CHAPTER XXI 

 SIERRA DE GRIilDOS {Continued) 



IBEX-HUNTING 



Why try to describe the distress of that morniDg or the efforts 

 it cost, duriug fourteen hours, to gain the summits of Gredos ? 

 Again and again what we had taken for our destination proved 

 to be some intervening ridge with another desperate gorge beyond. 

 Suffice it that it was an hour after dark ere we finally lifted the 

 cargoes from the dead-beat beasts. Presently the moon arose, 

 and against her pale effulgence towered the gnarled and pinnacled 

 peaks of Almanzor, piercing the very skies — a lovely but to me 

 an appalling scene. Their altitude is 8800 feet. 



Our whole plan and ambitions in this expedition were to find 

 and stalk the ibex — the very undertaking which had proved 

 beyond our powers during two strenuous efforts in former years 

 as readers of Wild Spain already know. 



Now in all stalkins: it must be obvious even to non-technical 

 readers that the first essential is to bring under survey of the 

 binoculars a very considerable extent of game-country every day ; 

 but here, in the chaotic jumble of perpendicular or impending 

 precipice or smooth rock-faces inclined at angles that we dare not 

 traverse, any such extensive survey is a sheer impossibility. 

 Alpine climbers or others in the fullest enjoyment of youth 

 and activity might get forward at a reasonable speed. To 

 us, already past that stage, the feat was impossible, i.e. by our 

 own sole exertions. That we, of course, knew in advance ; but 

 our plan was to supplement our own powers by availing the 

 splendid rock-climbing abilities of our friends, the goat-herds of 

 Almanzor, on whom we relied for at least finding the game in the 

 first instance. 



Ramon and Isidoro were away by the first glint of dawn, 



216 



