Unexplored Spain
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Title: Unexplored Spain
Author: Abel Chapman
Walter John Buck
Illustrator: E. Caldwell
Joseph Crawhall
Release date: December 10, 2012 [eBook #41593]
Most recently updated: November 27, 2024
Language: English
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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed.
Some typographical errors have been corrected (a list follows the text).
No attempt has been made to correct or normalize the printed
accentuation or spelling of Spanish names or words. (etext transcriber's
note)
UNEXPLORED SPAIN
ABEL CHAPMAN'S WORKS
=BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS=. First Edition, 1889;
---- ----, Second Edition, 1907.
=WILD SPAIN=. (WITH W. J. B.) 1893.
=WILD NORWAY=. 1897.
=ART OF WILDFOWLING=. 1896.
=ON SAFARI= (IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA). 1908.
=UNEXPLORED SPAIN.= (WITH W. J. B.) 1910.
[Illustration: H.M. KING ALFONSO XIII SPEARING A BOAR.]
UNEXPLORED
SPAIN
BY
ABEL CHAPMAN
AUTHOR OF 'WILD SPAIN,' 'WILD NORWAY,' 'ON SAFARI,' ETC.
AND
WALTER J. BUCK
BRITISH VICE-CONSUL AT JEREZ
AUTHOR OF 'WILD SPAIN'
WITH 209 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
JOSEPH CRAWHALL, E. CALDWELL, AND ABEL CHAPMAN
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD
1910
INSCRIBED
BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION
TO THEIR MAJESTIES
KING ALFONSO XIII.
HIMSELF AN ACCOMPLISHED SPORTSMAN
AND
QUEEN VICTORIA EUGENIA OF SPAIN
WITH DEEP RESPECT
BY THEIR MAJESTIES' GRATEFUL AND DEVOTED SERVANTS
THE AUTHORS
Preface
The undertaking of a sequel to _Wild Spain_, we are warned, is
dangerous. The implication gratifies, but the forecast alarms not.
Admittedly, in the first instance, we occupied a virgin field, and
naturally the almost boyish enthusiasm that characterised the earlier
book--and probably assured its success--has in some degree abated. But
it's not all gone yet; and any such lack is compensated by longer
experience (an aggregate, between us, of eighty years) of a land we
love, and the sounder appreciation that arises therefrom. Our own
resources, moreover, have been supplemented and reinforced by friends in
Spain who represent the fountain-heads of special knowledge in that
country.
No foreigners could have enjoyed greater opportunity, and we have done
our best to exploit the advantage--so far, at least, as steady plodding
work will avail; for we have spent more than two years in analysing,
checking and sorting, selecting and eliminating from voluminous notes
accumulated during forty years. The concentrated result represents, we
are convinced, an accurate--though not, of course, a
complete--exposition of the wild-life of one of the wildest of European
countries.
No, for this book and its thoroughness neither doubt nor fear intrudes;
but we admit to being, in two respects, out of touch with modern
treatment of natural-history subjects. Possibly we are wrong in both;
but it has not yet been demonstrated, by Euclid or other, that a
minority even of two is necessarily so? Nature it is nowadays customary
to portray in somewhat lurid and sensational colours--presumably to
humour a "popular taste." Reflection might suggest that nothing in
Nature is, in fact, sensational, loud, or extravagant; but the lay
public possess no such technical training as would enable them to
discern the line where Nature stops and where fraud and "faking" begin.
At any rate we frequently read purring approval of what appears to us
meretricious imposture, and see writers lauded as constellations whom we
should condemn as charlatans. Beyond the Atlantic President Roosevelt
(as he then was) went bald-headed for the "Nature-fakers," and in
America the reader has been put upon his guard. If he still likes
"sensations"--well, that's what he likes. But he buys such fiction
forewarned.
In the illustration of wild-life our views are also, in some degree,
divergent from current ideas. Animal-photography has developed with such
giant strides and has taught us such valuable lessons (for which none
are more grateful than the Authors), that there is danger of coming to
regard it, not as a means to an end but as the actual end itself. While
photography promises uses the value of which it would be difficult to
exaggerate, yet it has defects and limitations which should not be
ignored. First as regards animals in motion; the camera sees too
quick--so infinitely quicker than the human eye that attitudes and
effects are portrayed which we do not, and cannot see. Witness a
photograph of the finish for the Derby. Galloping horses do not figure
so on the human retina--with all four legs jammed beneath the body like
a dead beetle. No doubt the camera exhibits an unseen phase in the
actual action and so reveals its process; but that phase is not what
mortals see. Similarly with birds in flight, the human eye only catches
the form during the instantaneous arrest of the wing at the end of each
stroke--in many cases not even so much as that. But the camera snaps the
whirling pinion at mid-stroke or at any intermediate point. The result
is altogether admirable as an exposition of the mechanical processes of
flight; but it fails as an illustration, inasmuch as it illustrates a
pose which Nature has expressly concealed from our view.
Secondly, in relation to still life. Here the camera is not only too
quick, but too faithful. A tiny ruffled plume, a feather caught up by
the breeze with the momentary shadow it casts, even an intrusive bough
or blade of grass--all are reproduced with such rigid faithfulness and
conspicuous effect that what are in fact merest minute details assume a
wholly false proportion, mislead the eye, and disguise the whole
picture. True, these things are actually there; but the human eye enjoys
a faculty (which the camera does not) of selecting its objective and
ignoring, or reducing to its correct relative value each extrinsic
detail; of looking, as it were, through obstacles and concentrating its
power upon the one main subject of study.
The portrayal of wildfowl presents a peculiar difficulty. This group
differs in two essential characters from the rest of the bird-world.
