AN INCIDENT OF IBEX-STALKING.

For more than an hour we had been lying expectant, Ramon and I. Our position was in a tumble of rocks, which commanded the approach to a pass—a little portillo, the only one by which the beetling crags above were surmountable, even to an ibex. The pass was a narrow cleft or fissure, traversing transversely the whole height of the crags, whose sheer dolomite precipices otherwise presented an utterly unscaleable face. Our post was a favourable one, hence it was with a tinge of disappointment that we observed the appearance of one of our drivers on the heights of the opposite sky-line.

Ramon lay just in front of me on the narrow shelving ledge, his head considerably lower than his feet, his lithe body entwined around a projecting rock-buttress, while his keen eye surveyed everything that moved in the panorama of wild rock-chaos beneath. During these hours of meditation I began more clearly to understand one, at least, of the raisons d'Être for that remarkable acuteness of smell which is attributed to the ibex. The ibex-hunters invariably assured us that the goats relied more on their sense of smell than on that of sight—"they have more nose than eyes—mas nariz que ojos," in Spanish phrase. This, I now realized, was not, after all, so inexplicable, for the skin-clad hunter before me was decidedly aromatic. It became easy of comprehension that his presence might be more readily perceptible to the nose than to the eyes; for, while Ramon's serpentine form, curving round a rock-angle, and appearing to fit into its sinuosities, was all but invisible, his whereabouts, even to human olfactory organs, might probably be detected at a considerable distance. No wonder the native hunter is careful to keep always under the lee of the breeze.

"Do you see where Guarro is now?" presently remarked Ramon, "crossing the ridge below the glacier-foot." After scanning for some minutes every inch of the spot indicated with a strong field-glass, I made out at length a minute moving dot that might be our friend Guarro y Guarro, the ruddy-faced goatherd, who was in charge of the batida.[61] "Well, that is where I shot the first of the two big machos on Thursday—the other on these broken pinnacles lower down on the right." To kill two first-rate males, single-handed, in a day was no small feat, and Ramon's tale of the achievement was an interesting sporting episode.

"I was attending my goats," he said, "in the Arroyo del Cerradillo, the ravine above where we shot the small macho yesterday; and as I came within sight of the high crags at its summit, I crept carefully forward, 'speering' round the rocks to see if any ibex chanced to be in them. They are a favourite haunt of the goats during the day, and as there are some large males on that side, it is always worth while to be prepared and cautious. That morning there were two—both large ibex, with very long horns, as long as a man's arms. They were at first walking away, but soon lay down on a ledge where it was possible to crawl to within fifty or sixty yards of them. Unfortunately, part of the stalk was through soft snow, and, in consequence, the gun missed fire."

Ramon's gun, by the way, was an exceptionally rickety old weapon, with many signs of rude repairs, and bore on its single barrel, counter-sunk in golden letters, the inscription "Plasencia, 1841." No doubt it owed the Imperial exchequer of Spain something like fifty pounds sterling in respect of license duty during half a century, not one centime of which is ever likely to find its way into the Spanish Treasury.

Poor Ramon, though well provided with powder and ball, had but two caps; hence it was necessary, after the misfire, to draw the faithless charge in order to save intact the two precious mitos. "Meanwhile," continued Ramon, "the two ibex had moved up the rocks, and soon crossed the sky-line just above those snow-gullies. They did not appear much alarmed, never having seen me; so I followed round the shoulder of the main spur, as the goats had gone downwind. In the afternoon I came up with them, just where I showed you. There were now four of them—all big males, and as the two nearer were lying down in a favourable position, I got a good shot, killing the largest quite dead, with a bullet through chest and heart.

"The other three, still uncertain whence the shot had come, owing to the echo reverberating among the hills, hesitated a few moments, and then sprang downwards, one passing so near that, had I had another gun, I might perhaps have killed him. My dog, which had followed me, and which was well accustomed to herding my own goats, now gave chase. I knew the ibex could not pass the ice-slope of Cerradillo [two miles away], and in the hope that I might cut off their retreat by the Garganta del Canchon, I set off, after reloading, to cross the two ravines." (This, by the way, would have taken an average Englishman at least an hour's difficult and laborious climbing.) "I reached those steeple-rocks on the second ridge just in the nick of time to meet the three ibex ascending on the other side. The dog was nowhere in sight, though he was still following. I had not gained the pass two minutes when the ibex crossed in front, travelling slowly over a patch of snow, where I shot the largest of the three at about eighty paces distant. He fell to the shot, floundering for some seconds in the loose snow, but recovered and went on some distance, till the dog at last came up with him and pulled him down."

On surveying the field of operations carefully through the binoculars, and estimating the distances traversed respectively by Ramon and his three opponents, we could only marvel at the wondrous feat he had performed in crossing that fearful gorge, with its miles of snow and rocks, in time to cut out the hunted and light-footed ibex. The latter, it is true, had something like four times the distance to cover, but even that, one would have thought, was far too light a handicap.

These two ibex were both eight-year old males, and their horns measured, respectively:—