144 Unexplored Spain 
We attach less importance to specific distinctions, but leave 
the illustrations of specimens to speak for themselves. It may, 
however, be remarked that examples from the two outside ex- 
tremes (Pyrenees and Nevada) most closely assimilate in their 
flattened and compressed form of horn. 
Neither in Grédos nor Nevdda are the rock-formations so 
precipitous as in the Picos de Europa in Asturias—described 
later in this book. They present, nevertheless, difficulties possibly 
insuperable to mere hunters unskilled in the technique of 
climbing. Rock-climbing forms a recognised branch of “ moun- 
taineering,” but of that science the authors (with sorrow be it 
confessed) have never been enamoured. To us, mountains, 
merely as such, have not appealed. But they form the home of 
alpine creatures, the study and acquisition of which were objects 
that no terrestrial obstacle could entirely forbid, and we enjoy 
retrospective pride in having so far surmounted those antecedent 
terrors as to have secured a few specimens of this, the most 
“impossible ” of European trophies—the Spanish ibex. 
An awkward situation is a subrounded wall of rough granu- 
lated granite blocking our course and traversed obliquely by an 
up-trending fissure barely the breadth of hempen soles, its 
inclination outward, and the “tread” carpeted with slippery wet 
moss still half frozen. It is seldom what one can see that gives 
pause, but the fear of the unseen. Here we hesitate by reason of 
the uncertainty of what may confront beyond that grim curve. 
The fissure might cease ; to turn back would clearly be impossible. 
Impatient of delay our crag-born guide—a homo rupestris, pre- 
hensile of foot—seized the gun, and with a muttered ejaculation 
that might have included scorn, in three strides had skipt around 
the dreaded corner—of course we followed. 
Snow-slopes tipped at steep angles never inspire confidence 
in the unaxed climber, especially when the surface is half melted, 
revealing green ice beneath, and when the disappearing curve 
conceals from view what dangers may lurk below. Again a 
suddenly interrupted ledge—say where some great block has 
become disintegrated from the hanging face—necessitates a sort 
of nervy jump quite calculated to shorten one’s days, even if it 
does not precipitately terminate them. 
The ibex is always nocturnal. On the great cordilleras it 
spends its day asleep on some rock-ledge isolated amidst snow- 