Though clad in feathers, yet those feathers are not "feathery." Rather
may they be described as a steely water-tight encasement, as distinct
from the covering, say of game-birds as mackintosh differs from satin.
Each plume possesses a compactness of web and firmness of texture that
combine to produce a rigidity, and this, it so happens, both in form and
colour. For in this group the colours, too, or patterns of colour, are
clean-cut, the contrasts strong and sharply defined. The plumage of
wild-fowl, in short, is characterised by lack of subdued tints and
half-tones. That is its beauty and its glory; but the fact presents a
stumbling-block to treatment, especially in colour.
The difficulty follows consequentially. Subjects of such character and
crude coloration defy accustomed methods. That is not the fault of the
artist; rather it reveals the limitations of Art. Just as in landscape
distance ever demands an "atmosphere" more or less obliterative of
distinctive detail afar (though such detail may be visible to
non-artistic eyesight miles away), so in birds of sharply contrasted
colouring the needed effect can only (it would appear) be attained by
processes of softening which are not, in fact, correct, and which ruin
the real picture as designed by Nature.
No wild bird (and wildfowl least of all) can be portrayed from captive
specimens--still less from bedraggled corpses selected in Leadenhall
market. In the latter every essential feature has disappeared. The
ruffled remains resemble the beauty of their originals only as a
dish-clout may recall some previous existence as a damask serviette.
Living captives at least give form; but that is all. The loss of
freedom, with all its contingent perils, involves the loss of character,
the pride of life, and of independence. Once remove the first essential
element--the sense of instant danger, with all that the stress and
exigencies of wild-life import--and with these there vanish vigilance,
carriage, sprightliness, dignity, sometimes even self-respect.
Not a man who has watched and studied wild beasts and wild birds in
their native haunts, glorified and ennobled by self-conscious aptitude
to prevail in the ceaseless "struggle for existence," but instantly
recognises with a pang the different demeanour of the same creatures in
captivity, albeit carefully tended in the best zoological gardens of the
world.
* * * * *
To Mr. Joseph Crawhall (cousin of one author) we and our readers are
indebted for a series of drawings that speak for themselves.
Further, we desire most heartily to thank H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans for
notes and photographs illustrative both of Baetican scenery and of the
wild camels of the marisma; also the many Spanish and Anglo-Spanish
friends whose assistance is specifically acknowledged, _passim_, in the
text.
Should some slight slip or repetition have escaped the final revision,
may we crave indulgence of critics? 'Tis not care that lacks, but sheer
mnemonics. In a work of (we are told) 150,000 words the mass of
manuscript appals, and to detect every single error may well prove
beyond our power. We have lost, moreover, that guiding eye and
pilot-like touch on the helm that helped to steer our earlier venture
through the shoals and seething whirlpools that ever beset voyages into
the unknown.
A. C.
W. J. B.
BRITISH VICE-CONSULATE, JEREZ, _December 1910_.
Contents
CHAP. PAGE
I. UNEXPLORED SPAIN: INTRODUCTORY 1
II. " " " (_Continued_) 17
III. THE COTO DOÑANA: OUR HISTORIC HUNTING-GROUND (A FOREWORD
BY SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN, P.C., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., BRITISH
AMBASSADOR AT MADRID) 30
IV. THE COTO DOÑANA: NOTES ON ITS PHYSICAL FORMATION, FAUNA,
AND RED DEER 35
V. ANDALUCIA AND ITS BIG GAME: STILL-HUNTING 54
VI. " " " WILD-BOAR 70
VII. "OUR LADY OF THE DEW": THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF
NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL ROCÍO 82
VIII. THE MARISMAS OF GUADALQUIVIR 88
IX. WILDFOWL-SHOOTING IN THE MARISMAS 105
X. WILD-GEESE IN SPAIN: THEIR SPECIES, HAUNTS,
AND HABITS 114
XI. WILD-GEESE ON THE SAND-HILLS 125
XII. SOME RECORDS IN SPANISH WILDFOWLING 133
XIII. THE SPANISH IBEX 139
XIV. SIERRA MORÉNA: IBEX 147
XV. " " RED DEER AND BOAR 158
XVI. PERNALES 174
XVII. LA MANCHA 183
XVIII. THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT 192
XIX. THE SPANISH FIGHTING-BULL 200
XX. SIERRA DE GRÉDOS 208
XXI. " " : IBEX-HUNTING 216
XXII. AN ABANDONED PROVINCE: ESTREMADURA 225
XXIII. LAS HURDES (ESTREMADURA) AND THE SAVAGE TRIBES THAT
INHABIT THEM 234
XXIV. THE GREAT BUSTARD 242
XXV. " " (_Continued_) 256
XXVI. FLAMINGOES 265
XXVII. WILD CAMELS 275
XXVIII. AFTER CHAMOIS IN THE ASTURIAS 283
XXIX. HIGHLANDS OF ASTURIAS 294
XXX. THE SIERRA NEVÁDA 301
XXXI. " " (_Continued_) 311
