WILD GOATS OF THE DESERTAS 13 



with our food and blankets, the rifle and camera, 

 to sleep in a cave under the cliffs. 



The next day the boat failed to come, and 

 we had to climb a cleft in the cliffs and carry 

 our kit as best we could. Cossart had told me at 

 Madeira that Pareisha was the best climber of all 

 the mountaineers of Canico, and I could well believe 

 this, for the old man climbed with the big camera 

 and haversack better than I did with rifle alone. 



The cliff path was so steep that I had to use 

 both hands and feet in the climb. When we at 

 last stood on the crest of the eastern cliff of the 

 island, we could see below us the flat-topped 

 island of Chaon rising like a table from the sea, 

 while 20 miles farther eastward was Madeira. 

 Sheer down, hundreds of feet below r us, was the cove 

 from where we had climbed, with the ever-restless 

 sea. To the west lay an open valley, sloping 

 upwards for several miles to a hill in the centre 

 of the island, and in the foreground of the valley 

 was a herd of wild goats with one big ram. 



We had been late in starting and the scenery 

 would stay but the goats would not, so down I 

 went, toe and elbow, to the old game, the best game 

 in the world, the matching of a hunter's craft 

 against the wiliest of all animals, the wild goat 

 in his mountains. But alas ! I had reckoned 

 without Pareisha, who liked climbing and would 

 beat for goats, bub who did not think it meet for 

 the King of the Canico Highlanders to crawl on 

 his belly like any snake in the grass. Tims it 

 was that, after creeping along painfully for some 

 distance on the stony ground, I found old Pareisha 



