2 1 o Unexplored Spain 



At 4000 feet we encamped beneath the pines by a lovely 

 trout-stream. This was the rendezvous whereat by arrangement 

 we met with our old friends the ibex-hunters of Almanzor — 

 savage perhaps to the eye, yet beyond all doubt radiantly glad to 

 welcome back the foreigners after a lapse of years. No mere 

 greed of dollars inspired that enthusiasm, but solely the bond of 

 a common passion that bound us all — that of the hunter. It 

 was, however, but sorry hearing to listen to tlie reports they told 

 us around the camp-fire. Everywhere the ibex were yearly 

 growing scarcer, dwindling to an inevitable vanishing-point, former 

 haunts already abandoned — or, we should rather say, swept clean. 

 Where but a score of years before, 150 ibex had been counted 

 in a single monteria, our friends reckoned that exactly a dozen 

 survived. One remark especially struck us. " There remained," 

 with glee our friends assured us, " one magnificent old goat, a 

 ram of twelve years, out there on the crags of Almanz6r." Oxe ! 

 To one sole big head had it dwindled ? 



The valley of the Tagus divides two geological periods, and 

 perhaps at one time divided Europe from a retiring Africa. 

 Marked differences distino^uish the fauna on either side of the 

 river, and that of the north (with its 10,000 feet altitude) 

 promised reward worthy the labours of investigation. Not a 



yard of that great mountain -land of 

 Gredos has been trodden by British foot 

 (save our own) since the days of 

 Wellington. Hence it was an object 

 with us to secure, not only ibex heads, 

 but specimens of the smaller mammalia 

 that dwell in those heights. Our 

 mountain friends assembled round the 



"MINOR GAME" n 4. j. ii • n l 



camp-fire — twenty-five m all — each 

 promised to take up this unaccustomed quest and to regard as 

 game every hitherto unconsidered hicho of the hills, whether 

 feathered, furred, or scaled. If ibex failed us, at least a harvest 

 in such minor s^ame we meant to assure.^ 



Three o'clock saw us astir, bathing in the dark burn while 

 moonlight still streamed through sombre pines. Camp mean- 



^ In particular, remembering an incident that had occurred here in 1891, and recorded in 

 inid Sjxcin, p. 147, we were anxious to ascertain if the lemming, or any relative of his, still 

 survived in these central Spanish Cordilleras. The marmot is another possible inhabitant. 