XXXII. VALENCIA 321
XXXIII. SMALL-GAME SHOOTING IN SPAIN 328
XXXIV. ALIMAÑAS, OR THE MINOR BEASTS OF CHASE 337
XXXV. OUR "HOME-MOUNTAINS": THE SERRANÍA DE RONDA 347
XXXVI. " " " " (_Continued_) 360
XXXVII. A SPANISH SYSTEM OF WILDFOWLING: THE "CABRESTO" OR
STALKING-HORSE 371
XXXVIII. THE "CORROS," OR MASSING OF WILDFOWL IN SPRING FOR THEIR
NORTHERN MIGRATION 376
XXXIX. SPRING-TIME IN THE MARISMAS 381
XL. SKETCHES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE 392
APPENDIX 407
INDEX 413
List of Plates
H.M. KING ALFONSO XIII. SPEARING A BOAR _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
TYPICAL LANDSCAPE IN COTO DOÑANA 30
EGRET HERONRY AT SANTOLALLA, COTO DOÑANA 32
RED DEER IN DOÑANA. From a Drawing by Joseph Crawhall 36
THREE VIEWS IN COTO DOÑANA: (1) SAHARAN SAND-DUNES; (2) TRANSPORT;
(3) A CORRAL, OR PINEWOOD ENCLOSED BY SAND 40
RED DEER. From Drawings by Joseph Crawhall 46
INSPIRING MOMENTS 51
GUNNING-PUNT IN THE MARISMA 90
WILD-GOOSE SHOOTING ON THE SAND-HILLS 90
VASQUEZ APPROACHING WILDFOWL WITH CABRESTO-PONY 90
STANCHEON-GUN IN THE MARISMA--DAWN 106
WILD-GEESE IN THE MARISMA 122
SPANISH IBEX IN SIERRA DE GRÉDOS 140
HEADS OF SPANISH IBEX 152
RED-DEER HEADS, SIERRA MORÉNA 156
WOLF SHOT IN SIERRA MORÉNA, MARCH 1909 158
HUNTSMAN WITH CARACOLA, SIERRA MORÉNA 158
PACK OF PODENCOS, SIERRA MORÉNA 158
WILD-BOAR, WEIGHING 200 LBS. 162
THE RECORD HEAD (RED DEER), SIERRA MORÉNA 162
RED DEER. From Drawings by Joseph Crawhall 166
RED DEER. From Drawings by Joseph Crawhall 170
WILD-BOAR. From Drawings by Joseph Crawhall 170
RED-DEER HEADS, SIERRA MORÉNA 172
BULL-FIGHTING. From a Drawing by Joseph Crawhall 194
BULL-FIGHTING. From a Drawing by Joseph Crawhall 198
AFTER THE STROKE. From a Drawing by Joseph Crawhall 202
SCENES IN SIERRA DE GRÉDOS 212
"AT THE APEX OF ALL THE SPAINS" 216
TWO SPANISH IBEX SHOT IN SIERRA DE GRÉDOS, JULY 1910 220
GREAT BUSTARD 250
SLENDER-BILLED CURLEW 250
GREAT BUSTARD "SHOWING OFF" 260
FLAMINGOES ON THEIR NESTS 272
WILD CAMELS 276
CAPTURING A WILD CAMEL IN THE MARISMA 280
THE HOME OF THE CHAMOIS 286
PEAKS OF SIERRA NEVÁDA 306
NEST OF GRIFFON 306
ROYAL SHOOTING AT THE PARDO, NEAR MADRID 334
Illustrations in the Text
PAGE
Lammergeyer (_Gypaëtus barbatus_) 3
Woodchat Shrike (_Lanius pomeranus_) 7
Griffon Vulture (_Gyps fulvus_) 9
Wooden Plough-share 12
Cetti's Warbler (_Sylvia cettii_) 14
Dartford Warbler (_Sylvia undata_) 16
Fantail Warbler (_Cisticola cursitans_) 17
Rock-Thrush (_Petrocincla saxatilis_) 18
A Village _Posada_ 20
Serin (_Serinus hortulanus_) 23
Bonelli's Eagle (_Aquila bonellii_) 26
Black Vulture (_Vultur monachus_) 27
White-Faced Duck (_Erismatura leucocephala_) 28
Spanish Imperial Eagle 31
Spanish Lynx 33
Greenshank (_Totanus canescens_) 34
Sketch-Map of Delta of Guadalquivir 35
Marsh-Harrier (_Circus aeruginosus_) 38
"Silent Songsters" 39
Blackstart (_Ruticilla titys_) 39
Great Spotted Cuckoo (_Oxylophus glandarius_) 41
"Globe-Spanners" 42
"Confidence" 43
Abnormal Cast Antler 44
Egret 45
"Suspicion" 49
Altabaca (_Scrofularia_) 51
Tomillo de Arena 51
"What's This?" 52
Antlers 56
Stag "taking the Wind" 57
_Sylvia melanocephala_ 60
Reed-Climbers 61
Great Grey Shrike (_Lanius meridionalis_) 62
Spanish Green Woodpecker (_Gecinus sharpei_) 63
Tarantula 64
Stag--as he fell 67
Hoopoes at Jerez, March 19, 1910 69
"Room for Two" 71
Wild-Boar--at bay 73
Wild-Boar--"Bolted past" 79
Wild-Boar 81
Praying Mantis 87
Avocet 88
Samphire 90
Greylag Geese 92
White-Eyed Pochard (_Fuligula nyroca_) 94
"Flamingoes over" 95
Pochard (_Fuligula ferina_) 96
Flight of Flamingoes 97
Wild-Geese alighting 98
Wildfowl in the Marisma 101
Flamingoes 102
Stilt 105
Godwits 113
Root of Spear-Grass 115
System of driving Wild-Geese 117
Shelters for driving Wild-Geese 118
Godwits 124
Wild-Geese alighting on Sand-Hills 129
Wild-Geese 133
Godwits 134
Sketch-Map of the _Nucléo Central_ of Grédos 141
Grey Shrike 162
Azure-Winged Magpie 163
Sardinian Warbler 164
Griffon Vulture 166
Pair of Antlers 167
Stag--"picking his way up a Rock-Staircase" 168
"The Hart bounced, full-broadside, over the Pass" 169
Pernales 175
Sparrow-Owls (Athene noctua) and Moths 182
Hoopoes 183
Woodchat Shrike and its "Shambles" 184
Desert-loving Wheatears 185
Red-crested Pochard (_Fuligula rufila_) 186
Red-crested Pochards 190
"Minor Game" 210
Southern Grey Shrike 212
Griffon Vulture and Nest 215
"The Way of an Eagle in the Air" (_Lammergeyer_) 218
Black Vulture (_Vultur monachus_) 222
Roller (_Coracias garrula_) 226
Trujillo 227
"Scavengers" 228
Wolf-proof Dog-Collar 231
Woodlark 232
Sketch-Map of Las Hurdes 234
White Wagtail 238
Wolf-proof Sheepfold 239
The Great Bustard 243
Well on Andalucian Plain 244
Calandra Lark 246
Spanish Thistle and Stonechat 248
Bustards--"Swerve aside" 252
Bustards passing full broadside 254
Imperial Eagle--"Hurtling through Space" 258
