SPORT AND TRAVEL 211 



we left our horses (after having hobbled them and 

 removed their saddles) and proceeded on foot. Hav- 

 ing climbed to the top of a little ridge, we halted to 

 take a look round. Jinks, who had the glasses, had 

 just said, " I think I can see sheep," when I, too, saw 

 the white rump of an animal, as it moved amongst 

 some small scattered pine-trees about four hundred 

 yards away to our left. Soon I made out two more, 

 one of which was lying down; but they were too far 

 off to be seen very distinctly with the naked eye. 

 Jinks, however, now confidently pronounced them to 

 be sheep, but said he feared they were either ewes or 

 young rams. Taking the glasses from him, I was 

 obliged to come to the same conclusion; but there was 

 still a chance that there might be a ram somewhere 

 near the animals we could see, hidden from view by a 

 tree or some inequality in the ground, and we were just 

 preparing to commence a nearer approach when for 

 some reason or other the sheep began to come nearer to 

 us. Something appeared to have startled them, though 

 I don't know what it could have been unless it was the 

 sight of a lynx or a puma. We soon saw that there 

 were five sheep all together, and that they were all ewes. 

 The slope just above us was very steep and rocky and 

 scantily covered with pine-trees for a distance of per- 

 haps three hundred feet, but above this there rose a 

 sheer wall of rock, and it was just along the base of 

 this that the wild sheep came. They advanced in 

 single file, sometimes trotting, sometimes walking, but 



