Five other ibex (two males) sought to reach the refuge of the main rock-wall by a lower pass, where two guns were posted. Here, as they scrambled slantingly up the perpendicular face, one bullet sped true, and the best macho fell back, struggling to maintain a foot-hold. This his paralyzed quarters forbade, and soon what little life remained was extinguished as the stricken animal fell bouncing from rock to rock till it finally lodged in a cleft of a projecting spur. He proved an eight-year-old ram, with horns measuring nearly twenty-eight inches in length, with a circumference of over nine inches and a "sweep" of nearly twenty-three.
At length the time arrived to bid farewell to these rock-ramparts of Old Castile, and their primitive simple folk, kindly and honest as the day; Dionysio actually returned to our camp before daylight next morning—a two-league walk—to return a pair of boots left by one of us at his cottage! Each man already seemed an old friend. "Hasta la otra," said Juan Guarro y Guarro as he offered his hand, "y si no, que lo pasen ustedes bien!"—"Till the next time, and, if for ever, fare ye well!" The conclusions we came to were that both our visits were rather too early (May), and that the most favourable season for ibex-shooting is in July and August: but even then, whether by stalking or driving, the work is hard in the extreme.
CHAPTER XIII.
IBEX-SHOOTING IN SPAIN—(Continued).
III.—Sierra Bermeja (Mediterranean).
In the last chapter are described some experiences with ibex in the distant cordilleras of Castile: but we have the wild cabra montés much nearer—indeed within sight of our Andalucian home. The Sierra Nevada is one of their chief abodes, and herds of goats roam the still nearer heights of Ubrique, Bermeja, and the Palmitera. As the circumstances of the ibex here vary from those already described, we now add some details of campaigns on these Mediterranean ranges.
We pitched our tents one March evening on a narrow flat plateau, barely over 2,000 feet, at a point in the Bermeja range, where our pioneer—we had employed a native cazador to "prospect" for five or six weeks—had localized two or three small herds of ibex. The steep mountain-sides around were clad to their utmost summits with strong brushwood and with scattered patches of pine and a species of fir (pinsapo)—admirable-looking ground for pig, but not at all so, according to preconceived ideas, for the wild-goat. It was, therefore, an agreeable surprise when, early next morning, there were descried three ibex, quietly grazing on the bloom of the abolága brush beyond a deep ravine, and only about 1,000 feet above the camp. These three, while we watched, were joined by another two, when some make-believe "sparring" ensued between a pair of rams: but at this season (March) there was obviously no great development of the combative instinct.
The next spectacle was less welcome. On the height of the ridge, high above us, we descried against the sky-line the crouching figure of a man, stealthily advancing as though in touch of game. This ill-omened apparition, as the sequel proved, was the key-note of this campaign: the semana santa of Easter-tide had commenced, we were forestalled by native cazadoras, and a carefully-planned and well-organized exhibition resulted in comparative failure. Nor had the danger of this been entirely unforeseen, but adverse circumstances had delayed our movements.
