2l8 



Unexplored Spain 



some ten feet from wing to wing, and the tiny speck that this 

 one, reduced by distance, appeared on the object-glass helped me 

 to gauge what lay before us. 



A black point that from camp I had mentally noted as a 

 landmark proved to be a mass of dolomite seamed with inter- 

 jected striae of glistening felspar, big as a vilhige church ! 



T had demanded four hours, and precisely within that period 



"THE WAY OF AN EAGLE IN THE AIR" 



(Lammergeyer — Gypaetus barbatus) 



reached my celestial pinnacle. Bertram was beyond and higher 

 still — where, I could not see. But my own post seemed to me as 

 sublime as even an ibex-hunter could desire, at the culminating 

 apex of the Spains and the centre of dispersal of four giant gorges 

 each bristlinor with bewilderino^ chaos of cra^s and rock-ruin, while 

 above, to right and left, towered yet loftier riscos. 



At these serene altitudes life appeared non-existent. The last 

 signs of a cryptogamic vegetation we had left below, and I 

 could now see eagles or vultures soaring almost perpendicularly 

 beneath and reduced by distance to moving specks. 



Yet shortly before reaching our posts, along one of those 



