Three o'clock saw us astir, bathing in the dark burn while moonlight still streamed through sombre pines. Camp meanwhile was broken up; tents and gear packed on ponies and mules, breakfast finished--we were off, heavenwards. Then, just as the laden pack-animals filed through the burn, there rode up a man--he had ridden all night--and bore a message that changed our exuberant joy to grief--bad news from home.
There could be no doubt--the writer must return at once. Within five minutes I had decided to make for a point on the northern railway beyond the hills and distant some sixty miles as the crow flies. Baggage and battery were abandoned; a handbag with a satchel of provisions and a wine-skin formed my luggage, and, leaving my companions in this wild spot, I set forth in the grey dawn on a barebacked mule devoid of saddle, bridle, or stirrups, and accompanied by two of our hill-bred lads, one riding pillion behind or running alongside in turn.
Where the grey ramparts of the Risco del Fraile and the Casquerázo frown on a rugged earth below I parted with my old pals, they to continue the ibex-hunt, I on my mournful homeward way.
Bee-eaters poised and chattered, brilliant butterflies (whose names I forgot to note), abounded as we rode along those fearful edges and boulder-studded steeps. Six hours of this brought us to a rock-poised hamlet of the sierra. The landlord of the _posada_ was also the _Alcalde_ (mayor) of the district, and even then presiding over a meeting of the council (_ayuntamiento_). Amidst dogs, children, fleas, and dirt, along with my two goat-herd friends, we made breakfast.
Thence over the main pass of Navasomera--no road, not the vestige of a track, and a tremendous ravine stopped us for hours, and for a time threatened to prove impassable. By patience and recklessness we lowered mule and ourselves down scrub-choked screes, and after some of the roughest work of my life gained a goat-herd's track which led upwards to the pass. After clearing the reverse slope we traversed for twenty miles a dreary upland (6000 feet) till we struck the head-waters of the Albirche river, where my lads tickled half-a-dozen trout and a _frog_! Kites beat along the stony hills, where wheatears and stonechats fluttered incessant, with dippers and sandpipers on the burn below.