Serrania de Ronda 369 



but, hard by, stumbled on a second calf, even smaller, in another 

 bush. No. 1 meanwhile had gained its legs and bleated softly. 

 There followed a crash among the bush above, and as fierce- 

 looking a wild beast as ever I saw (and I have seen some) 

 came hurtling down those rugged rocks at amazing speed. On 

 seeing me (luckily some little distance from her own offspring) 

 the infuriated mother pulled up, full-face — a pretty picture, but 

 rather menacing, especially as she kept up a muttered bellowing, 

 horribly eloquent. I had sidled alongside a tree ; but Paco, who 

 carried my gun, with the reckless spirit begotten of the bull-fight, 

 boldly addressed the enemy in opprobrious terms. The only 

 result was that she came still nearer, and I swung to a lower 

 branch. Paco, nothing daunted, now tried stones (in addition 

 to expletives), and it was, to me at least, a relief when that cow 

 at length retired. The half- wild savage may easily be more 

 dangerous than the truly wild. The former have lost some of 

 their pristine respect for man, and of course one has less means 

 of defence. 



This incident over, we commenced the climb. The rock-stack 

 rose vertically above us, but we diverged to the right as afibrding 

 an easier route. On reaching the desired level, however, I found 

 it impossible to make good that interval on our left — a smooth 

 rock-face devoid of handhold, and too upright to traverse, forbade 

 all lateral movement. Up we went another twenty yards, then 

 another ; but always to find that slithery rock-face mocking our 

 efibrts to outflank it. We were now well above the rock-stack 

 overlooking the eyries, and I could see two griffons brooding, 

 another feeding a poult close by. But between us was a great 

 gulf fixed, and that gulf stopped us. The obvious alternative was 

 to descend and try again from a fresh point. But here a new 

 difficulty faced us : we could not descend. We had come up by 

 following a series of vertical fissures, or " chimnies," none too 

 easy, since every crevice sheltered some vicious vegetation, each 

 more spikey and thorny than the last. Still from heloiv one can 

 always select a handhold somewhere, and then defy the thorn ; 

 whereas on looking hacktvards, nothing is visible but a vanishing 

 outline of rock and gorse, porcupine broom, or palmetto — beyond 

 is vacant space, and a sheer drop at that. In a word, we could 

 neither descend nor move laterally. It was humiliating — even 

 more so than the antecedent incident with a COIF ! 



2b 



