2.24 Unexplored Spain 
hunters. The cold at night in camp was intense, and our Anda- 
lucian retainers complained bitterly, although they kept an 
enormous fire going; yet during the day the heat had been 
excessive, and the sun burns terribly at these altitudes. 
The following morning we tried a comprehensive drive encom- 
passing two gorges composed of sublimely grand rocks. As I 
look over the edge of the black pinnacle that forms my post the 
sheer drop below is appalling, and above me tower similar masses 
in rugged and frowning splendour. But not a goat was seen till 
quite late in the afternoon, when two females slowly approaching 
were descried. For a mile we watched them, so deliberate was 
their progress, till they disappeared through the very “pass” 
where A. had shot his some five years before. 
September 6.—Our scouts returned last night, having failed 
to locate ibex on the opposite mountain; so we made a final 
effort on the Riscos of Villarejo—again blank. Well! we have 
done our best for six days on those terrible rocks, on which we 
must now turn our backs for the present. 
At the village of Arénas de San Pedro we bade good-bye 
to all our people; even their wives (clad in the same short 
skirts of greens and other brilliant hues we had noticed in ’91, 
for fashions change slowly in the sierra) came down from Guisando 
to say farewell to the Ingléses. Here Ramén brought in the 
head of Bertie’s ibex shot the week before; Ramén presented me 
with his powder-horn and bullet-pouch as a keepsake, and Juanito 
with a mountain-staff. Our visit had marked an epoch in the 
simple annals of the sierra and of its honest and primitive 
inhabitants. 
To-day we rejoice to add that, as already fully set forth at 
pp. 141-142, wild-goats may be counted in troops on the erewhiles 
ibex-denuded crags of Almanzér. 