Draw-Well with Cross-Bar 259
"_Hechando la Rueda_" 260
Tail-Feathers of Great Bustard 261
Little Bustard 263
Stilts in the Marisma 265
Flamingoes 266
Stilts disturbed at Nesting-Place 268
Flamingoes and their Nests 269
Flight of Flamingoes 270-1
Head of Flamingo 273
Little Gull and Tern 274
Flamingoes 277
"The Camels a-coming" 281
Chamois 283
A Chamois Drive--Picos de Europa 288
Hoopoe 293
Lammergeyer (_Gypaëtus barbatus_) 303
"Unemployed": Bee-eaters on a Wet Morning 311
Woodlark (_Alauda arborea_) 313
Lammergeyer 314
Soaring Vulture 315
Golden Eagle Hunting 317
Rock-Thrush 318
Spanish Sparrow 320
Imperial Eagle Passing Overhead 342
Pinsápo Pine (_Abies pinsapo_) 347
Rock-Bunting (_Emberiza cia_) 348
Pinsápo Pines 350
Crossbill 351
Lammergeyer Overhead 353
Golden Eagle Hunting 354
Vultures 356
Lammergeyer entering Eyrie 358
Lammergeyer 361
Griffon Vultures 368
Reed-Bunting 378
Grey Plover 381
Head of Crested Coot 384
Avocets Feeding 385
White-Faced Duck (_Erismatura leucocephala_) 387
Purple Heron (_Ardea purpurea_) 389
Grey Plovers 390
Orphean Warbler 391
Savi's Warbler (_Sylvia savii_) 393
Unknown Insect 394
Bonelli's Eagles 395
Great Spotted Cuckoo (_Oxylophus glandarius_) 400
Crossbills (_Loxia curvirostra_) 402
CHAPTER I
UNEXPLORED SPAIN
INTRODUCTORY
The Spain that we love and of which we write is not the Spain of tourist
or globe-trotter. These hold main routes, the highways from city to
city; few so much as venture upon the bye-ways. Our Spain begins where
bye-ways end. We write of her pathless solitudes, of desolate steppe and
prairie, of marsh and mountain-land--of her majestic sierras, some
well-nigh inaccessible, and, in many an instance, untrodden by British
foot save our own. Lonely scenes these, yet glorified by primeval beauty
and wealth of wild-life. As naturalists--that is, merely as born lovers
of all that is wild, and big, and pristine--we thank the guiding destiny
that early directed our steps towards a land that is probably the
wildest and certainly the least known of all in Europe--a land worthy of
better cicerones than ourselves.
Do not let us appear to disparage the other Spain. The tourist enjoys
another land overflowing with historic and artistic interest--with
memorials of mediæval romance, and of stirring times when wave after
wave of successive conquest swept the Peninsula. Such subjects, however,
fall wholly outside the province of this book: nor do they lack
historians a thousand-fold better qualified to tell their tale.
* * * * *
The first cause that differentiates Spain from other European countries
of equal area is her high general elevation. This fact must jump to the
eye of every observant traveller who books his seat by the Sûd-express
to the Mediterranean. Better still, for our purpose, let him commence
his journey, say at the Tweed. From Berwick southwards through the heart
of England to London: from London to Paris, and right across France--all
the way he traverses low-lying levels; fat pastures, fertile and tilled
to the last acre. His aneroid tells him he has seldom risen above
sea-level by more than a few hundred feet; and never once has his train
passed through mountains--hardly even through hills; he can scarce be
said to have had a real mountain within the range of his vision in all
these 1200 miles.
Now he crosses the Bidassoa ... the whole world changes! At once his
train plunges into interminable Pyrenees, and ere it clears these, he
has ascended to a permanent highland level--a tawny treeless steppe that
averages 2000-feet altitude, and sometimes approaches 3000, traversed by
range after range of rugged mountains that arise all around him to four,
five, or six thousand feet. Railways, moreover, avoid mountains (so far
as they can). Our traveller, therefore, must bear in mind that what he
actually sees is but the mildest and tamest version of Spanish sierras.
There are bits here and there that he may have thought anything but
tame--only tame by comparison with those grander scenes to which we
propose guiding him.
For the next 500 miles he never quits that austere highland altitude nor
ever quite loses sight of jagged peaks that pierce the skies--peaks of
that hoary cinder-grey that shows up almost white against an azure
background. Never does he descend till, after leaving behind him three
kingdoms--Arragon, Navarre, and Castile--his train plunges through the
Sierra Moréna, down the gorges of Despeñaperros, and at length on the
third day enters upon the smiling lowlands of Andalucia. Here the
aneroid rises once more to rational readings, and fertile _vegas_ spread
away to the horizon. But our traveller is not even now quite clear of
mountains. Whether he be booked to Malaga or to Algeciras, he will
presently find himself enveloped once more amidst some fairly stupendous
rocks--the Gaëtánes or Serranía de Ronda respectively.
