Why try to describe the distress of that morning or the efforts it cost, during fourteen hours, to gain the summits of Grédos? Again and again what we had taken for our destination proved to be some intervening ridge with another desperate gorge beyond. Suffice it that it was an hour after dark ere we finally lifted the cargoes from the dead-beat beasts. Presently the moon arose, and against her pale effulgence towered the gnarled and pinnacled peaks of Almanzór, piercing the very skies--a lovely but to me an appalling scene. Their altitude is 8800 feet. Our whole plan and ambitions in this expedition were to find and stalk the ibex--the very undertaking which had proved beyond our powers during two strenuous efforts in former years as readers of _Wild Spain_ already know. Now in all stalking it must be obvious even to non-technical readers that the first essential is to bring under survey of the binoculars a very considerable extent of game-country every day; but here, in the chaotic jumble of perpendicular or impending precipice or smooth rock-faces inclined at angles that we dare not traverse, any such extensive survey is a sheer impossibility. Alpine climbers or others in the fullest enjoyment of youth and activity might get forward at a reasonable speed. To us, already past that stage, the feat was impossible, _i.e._ by our own sole exertions. That we, of course, knew in advance; but our plan was to supplement our own powers by availing the splendid rock-climbing abilities of our friends, the goat-herds of Almanzór, on whom we relied for at least finding the game in the first instance. [Illustration: "AT THE APEX OFF ALL THE SPAINS." (IBEX ON THE PLAZA DE ALMANZÓR.)] 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.