THE NILGHERR1ES. 151 



precipices, peering over the edges and 

 creeping stealthily among the clefts. 

 Every new stretch of ground we 

 reached was to be absolutely the last. 

 " We would just look round and then 

 go to breakfast." Noon came, and tho- 

 roughly famished I was about to turn, 

 when one of my men actually sighted 

 ibex. Beckoning me to the ledge over 

 which he was gazing, he pointed far 

 far down, half-way to the plains as it 

 seemed to me, and there, on a grassy 

 ledge at the foot of one precipice and 

 on the brow of another, were four or 

 five brown specks, which after much 

 scrutiny resolved themselves into ibex 

 lying down. " How are we to get near 

 them?" I asked; for in truth nothing 

 but a balloon could have carried one 



