SPORT AND TRAVEL 51 



corries, the sides of which are everywhere clothed with 

 forests of juniper, except, of course, on bare cliffs. 

 This broken face of the mountain has a length of 

 seven or eight miles, and rises to a height of about 

 fifteen hundred feet above the plain. At its foot runs 

 the railway line for its whole length, skirting at the 

 same time the large salt pan I have before spoken of. 

 It is this broken rugged mountain face, with its 

 numerous precipitous cliffs and fantastic buttresses of 

 bare rock, which has earned the appellation of the 

 " Monkey Mountain," the idea being apparently that 

 it would require the activity and climbing powers of a 

 monkey to get about on it comfortably. Given, how- 

 ever, a pair of india-rubber-soled shoes and a fairly 

 good head, the Maimun Dagh presents but little diffi- 

 culty or danger to the hunter of wild goats, the pur- 

 suit of which animals is very much easier in every 

 way there than upon the precipitous limestone moun- 

 tains on the south coast of Asia Minor, which in 

 places come sheer down into the sea, and many of 

 which can only be ascended with considerable diffi- 

 culty. But let me return to the Maimun Dagh. 



As snow was lying on the top of the mountain, the 

 Doctor thought it would be useless looking for the 

 wild goats on the highest ridges, so we searched for 

 them in the ravines from five hundred to one thou- 

 sand feet above the plain. It was a clear, frosty 

 morning as we ascended the lower slopes of the 

 mountain on February 4, and, although the sun was 