Spain is, in fact, largely an elevated table-land, 400 miles square, and
traversed by four main mountain-ranges, all (like her great rivers)
running east and west. The only considerable areas of lowland are found
in Andalucia and Valencia.
Naturally such physical features result in marked variations of climate
and scene, which in turn react upon their productions and denizens,
whether human or of savage breed. We take three examples.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
LAMMERGEYER (_Gypaëtus barbatus_)
Whose home is in the wildest Sierras--a weird dragon-like bird-form;
expanse, 9 feet.
[Formerly reputed to carry off _babies_ to its eyrie.]]
The central table-lands, subject all summer to solar rays that burn, in
winter shelterless from biting blasts off snow-clad sierras, present
precisely that landscape of desperate desolation that always results
from a maximum of sunshine combined with a minimum of rainfall. A
desiccated downland, khaki-colour or calcareous by turn, but bare (save
for a few weeks in spring) of green thing, naked of bush or shrub,
innocent even of grass. Not a tree grows so far as eye can reach, not a
watercourse but is stone-dry and leaves the impress that it has been so
since time began. Oh, it is an unlovely landscape, that central plateau.
'Twere ungrateful, nevertheless (and unjust too), to forget that here we
are journeying in a glory of atmosphere, brilliant in aggressive
radiance that annihilates distance and revels in space. Though patches
of vine-growth be lost in the monotony of tawny expanse, mud-built
hamlet and village church indistinguishable amidst a universal khaki,
yet this is, in truth, a kingdom of the sun. The great bustard maintains
a foothold on these arid uplands, but the fauna is best exemplified by
the desert-loving sand-grouse (_Pterocles arenarius_).
Precisely the reverse of all this is Cantabria--the Basque provinces of
the north, with Galicia and the Asturias. There, bordering on the
Biscayan Sea, you find a region absolutely Scandinavian in
type--pinnacled peaks, precipitous beyond all rivals even in Spain, with
deep-rifted valleys between, rushing salmon-rivers and mountain-torrents
abounding in trout. Here the fauna is alpine, if not subarctic, and
includes the brown bear and chamois, the ptarmigan, hazel-grouse, and
capercaillie.
Cantabria is a region of rock, snow, and mist-wraith; of birch and
pine-forest--the very antithesis of the third region, that next concerns
us, the smiling plains of Andalucia and Valencia nestling on
Mediterranean shore. Here for eight months out of the twelve one lives
in a paradise; but the summer is African in its burden of heat and
discomfort. Every green thing outside the vineyard and irrigated garden
is burnt up by a fiery sun, a sun that changes not, but, day following
day, grips the land in a blistering embrace. Climatic conditions such as
these reacting on a race already infused with Arab blood naturally
conduce to Oriental modes of life. Yet even here we have examples of the
curious contradictions that characterise this _pays de l'imprévu_. Thus
within sight of one another, there flourish on the _vega_ below the
date-palm and sugar-cane, while the ice-defying edelweiss embellishes
the snows above--arctic and tropic in one.
* * * * *
Such extremes of climate react, as suggested, upon the character of the
human inhabitants of a land which includes within its boundaries nearly
all the physical conditions of Europe and North Africa. From the north,
as might be expected, comes the worker--the sturdy laborious Galician,
disdained and despised by his Andalucian brother, regarded as lacking in
dignity--the very name _Gallego_ is a term of reproach. But he is a
happy and contented hewer of wood and drawer of water, that Gallego:
throughout Spain he carries the baskets, bears the burdens, cleans the
floors; and finally returns, a rich man, to his barren hills of Galicia.
The Andalucian will condescend to tend your cattle or garden, to drive
your horses or ponies: and such offices he will perform well; but
anything menial, or what he might regard as derogatory, he
prefers--instinctively, not offensively--to leave to the Galician. From
Castile and Navarre comes a different caste, stately and aristocratic by
nature, yet with fiery temperament concealed beneath subdued
exterior--honestly, we prefer both the preceding exemplars. The Catalan
comes next, pushing and effervescent, all for his own little corner, his
factories and his trade--impregnated, every man, with a sort of
cinematograph of advanced views on social and political questions of the
day--borrowed mostly from his up-to-date neighbours beyond the Pyrenees,
yet grafted on to old-world _fueros_, or franchises, that date back to
the times of the Counts of Barcelona.[1] Perhaps the most perfect
example of contemporary natural nobility is afforded by the
peasant-proprietor of pastoral León; then there is the Basque of Biscay,
Tartar-sprung or Turanian, Finnic, or surviving aboriginal--let
philologists decide. Among Spain's manifold human types, we suggest to
ethnologists (and suggested before, twenty years ago) the study of a
surviving remnant that still clings secreted, lonely as lepers, in the
far-away mountains of Northern Estremadura--the Hurdes. These wild
tribes of unknown origin (presumed to be Gothic) live apart from Spain,
four thousand of them, a root-grubbing race of _homo sylvestris_,
squatted in a land without written history or record, where all is
traditional even to the holding of the soil. Not a title-deed or other
document exists; yet this is a region of considerable extent--say fifty
miles by thirty. A recent pilgrimage to these forgotten glens enables us
to give, in another chapter, some contemporary facts about "Las Hurdes."
Throughout Spain the people of the "lower orders"--the peasantry--strike
those who leave the beaten tracks by their independence and manly
bearing. North or south, east or west, an infinite variety of races
differing in habit and character, even in tongue, yet all agreeing in
their solid manliness, in straight-forward honesty, in what the Romans
entitled _virtus_--fine types save where contaminated by _empléomania_,
call that "officialdom" (one of the twin curses of Spain). Largely there
exists here ground-work for the rebuilding of Spanish greatness--such a
land awaits but the wand of a magician to recall its people to front
rank. Neither by despotic methods nor by the power that is only
demonstrated by violence will the change be brought about, but by the
enlightenment that has learnt to leave unimitated the follies of the
past, and unused the forces of coercion.
