Sierra de Grédos 217 
disappearing in opposite directions so as to encompass both the 
surrounding rock-ranges and to mark ibex in stalkable positions. 
We awaited their return in camp, not only with anxiety, but with 
some impatience, since the temperature had fallen so low that no 
wraps or blankets served to keep us warm while inactive. 
After a fruitless search of four hours, the scouts returned ; no 
better results attended a second morning and a third—nor our im- 
patience. Clearly the second resource, that of “ driving,” must now 
be tried. It was only ten o'clock that third morning, and already 
the drivers, who had left at dawn so as to reach agreed positions 
in case of the failure of resource No. 1, would be approaching the 
fixed points four miles away on the encircling heights, whereat, by 
signal, they would know whether to proceed with the “drive” or 
to return by the circuitous route they had gone. Meanwhile we 
have ourselves to reach the ‘“ passes” in the heights above, and 
the scramble and struggle which that ascent involved we must 
leave readers to imagine. Bertram gets through such work fairly 
well, but the writer, a generation older, is fain to choose a lower 
place, reputed a likely “ pass.” Here, after waiting an hour, we 
descried the drivers showing-up at different points of those 
encircling Riscos de Morezén, climbing like flies down perpen- 
dicular faces, disappearing in gorges, and doing all that specialised 
hunters can. But not an ibex came our way. When we reas- 
sembled, it proved that three goats had been seen, one a ram. 
Thus ended that day—cruel work amidst lovely though terrible 
scenery—and never a wild-goat within our sight. 
On the morrow our selected positions were to be yet nearer 
the heavens above than those of yesterday—along the highest sky- 
lines of Grédos, between the Plaza de Almanzér and the Ameéal. 
From our camp my own post was pointed out, a niche in that 
far-away impossible ridge. How long, I asked Ramon, do 
you imagine it will take me to reach it? Our friends, who, lean 
and lythe of frame, a specialised race of mountaineers, mock 
mountain-heights and appreciate too little (though they recognise) 
our relative weakness, reply, “Two hours.” But at that precise 
moment, while I yet scanned with binoculars the scene of this 
supreme effort, examining in a species of horror that infinity of 
piled rock-masses, their details cruelly developed in a blazing 
sunlight, just then, across the field of the glass soared a single 
lammergeyer. Now I know that these giant birds-of-prey span 
