Here my bedroom measured twelve feet by four, with a door at each end. The door proper was reached by a vertical ladder; the second might perhaps be differentiated as a window, but could only be distinguished as such by its smaller size--both being made of solid wood. Thus, were the window open, snow swirled through as freely as on the open sierra; if shut, we lived in darkness dimly relieved by the flicker of a _mariposa_, that is, a cotton-wick reposing in a saucer of olive-oil. Under such conditions, with other nameless horrors, we passed three days and nights while gales blew and snow swirled by incessant. On the fourth morning the wind fell, and snow had given place to fine rain. These _levantes_ usually last either three or nine days; so, thinking this one had blown itself out, we packed the kit and set out in renewed search of ibex, Caraballo, with accustomed forethought, buying a bunch of live chickens, which hung by their legs from the after-pannier of the mule. On the limited area of Quintána, ibex offer the best chance of stalking. Mules are marvellous mountaineers. The places that animal surmounted to-day passed belief. Two donkeys that belonged to the local hunters, Abad and Brijido, who accompanied us, soon got stuck, and had to be left below. By three o'clock we, mule and all, had reached the highest ridge of Quintána, and encamped within a few hundred feet of its top-most _riscos_. To set up a tent among rocks is never easy; even specially made iron tent-pegs find no hold, and guy-ropes have to be made fast, as securely as may be, to any projecting point. Hardly had the sun gone down, than the easterly gale blew up again with redoubled force. All night it howled through our narrow gorge and around its pinnacled rock-minarets, with the result that at 11 P.M. the ill-secured guys gave way, and down came our tent with a crash. Two hours were spent (in drenching rain) remedying this; and when day broke, an icy _neblina_ (fog) enveloped the sierra, shutting out all view beyond a few yards. The cold was intense, and a little dam we had engineered the night before was frozen thick. The fog held all that day and the next. Nothing could be done, though we persisted in going out each day, as in duty bound, for a few hours' turn among the crags--how we prayed for _one_ hour's clear interval that might have given that glorious sight we sought! At dusk the second night snow fell heavily, and later on a thunderstorm added to our joys. Frequent and vivid flashes of lightning lit up the darkness, and caused the surviving chickens (which in common charity we had had tethered inside the tent) to crow so incessantly that sleep was impossible. Presently we noticed a sharp fall in temperature--the men had brought in a cube of ice, the solidified contents of one of our camp-buckets, which they proposed to melt at a little fire kept burning in the tent! But this was too much, even though it meant "no coffee for breakfast."