THE BIG GAME OF SPAIN 
been engaged encircling the vast amphitheatre of rocks and snow 
known as the Circo de Gredos. Now at noon those immense 
solitudes resound with their distant cries and the reports of their 
old-world guns. 
“The ibex have four or five distinct “passes” by which they can 
traverse Las Hoyuelas; but by good luck it befel that two troops 
selected that in which we lay hid. The first consisted of five rams, and 
of these I killed the foremost and biggest; the second of about fifteen, 
from which V. shot another good ram. Such was the precipitous nature 
of the pass that nothing short of the rock-climbing skill of Isidoro 
Blazquez, the head guard, would ever have recovered our dead ibex 
from the abysmal depths into which they had fallen — the second, 
indeed, was not recovered that night. Thus ended our expedition. 
“ I can assert without hesitation that during these four days we saw 
fully three hundred ibex. Further, I may record that in 1905, when 
His Majesty the King took the charge of the ibex upon himself, there 
then only survived some fifteen head, of which five were males (four 
small, one big). To that exiguous extremity had this splendid species 
been reduced! ” 
A Royal “ drive ” was organized shortly afterwards, the outstanding 
feature of which was that, among other fine trophies, the record head of a 
Spanish ibex from the Sierra de Gredos was shot by King Alfonso, the 
horns taping over 32 inches, with a basal circumference of nearly 9 inches. 
Our own best heads measure : — from Gredos (as shown in photo) 30 J inches, 
and from Sierra Nevada 29£ inches. 
The following summary, descriptive of this first Royal montena in 
Gredos, we extract from a Spanish newspaper: 
“ Singly and laboriously the sportsmen climb out to their allotted 
posts situate far apart amidst those terrific precipices that enshroud 
the Plaza de Almanz6r. Truly this sport is for the brave, for men whom 
no terrors can deter. 
“ The first day yielded no other result than a right-and-left shot 
by H.M. The King — the first and only one on record. No one, at 
least, has ever claimed such a unique feat. One of these two ibex 
proved a magnificent old ram, the best, it is believed, ever obtained 
in Gredos. 
“ The second day’s operations covered all that vast and chaotic 
extension of crags known as the Riscos del Frances and del Fraile. It 
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