Such a leader, we believe, to-day wields that wand. May he be spared to
restore the destinies of his country.
It was in Spain, remember, that, more than 2000 years ago, the fate of
Carthage and, later, that of Rome was decided. To the latter Imperial
city Spain had given poets, philosophers, and emperors. It was in Spain
that there dawned the earlier glimmerings of popular liberties, as such
are now understood. Self-government with municipal rights were
recognised by the Cortes of León previous to our Magna Charta.
Individual guarantees, freedom of person and contract, and the
inviolability of the home were granted by the Cortes of Zaragoza in
1348--more than three centuries before our Habeas Corpus was signed in
1679. A land with such traditions and achievements, with its twenty
millions of inhabitants, cannot long be held back outside the trend of
liberal expansion.
The pursuit of game, alike with other aspects of Spanish things, is not
exempt from startling surprises. A ramble through the cistus-scrub, with
no more exciting object than shooting a few redlegs, may result in
bagging a lynx; or a handful of snipe from some cane-brake be augmented
by the addition of a wild-boar. It is not that game abounds, but that
the country is wide and wild, abandoned to natural state and combining
conditions congenial to animal-life. Of the big-game that is obtained or
of its habitats, there is no approximate estimate, nor do precise
knowledge or records exist. Each village in the sierra or higher
mountain-region lives its own life apart. Communication with other
places is rare and difficult, nor is it sought. One must go oneself to
the spot to ascertain with any sort of accuracy what game has been, or
may be obtained thereat. This means finding out every fact at
first-hand, for no reliance can be placed on reports or hearsay
evidence. Nor does this remark apply to game alone: it applies
universally in wilder Spain. The Englishman straying in these lone
scenes finds himself amongst a kindly but independent people where
sympathy and a knowledge of the language carry him further than money.
Where all are _Caballeros_, neither titles nor wealth impress or subdue.
The wanderer is free to join his new-made friends in the chase, taking
equal chance with keen sportsmen and on terms of equality. He will find
his nationality a passport to their liking, and soon discover that Arab
hospitality has left an abiding impress in these wild regions; as,
indeed, Moorish domination has done on every Spanish thing.
That last sentence sums up an ever-present and essential factor. In any
description of this country, however superficial, this Oriental heritage
must always be borne in mind as an influence of first importance.
Previous to the Arab inrush, Spain had enjoyed practically no organic
national existence. The Peninsula was occupied by a cluster of separate
kingdoms, not united nor even homogeneous, and usually one or another at
war with its neighbour. Neither Roman nor Goth had fused the Spanish
races into a concrete whole during their eight centuries of
overlordship. In A.D. 711 occurred a decisive day. Then, on Guadalete's
plain, below the walls of Jerez, that impetuous Arab chieftain Tarik
overthrew the Gothic King Roderick and with him the power of Spain. Like
an overwhelming flood, the Arabs swept across the land. Within two years
(by 713) the insignia of the Crescent floated above every castle and
tower, and Moslem rule was absolute throughout the country--excepting
only in the wild northern mountains of Asturias, whence the tenacity of
the mountaineers, guided by the genius of Pelayo, flung back the tide of
war.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
WOODCHAT SHRIKE (_Lanius pomeranus_)]
Spanish history for the next seven centuries (711-1492) records "Moorish
domination." Now history, as such, lies outside our scope; but we become
concerned where Arab systems, and their methods of colonisation, have
altered the face of the earth and left enduring marks on wilder Spain.
And we may, beyond that, be allowed to interpolate a remark or two in
elucidation of what sometimes appear popular misconceptions on these and
subsequent events. Thus, during the period denominated "domination," the
Arab conquerors enjoyed no peaceful or undisputed possession. During all
those centuries there continued one long succession of wars--intermittent
attempts, successful and the reverse, at reconquest by the Christian
power. Here a patch of ground, a city, or a province was regained;
presently, perhaps, to be lost a second or a third time. Never for long
was there a final acceptance of the major force. But during the
interludes, the periods of rest between struggles, the two contending
races lived in more or less friendly intercourse, exchanging courtesies
and even maintaining a stout rivalry in those warlike forms of sport
which in mediæval times formed but a substitute for war. It was thence
that the custom of bull-fighting took its rise. If not fighting Arabs,
fight bulls, and so prepare for the more strenuous contest. Such
conditions could not but have tended towards greater coherence among the
various elements on the Christian side, except for the incessant
internecine rivalries between the Christians themselves. A Spanish
knight or kinglet would invoke the aid of his nation's foe to
consolidate or establish his own petty estate. Christians with Moslem
auxiliaries fought Moslems reinforced by Christian renegades.
The Moorish invader had to fight for his possession--every yard of it.
