56 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



on our way disturbing four nanny-goats, a long dis- 

 tance from us, on the opposite side of a broad 

 ravine. Although they must have been six or seven 

 hundred yards off when they first observed us, they 

 did not seem to trust us even at that distance, but 

 commenced to climb rapidly up some very steep rocky 

 ground above them, and at last disappeared over the 

 top of one of the fantastic and picturesque buttresses 

 of rock which form such a striking feature in the 

 landscapes of the Maimun Dagh. We now kept 

 along the side of the mountain in the same manner 

 as we had done the preceding day, but over entirely 

 fresh ground, as on Monday we had only hunted that 

 portion of the mountain lying between Chardak and 

 our camp, whilst we were now working the ground 

 beyond. Our plan was to keep along the hillside 

 for three or four miles at an elevation of about one 

 thousand feet, and then, after ascending to the top, to 

 work back again through the highest corries. 



The Maimun Dagh is, I may say, so wonderfully 

 broken up by innumerable ravines and corries that it 

 takes fully half a day to work quietly and cautiously 

 along three or four miles of its rugged face. I think 

 it must have been about eleven o'clock that, climbing 

 out of a steep-sided ravine, we reached a ridge covered 

 with large pine-trees, and peered cautiously first over 

 a bare wall of rock above us, and then into the thickly 

 wooded ravine below. For some minutes we lay still, 

 and examined the ground above and below us very 



