Despite our local competitors, luck at first seemed inclined to be propitious. While going to our positions, along the knife-edged spur that enclosed our glen, an ibex fell to the rifle of one of our party, who had come suddenly on five (four good males) quietly feeding in a pine-clad corrie, and a standing shot, at 70 yards, secured one—unfortunately the only cabra; for, their heads being concealed among the scrub, the sex was not distinguished. This female (shot March 26th) was found, on being gralloched, to contain a pair of kids, which would not have seen the light under three weeks. Another female, followed by her chivata, was shot on this beat, though eventually lost, by one of our Spanish cazadores, Juan Marquéz.
The field of our operations was all scrub—strong thorny bushes clothing the steep and rock-strewn slopes, amidst which we subsequently found many "lairs" of the ibex—regular seats, like those of a hare or fox. Hidden in these strongholds, the ibex, our men asserted, would deliberately allow the beaters to pass them by: but we have strong grounds for the opinion that this only applied to the females—all ages or sexes, be it repeated, are alike to a cazador—and never to the males, which, always wild and crafty, rely for safety on far bolder tactics and modes of escape.
Pines and fir interspersed the scrub to the very reales or utmost heights of Bermeja—4,800 feet by aneroid: and Palmitera, though the snow lies longer there, is of a trifle less altitude. Though, on this occasion, our sport was marred and exuberance of spirit tempered by the constant competition of local hunters—by those visions of the hated "gente de Enalguacil" scampering like the goats themselves up the rocks before us—yet, at least, we enjoyed, from the crest of Bermeja, a spectacle which is probably without rival in Europe, and the like of which we have not gazed upon in our lives. Looking down from near 5,000 feet altitude, we had portions of two continents spread out as a map at out feet. The vast expanse of deep blue Mediterranean visible from such elevations is hard to picture—the level sea appears to tower up, regardless of physical laws, among the clouds themselves: yet, far beyond its southern shores, we could look right into the dark continent, across range beyond range of African mountains, terminating only in the glittering snow-peaks of the Atlas, on the verge of Saharan deserts. Gibraltar looked like a tiny islet in the Straits, midway between Jebel Moosa's cloud-wreathed mass, and the loftier Spanish sierras beyond Algesiraz. Tangier, Ceuta, and Melilla, on the African shore, were faintly discernible; and, on the Spanish side, the unbroken snows of Nevada, fifty miles away, glistened in the sunshine as though within rifle-shot, with all the swelling vegas of Western Andalucia; while, right beneath us, lay the rich Ensenada de Marbella, the fertile fringe that borders the Mediterranean, white with waving fields of sugar-cane, cotton, and carob, prolific of date-palm and fig-tree, of corn, oil, and wine—one of earth's most fruitful gardens.
From our posts, at the head of a dizzy tumble of rocks and screes, no fewer than five distinct mountain-ranges were in sight, one-rising beyond the other, the last and loftiest clad in snow. To and fro in mid-air, far beneath, sailed a superb pair of lammergeyers, their expanded pinions gleaming almost white in the sunlight. These giant birds had their eyry in a series of granite canchos near the apex of the gorge; but, at intervals, also entered a cave in another crag which, we subsequently ascertained, had formed their home in a previous year.
Amongst the birds observed here, which may be mentioned as typical of the Mediterranean sierras, were golden, booted, and Bonelli's eagles, a single griffon-vulture, peregrine and goshawk, a pair of sparrow-hawks, busy carrying sticks, ravens, jays, great spotted woodpecker, wrens, crag-martins (Cotile rupestris), the usual chats, and a few cushats. Hawfinches and great tits were abundant among the pines, and in the early dawn the melodious song of the blue-thrush reminded one of Scandinavian springs and the redwing's note. Another small bird causes recurrent annoyance to the ibex-shooter. With a loud "rat-tat-tat," closely resembling the patter of horny hoofs on rock, its song commences; then follows a curious hissing note, not unlike the passing of a heavy body through brushwood—for a moment one hopes that the coveted and long-awaited game at length is coming. No! confound that bird; it's only a redstart!
No ibex, however, appeared here to us expectant. The natives, tiradores of Enalguacil, of Cöin and other hamlets of the sierra, sleeping on the open hill, and possessing twice our speed of foot on their native rocks, were always on our front; and in order to get clear of competition, we moved our camp across the ridge to the north. This operation involved sending forward at daybreak a dozen men with hatchets to clear a way for the laden mules, some fifty or sixty well-grown pines, with hundreds of lesser growth, perishing before a passage was practicable. We encamped on a forest-opening at a spot called the Majáda del Alcornoque, altitude 3,400 feet, the same evening—first having to remove several hundred stones from the camping-ground, for almost each afforded shelter to a scorpion or gigantic centipede.
Here, during the next few days, we had the (to us) singular experience of ibex-driving in thick pine-forest and deep wooded ravines, with generally a strong undergrowth of bushes and scrub—the beau idéal of a roe-deer country, but the last place in the world in which we should have expected wild-goat. The goats were there, nevertheless, for females and young males were seen on different occasions by guns or beaters. In one tremendous clam-shaped gorge, an ibex and a wild pig were both on foot at once! The only ibex the present writer had the luck to see in this part of the sierra—which seemed to be composed almost entirely of ironstone and other mineral ores—was by a purely fortuitous encounter. On the sudden lifting of a dense cloud-bank which rested on the mountain-side, I descried, right above me, four ibex—including two fair-sized rams—all standing on a projecting rock, in bold relief against the sky, and not above 400 yards away. The intervening ground was rugged—rocks and brushwood with scattered pines—and, except for the first fifty yards, the stalk seemed to offer no great difficulty. Already I had passed the dangerous bit, and had crawled near 200 yards, when, alas! in a moment the wet mist settled down again, and I saw no more of the game.
Curiously, on the fog first lifting, a large eagle sat, all bedraggled and woe-begone, on a rock-point not forty yards from my shelter, his feathers all fluffed out, and a great yellow talon protruding, as it seemed, from the very centre of his chest. Then a faint sun-ray played on his tawny plumage; he shook himself together, and launched out in air to renew his hunt, sweeping downwards close past me—luckily without disturbing the ibex, though I saw them take note of the circumstance.