Yet despite that, this energetic race found time to colonise, to develop
and enrich the subjugated region with a thoroughness the evidence of
which faces us to-day. We do not refer to their cities or to such
monuments in stone as the Mezquita or Alhambra, but to their
introduction into rural Spain of much of what to-day constitutes chief
sources of the country's wealth, and which might have been enormously
increased had Moorish methods been followed up. The Koran expressly
ordains and directs the introduction of all available fruits or plants
suitable to soil that came, or comes, under Moslem dominion. "The man
who plants or sows the seed of anything which, with the fruit thereof,
gives sustenance to man, bird or beast does an action as commendable as
charity"--so wrote one of their philosophers. "He who builds a house and
plants trees and who oppresses no one, nor lacks justice, will receive
abundant reward from the Almighty." There you have the religion both of
the good man and the good colonist. These precepts the Moors habitually
and energetically carried out to the letter. Arboriculture was
universal: the provinces of Valencia, Cordoba, and Toledo they filled
with trees--fruit-trees and timber. In the warm valleys of the coast and
in the sheltered glens of the mountains they acclimatised exotic fruits,
plants, and vegetables hitherto restricted to the more benign climes of
the East or to Afric's scorching strand. Sugar-cane flourished in such
luxuriance as to leave available a heavy margin for export. The fig-tree
and carob, quince and date-palm, the cotton-plant and orange, with other
aromatic and medicinal herbs, together with aloes and the
anachronous-looking prickly-pear (_Cactus_), its amorphous lobes
reminiscent of the Pleistocene, were all brought over for the use and
benefit, the delight and profit of Europe. Of these, the orange to-day
forms one of Spain's most valuable exports, representing some three
millions sterling per annum.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
GRIFFON VULTURE (_Gyps fulvus_)
Abounds all over Spain: sketched while drying his wings after a
thunderstorm, in the Sierra de San Cristobal, Jerez.]
Silk and its manufacture represented another immense source of wealth
and industry introduced into Spain--to-day extinct. The Moors covered
Andalucia with mulberry-groves: in Granada alone ran 5000 looms for the
weaving of the fibre, and the streets of the Zacatin and the Alcarcería
became world-markets, where every variety of costly stuffs were bought
and sold--tafetans, velvets, and richest textures that surpassed in
quality and brilliancy of tint even the far-famed products of Piza,
Florence, and the Levantine cities which since Roman days had
monopolised the silk-supply of the world. These now found their wares
displaced by Spanish silks; even the sumptuous "creations" of Persia and
China met with a dangerous rivalry.
Such was the technical skill and success of the Moors in agriculture and
acclimatisation that, on the eventual conquest and final expulsion of
their race from Spain, overtures were made with a view of inducing a
certain proportion to remain, lest Spain might lose every expert she
possessed in these essential pursuits. Six families in every hundred
were promised amnesty on condition of remaining, but none accepted the
offer. Deep as was their love for Spain--so deep that the departing
Moors are related to have knelt and kissed its strand ere embarking,
broken-hearted, for Africa--yet not a man of them but refused to remain
as vassals where, for centuries, they had lived as lords.
Such were the Moors--strong in war, yet equally strong in all the arts
and enterprises of peace, filled with energy, an industrious and a
practical race. It is safe to say that under their regime the resources
of this difficult land were being developed to their utmost capacity.[2]
Of the final expulsion of the Moors (and that of the Jews was analogous)
'tis not for us to write. Yet, for Spain, both events proved momentous,
and, along with the antecedent practices of the Moriscos, provide
side-lights on history that are worth consideration.[3]
The subjoined statistics give the state of Spanish agriculture at the
present day, the total acreage being taken as 50,451,688 hectares (2-1/2
acres each):--
Hectares.
Cultivated 21,702,880
Uncultivated:--
Pasture, scrub, and wood 24,055,547
Unproductive 4,693,261
___________
Total 28,748,808
__________
Grand Total 50,451,688
These figures demonstrate precisely the extent of the authors'
condominium in Spain--well over one-half the country! With the area
under cultivation (say 43 per cent), we have but one concern--the Great
Bustard. The remaining 57 per cent pertain absolutely to our
province--Wilder Spain. The term scrub or brushwood (in Spanish
_monte_), though by a sort of courtesy it may be ranked as
"pasture"--and parts of it do support herds of sheep and goats--implies
as a rule the wildest of rough covert and jungle, rougher far than a
Scottish deer-forest; and this _monte_ clothes well-nigh one-half of
Spain.
Such figures may appear to infer considerable apathy and lack of effort
as regards agriculture. 'Twere, nevertheless, a false assumption to
conclude that Spanish mountaineers are an idle race--quite the reverse,
as is repeatedly demonstrated in this book. In the hills every acre of
available soil is utilised, often at what appears excessive
labour--maybe it is a patch so tiny as hardly to seem worth the tilling,
or so terribly steep that none save a _serrano_ could keep a foothold,
much less plough, sow, and reap.
The main explanation of the immense percentage of waste lies in the fact
first set forth--the high general elevation of Spain; and, secondly, in
her mountainous character.
Whether these or any other extenuating circumstances apply to the
corn-lands, we are not sufficiently expert in such subjects as to
express a confident opinion. But we think not. So antiquated, wasteful,
and utterly inefficient have been Spanish methods of agriculture, that a
land which might be one of the granaries of Europe is actually to some
extent dependent on foreign grain, and that despite an import-duty! A
distinct movement is, nevertheless, perceptible in the direction of
employing modern agricultural machinery, chemical manures, and
such-like. Irrigation in a land whose head-waters can be tapped at 2000
feet and upwards could be carried out on a larger scale and at cheaper
rates than in any other European country--yet it is practically
neglected; no considerable extension has been made to the two million
acres of irrigated lands that existed when we last wrote, twenty years
ago, although the ruined aqueducts of Roman, Goth, and Moor are ever
present to suggest the silent lesson of former foresight and prosperity.
[Illustration: WOODEN PLOUGH-SHARE
(As still commonly used.)]
One incidental circumstance of rural Spain, the fatal effects of which
are all-penetrating (though it will never be altered), is absenteeism on
the part of landowners. Not even a tenant-farmer will live on his
holding. No, he must have his town-house, and employ an administrator or
agent to superintend the farm, only visiting it himself at rare
intervals. Oh! that hideous nightmare, the hireling, how his dead-weight
of apathy and dishonesty at secondhand crushes out every spark of
interest and enterprise, and breeds in their stead a rampant crop of all
the petty vices and frauds that prey on industry. But that evil can
hardly be eradicated.
