IBEX-SHOOTING IN SPAIN. 159 



cealed among the scrub, the sex was not distinguished. 

 This female (shot March 26th) ^Yas found, on being 

 gralloched, to contain a pair of kids, which would not 

 have seen the light under three weeks. Another female, 

 followed by her chivata, was shot on this beat, though 

 eventually lost, by one of our Spanish cazadorcs, Juan 

 Marquez. 



The field of our operations was all scrub — strong thorny 

 bushes clothing the steep and rock-strewn slopes, amidst 

 which we subsequently found many " lairs " of the ibex — 

 regular seats, like those of a hare or fox. Hidden in these 

 strongholds, the ibex, our men asserted, would deliberately 

 allow the beaters to pass them by : but we have strong 

 grounds for the opinion that this only applied to the 

 females — all ages or sexes, be it repeated, are alike to a 

 cazador — and never to the males, which, always wild and 

 crafty, rely for safety on far bolder tactics and modes of 

 escape. 



Pines and fir intersj^ersed the scrub to the very rcalcs 

 or utmost heights of Bermeja — 4,800 feet by aneroid : 

 and Palmitera, though the snow lies longer there, is of a 

 tritie less altitude. Though, on this occasion, our sport 

 was marred and exuberance of spirit tempered by the 

 constant competition of local hunters — by those visions of 

 the hated " gente de Enalguacil " scampering like the 

 goats themselves up the rocks before us — yet, at least, we 

 enjoyed, from the crest of Bermeja, a spectacle which is 

 probably without rival in Europe, and the like of which 

 we have not gazed upon in our lives. Looking down from 

 near 5,000 feet altitude, we had portions of two continents 

 spread out as a. map at out feet. The vast expanse of 

 deep blue Mediterranean visible from such elevations is 

 hard to picture — the level sea appears to tower up, regard- 

 less of physical laws, among the clouds themselves : yet, 

 far beyond its southern shores, we could look right into 

 the dark continent, across range beyond range of African 

 mountains, terminating only in the glittering snow-peaks 

 of the Atlas, on the verge of Saharan deserts. Gibraltar 

 looked like a tinv islet in the Straits, midwav between 



