144 Unexplored Spain 



We attach less importance to specific distinctions, but leave 

 the illustrations of specimens to speak for themselves. It may, 

 however, be remarked that examples from the two outside ex- 

 tremes (Pyrenees and Nevada) most closely assimilate in their 

 flattened and compressed form of horn. 



Neither in Gredos nor Nevada are the rock-formations so 

 precipitous as in the Picos de Europa in Asturias — described 

 later in this book. They present, nevertheless, difficulties possibly 

 insuperable to mere hunters unskilled in the technique of 

 climbing. Rock-climbing forms a recognised branch of " moun- 

 taineering," but of that science the authors (with sorrow be it 

 confessed) have never been enamoured. To us, mountains, 

 merely as such, have not appealed. But they form the home of 

 alpine creatures, the study and acquisition of which were objects 

 that no terrestrial obstacle could entirely forbid, and we enjoy 

 retrospective pride in having so far surmounted those antecedent 

 terrors as to have secured a few specimens of this, the most 

 " impossible" of European trophies — the Spanish ibex. 



An awkward situation is a subrounded wall of rough granu- 

 lated granite blocking our course and traversed obliquely by an 

 up -trending fissure barely the breadth of hempen soles, its 

 inclination outward, and the "tread" carpeted with slippery wet 

 moss still half frozen. It is seldom what one can see that gives 

 pause, but the fear of the unseen. Here we hesitate by reason of 

 the uncertainty of what may confront beyond that grim curve. 

 The fissure might cease ; to turn back would clearly be impossible. 

 Impatient of delay our crag-born guide — a homo rupestris, pre- 

 hensile of foot — seized the gun, and with a muttered ejaculation 

 that mio-ht have included scorn, in three strides had skipt around 

 the dreaded corner — of course we followed. 



Snow -slopes tipped at steep angles never inspire confidence 

 in the unaxed climber, especially when the surface is half melted, 

 revealing green ice beneath, and when the disappearing curve 

 conceals from view^ what dangers may lurk below. Again a 

 suddenly interrupted ledge — say where some great block has 

 become disintegrated from the hanging face — necessitates a sort 

 of nervy jump quite calculated to shorten one's days, even if it 

 does not precipitately terminate them. 



The ibex is always nocturnal. On the great Cordilleras it 

 spends its day asleep on some rock-ledge isolated amidst snow- 



