly browsing or reposing, looking in 

 the distance like little brown dots. Altogether it was a 

 wonderfully wild scene to gaze upon, though I had only one 

 eye for viewing it, the injured one being bandaged up for 

 the time. 



As we picked our way along the ridge, I was much 

 amused with the behaviour of a big sturdy inhabitant of 

 the plateau, who, notwithstanding his load, which was not 

 a light one, was skipping nimbly about from rock to rock in 

 his anxious endeavours to point out the tahr. Fortunately 

 the animals were so far distant below us, that there was 

 little chance of their observing his excited movements. On 

 examining the animals with the telescope, I could discern 

 no great old black fellows among them, only tehrny or 

 young bucks. Some of the latter, however, showed fair 

 heads. 



We soon reached a spot on the ridge where the afore- 

 mentioned stalwart individual, who had constituted himself 

 our guide, had informed me that we should find a sort of 

 cave, under a big overhanging rock, capable of affording 

 shelter for us all. It was rather an awkward place to get 

 at, from its being situated just below the crest of the ridge, 





