Ramón and Isidóro were away by the first glint of dawn, 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 impatience. 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 Morezón, climbing like flies down perpendicular faces, disappearing in gorges, and doing all that specialised hunters can. But not an ibex came our way. When we reassembled, 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 skylines of Grédos, between the Plaza de Almanzór and the Ameál. From our camp my own post was pointed out, a niche in that far-away impossible ridge. How long, I asked Ramón, 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 some ten feet from wing to wing, and the tiny speck that this one, reduced by distance, appeared on the object-glass helped me to gauge what lay before us.
A black point that from camp I had mentally noted as a landmark proved to be a mass of dolomite seamed with interjected striæ of glistening felspar, big as a village church!
I had demanded four hours, and precisely within that period reached my celestial pinnacle. Bertram was beyond and higher still—where, I could not see. But my own post seemed to me as sublime as even an ibex-hunter could desire, at the culminating apex of the Spains and the centre of dispersal of four giant gorges each bristling with bewildering chaos of crags and rock-ruin, while above, to right and left, towered yet loftier riscos.
At these serene altitudes life appeared non-existent. The last signs of a cryptogamic vegetation we had left below, and I could now see eagles or vultures soaring almost perpendicularly beneath and reduced by distance to moving specks.
Yet shortly before reaching our posts, along one of those awesome shelves with a 500-feet drop below, a touch from Ramón drew my attention to a truly magnificent old ibex-ram in full view, quietly skipping from crag to crag some 300 yards above. So slow and deliberate were his movements, with frequent halts to gaze, that time was allowed to gain a rational position and to enjoy for several minutes a glorious view through binoculars. Twice he halted in front of small snow-slopes, against which those curving horns were set off in perfect detail. Then with measured movements, making good each foot-hold, alternated by marvellous bounds to some rock-point above, the grand wild-goat vanished from view. His course led into a rock-region that already our drivers were encompassing, hence we had strong hopes that we might not have seen the last of him.
Two herds of ibex, it transpired, were enclosed in this beat; one comprising nine females and small beasts, the second two with a two-year-old ram; but our big friend was seen no more.
I had, however, enjoyed a scene that went far to compensate for the tribulations it had cost.