152 Unexplored Spain 



carried four points on the main beam, as well as four on top — 

 length 34^ inches, by 5| inches basal circumference. 



The "defences" of the ibex in the Sierra Quintiina lie among 

 some fairly big crags forming the eastern and southern faces of 

 the range. The shooting at that time was free ; hence the goats 

 were never left in peace by the mountaineers, who all carried 

 guns, and used them whenever a chance presented itself. The 

 result was that the few surviving goats had become severely 

 nocturnal in habit, spending the entire day in caves and crevices 

 in the faces of sheer and naked precipices. 



Some of their eyries appeared absolutely inaccessible to any 

 creature unendowed with wings. One cave, though it had no 

 visible approach, wiis situate only some eight or ten feet above 

 a ledge in the perpendicular rock-face. One morning at dawn 

 two ibex having been seen to enter this cave, at once a couple 

 of the wiry goat-herds thought to reach them from the ledge 

 below, one lad actually climbing on to the other's shoulders as he 

 stood on that narrow shelf. In its rush to escape, however, the 

 leading ibex upset the precarious balance, and the poor lad was 

 precipitated among the tumbled rocks in the abyss below. 



Riding homewards through inhospitable brush-clad hills to- 

 wards the railway (forty miles away), we put up one night at a 

 village named, with unconscious irony, Cardena Real. In the 

 small hours broke out another terrific disturbance — shrieks, 

 squeals, barking — all the dogs gone mad. The night was 

 pitch-dark with rain falling in torrents ; but next morning we 

 ascertained that a pack of wolves had carried off the landlord's 

 pigs from their stye, not fifteen yards away — indeed, three 

 mangled porkers lay piled up against the wall of our hovel. 



The contingency of pigs being worse off than ourselves had 

 not previously occurred to us. Thus ended, in a cycle of catas- 

 trophe, our first wrestle with Cwpra hisjxlnica in Mordna ; but 

 initial failure only served to stimulate further efforts later on. 

 Winter, moreover, is no season for camping in these high sierras ; 

 May is more favourable, but the early autumn is best of all. 



At this period (1901) the surviving ibex had fallen to a 

 mere handful. Fortunately here, as elsewhere in Spain, there 

 was aroused, within the next five years, the tardy interest of 

 Spanish landowners to save them. 



The owner of the sierras above mentioned (the Marquis del 



