THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
an appearance of trousers. In autumn, it is said, the old rams all 
assume that pelage. The troop was advancing slowly but directly 
towards us, peering round them on every side, and halting at intervals. 
A big ram led, but the biggest kept in the centre. In passing us, 
however, they strung out in file, and V. tried a long shot at the 
champion, but missed. 
“At 3 p.m. we ascended Las Hoyuelas, and from those heights 
observed seven females quietly feeding— again most difficult to distin- 
guish by reason of their colour. At eight o’clock the guards spied two 
good rams beginning to feed, but too late to attempt approach. 
“July 3.— To-day we tried a drive. Four and a half hours’ climbing 
brought us to the “ passes ” through the Cabeza Nevada, 7,500 ft. 
Here, although we lay ambushed in the most favoured passes, no ibex 
came our way. All day we enjoyed the sight of various troops of wild 
goats: but none would enter the pass, and during the afternoon all 
broke back through the line of beaters— including a band of thirty 
rams. That night, being unable to regain our camp before dark, we 
spent in the Covacho de los Pinarejos — a natural cave better suited 
for an eagle’s eyrie than a human abode. 
“July 4. — Set out in search of the thirty rams seen yesterday, but 
failed to find a sign of them in the region we had been led to expect 
would hold them. Eleven hours’ work we put in to-day, ascending 
snowfields and crossing the culminating ridges of Gredos — the 
panorama from the apex imposing beyond words — but no tangible 
result rewarded our labours. Our camp, moreover, we found badly 
placed, exposed to the wind and driving snow. This, however, was 
due to the site originally selected being filled up by the exceptional 
snowfall of this year. 
“At these altitudes there is absolutely no vegetation, nothing but a 
jumble of rocks, crags and snow. In the Laguna de Gredos itself there 
grows a sort of water -grass with strong garlic -like smell, locally 
called porrino , and this the ibex greedily devour. 
“July 5. — We set forth on our last day’s effort, a trifle dispirited by 
our failure to accomplish our chief ambition — that of shooting an ibex 
ram. Two and a half hours it cost us to climb out to the pass of Las 
Hoyuelas, facing the Plaza de Almanzor (8,700 ft.). 
“Stalking we had abandoned as hopeless: our last hope of achieving 
our object we rested on a drive. Since dawn twenty or thirty men had 
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