Serrania de Ronda 369 
but, hard by, stumbled on a second calf, even smaller, in another 
bush. No. 1 meanwhile had gained its legs and bleated softly. 
There followed a crash among the bush above, and as fierce- 
looking a wild beast as ever I saw (and I have seen some) 
came hurtling down those rugged rocks at amazing speed. On 
seeing me (luckily some little distance from her own offspring) 
the infuriated mother pulled up, full-face—a pretty picture, but 
rather menacing, especially as she kept up a muttered bellowing, 
horribly eloquent. I had sidled alongside a tree ; but Paco, who 
carried my gun, with the reckless spirit begotten of the bull-fight, 
boldly addressed the enemy in opprobrious terms. The only 
result was that she came still nearer, and I swung to a lower 
branch. Paco, nothing daunted, now tried stones (in addition 
to expletives), and it was, to me at least, a relief when that cow 
at length retired. The half-wild savage may easily be more 
dangerous than the truly wild. The former have lost some of 
their pristine respect for man, and of course one has less means 
of defence. 
This incident over, we commenced the climb. The rock-stack 
rose vertically above us, but we diverged to the right as affording 
an easier route. On reaching the desired level, however, I found 
it impossible to make good that interval on our left—a smooth 
rock-face devoid of handhold, and too upright to traverse, forbade 
all lateral movement. Up we went another twenty yards, then 
another ; but always to find that slithery rock-face mocking our 
efforts to outflank it. We were now well above the rock-stack 
overlooking the eyries, and I could see two griffons brooding, 
another feeding a poult close by. But between us was a great 
gulf fixed, and that gulf stopped us. The obvious alternative was 
to descend and try again from a fresh point. But here a new 
difficulty faced us: we could not descend. We had come up by 
following a series of vertical fissures, or ‘“chimnies,” none too 
easy, since every crevice sheltered some vicious vegetation, each 
more spikey and thorny than the last. Still from below one can 
always select a handhold somewhere, and then defy the thorn ; 
whereas on looking backwards, nothing is visible but a vanishing 
outline of rock and gorse, porcupine broom, or palmetto—beyond 
is vacant space, and a sheer drop at that. In a word, we could 
neither descend nor move laterally. It was humiliating—even 
more so than the antecedent incident with a COW! 
2B 
