210 Unexplored Spain 
At 4000 feet we encamped beneath the pines by a lovely 
trout-stream. This was the rendezvous whereat by arrangement 
we met with our old friends the ibex-hunters of Almanzér— 
savage perhaps to the eye, yet beyond all doubt radiantly glad to 
welcome back the foreigners after a lapse of years. No mere 
greed of dollars inspired that enthusiasm, but solely the bond of 
a common passion that bound us all—that of the hunter. It 
was, however, but sorry hearing to listen to the reports they told 
us around the camp-fire. Everywhere the ibex were yearly 
growing scarcer, dwindling to an inevitable vanishing-point, former 
haunts already abandoned—or, we should rather say, swept clean. 
Where but a score of years before, 150 ibex had been counted 
in a single monterta, our friends reckoned that exactly a dozen 
survived. One remark especially struck us. ‘There remained,” 
with glee our friends assured us, “‘one magnificent old goat, a 
ram of twelve years, out there on the crags of Almanzér.” Ovwz! 
To one sole big head had it dwindled ? 
The valley of the Tagus divides two geological periods, and 
perhaps at one time divided Europe from a retiring Africa. 
Marked differences distinguish the fauna on either side of the 
river, and that of the north (with its 10,000 feet altitude) 
promised reward worthy the labours of investigation. Not a 
yard of that great mountain-land of 
Grédos has been trodden by British foot 
(save our own) since the days of 
Wellington. Hence it was an object 
with us to secure, not only ibex heads, 
but specimens of the smaller mammalia 
that dwell in those heights. Our 
mountain friends assembled round the 
camp-fire—twenty-five in all—each 
promised to take up this unaccustomed quest and to regard as 
game every hitherto unconsidered bicho of the hills, whether 
feathered, furred, or scaled. If ibex failed us, at least a harvest 
in such minor game we meant to assure.’ 
Three o'clock saw us astir, bathing in the dark burn while 
moonlight still streamed through sombre pines. Camp mean- 
“MINOR GAME” 
1 In particular, remembering an incident that had occurred here in 1891, and recorded in 
Wild Spain, p. 147, we were anxious to ascertain if the lemming, or any relative of his, still 
survived in these central Spanish cordilleras. The marmot is another possible inhabitant. 
