Sierra Moréna 151 
Hardly had the sun gone down, than the easterly gale blew 
up-again with redoubled force. All night it howled through our 
narrow gorge and around its pinnacled rock-minarets, with the 
result that at 11 p.m. the ill-secured guys gave way, and down 
came our tent with a crash. Two hours were spent (in drenching 
rain) remedying this; and when day broke, an icy neblina (fog) 
enveloped the sierra, shutting out all view beyond a few yards. 
The cold was intense, and a little dam we had engineered the 
night before was frozen thick. The fog held all that day 
and the next. Nothing could be done, though we persisted 
in going out each day, as in duty bound, for a few hours’ turn 
among the crags—how we prayed for one hour’s clear interval 
that might have given that glorious sight we sought! At dusk 
the second night snow fell heavily, and later on a thunderstorm 
added to our joys. Frequent and vivid flashes of lightning lit 
up the darkness, and caused the surviving chickens (which in 
common charity we had had tethered inside the tent) to crow so 
incessantly that sleep was impossible. Presently we noticed a 
sharp fall in temperature—the men had brought in a cube of 
ice, the solidified contents of one of our camp-buckets, which they 
proposed to melt at a little fire kept burning in the tent! But 
this was too much, even though it meant “no coffee for 
breakfast.” 
The frost and fog continuing, on the third morning the men 
proposed we should move lower down the hill, to some cortzo 
they knew of, thereat to await milder weather. 
By this time, however, the cold had penetrated deep into 
throat and chest, which felt raw and inflamed, leaving the writer 
almost speechless. We therefore decided to abandon the whole 
venture, and struck camp, still wrapt in that opaque shroud of 
driving sleet. 
Crossing over the highest ridge of the sierra, between crags 
of which only the bases were visible, we descended on the south 
side ; here we organised a “drive” amid the jungles that clothe 
the lower slopes. Two lynxes and three pigs were reported as 
seen by the beaters. Only one of the latter, however, came to 
the gun, and proved to be a sow, bigger by half than any wild- 
pig we had then seen in Spain. We regretted having no 
means of weighing this beast, which we estimated at well over 
200 lbs. clean. A remarkable cast antler picked up at this spot 