What we British understand by the expression "country life" totally
fails to commend itself to the more gregarious peoples of the south.
Rich and poor alike, from grandee to day-labourer, the Spanish ignore
and disdain the joys of the country. They call it the _campo_ and the
_campo_ they detest. Each nightfall must see every man of them,
irrespective of class, assembled within the walls of their beloved town
or city, irresistibly attracted to street-girt abode--be it humblest cot
or sumptuous palace (and one stands next door to the other). Even
suburban existence is eschewed. There are no outer fringes to a Spanish
town. No straggling "villa residences," no Laburnum Lodge or River-View
"ornament" the extramural solitude. Back at dusk all hie, crowding to
the _paséo_, to club or casino, to social gathering and games of chance
or (more rarely) of skill. That ubiquitous term "_animacion_," which may
be translated gossip, chatter, light-hearted intercourse, fulfils the
ideals of life. Its more serious side--reading, study, scientific
pursuit--have little place; seldom does one see a library in any Spanish
home, urban or rural.
None can accuse the authors of desiring to use a comparison
(proverbially odious) to the detriment of our Spanish friends. The above
is merely a record of patent facts that must quickly become obvious to
the least observant. It is but a definition of divergent idiosyncrasies
as between different human genera. And remember that we in England have
recently been told that our rural system is fraught with unseen and
unsuspected evil. Into those wider questions we have no intention of
entering. But at least our impressions are based upon personal
experience of both lines of life, while much of the vituperation
recently poured upon rural England is derived from a view of but one,
and not a very clear view at that.
Where the owner--big or little, but the more of them the better--lives
on the land, that land and the country at large benefit to a degree that
is demonstrated with singular clearness by seeing the converse system as
it is practised in Spain to-day. Here no one, owner or tenant--still
less the hireling--takes any living interest (to say nothing of pride)
in his possession or occupation beyond that very short-sighted
"interest" of squeezing the utmost out of it from day to day. Ancient
forests are cut down and burnt into charcoal, and rarely a tree
replanted or a thought given to the resulting effects on rainfall or
climate. As to beauty of landscape--what matter such æsthetic notions
when the owner lives a hundred miles away? The collateral fact that, to
a great extent, nature's beauty and nature's gifts are analogous and
interdependent is ignored. Such simple issues are too insignificant,
and too little understood, for frothy rhetoricians to reflect upon: the
latter, moreover, like Gallio (and Pontius Pilate) care for none of
these things.
A characteristic that differentiates the Spaniard, north or south, from
other (more modern) nationalities, is a comparative indifference in
money matters. Now a Spaniard requires money for his daily needs as much
as the others; yet he never sinks to the level of total absorption in
his pursuit of the dollar. Put that down to apathy, if you will--or to
pride; at least there is dignity in the attribute. The leading Spanish
newspapers quote the various market fluctuations and changes in value
from day to day. Sometimes, possibly, the report may read _sin
operaciones_, but never will you see conspicuously protruded, as a main
item in the morning's news, the headline "Wall Street." There is (or
was) dignity in commerce, and there may yet be readers in England who
silently wish that such matters were relegated to their proper
position--the monetary columns.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
CETTI'S WARBLER (_Sylvia cettii_)
A winter songster, abundant but rarely seen, skulking in densest
brakes.]
The chief financial flutter that interests is the Government lottery
which is held every fortnight, and at which all classes lose their
money; but the National Treasury profits to the tune of three millions
sterling yearly. Spain is the home of "chance": that element appeals to
Spanish character. Thus in bull-fighting (the one popular pastime) the
name applied to each of its formulated exploits is _suerte_--chance.
* * * * *
SPAIN is frequently accused of being a land of _mañana_. Hardly can we
call to mind a book on the country in which some play on that word does
not figure. But procrastination is not confined to any one country, and
in this case the accusers are quite as likely to be guilty as the
accused. A characteristic that strikes us as more applicable is rather
the reverse--that of taking no thought for the morrow. Let us take an
example or two. It is not the custom to repair roads. When, from long
use, a road has gradually passed from bad to worse, till at length it
has virtually ceased to exist, then it is "reconstruction" that is the
remedy. Annual repairs, one may presume, would cost, say half the
amount, would preserve continuous utility, and avoid that slowly
aggravated destruction that ends finally in a hiatus. But that is not
the Spanish way. "Reconstruction" is preferred. The ruthless cutting
down of her forests without replanting a single tree has already been
quoted. Next take an example or two of the things that lie most directly
under the authors' special view, such as game. The ibex--a unique asset,
restricted to Spain, and of which any other country would be proud--has
been callously shot down without thought for to-morrow, extirpated for
ever in a dozen of its former habitats. The redleg--under the murderous
system of shooting, year in and year out, over decoy-birds--would be
exterminated within three or four years in any other country save this.
It is merely the incredible fecundity of the bird and the vast area of
waste lands that preserves the breed. Partridge in Spain are like
rabbits in Australia--indestructible. The trout affords another example.
Everywhere else on earth the trout is prized as one of nature's valued
gifts--hard to over-appreciate. Fully one-half of Spain is expressly
adapted to its requirements. Trout were intended by nature to abound
over the northern half of Spain--say down to the latitude of Madrid, and
even in the extreme south where conditions are favourable, as in the
Sierra Neváda. Trout might abound in Spain to the full as they abound in
Scotland or Norway, adding value to every river and a grace to country
life. But what is the treatment meted out to the trout in Spain? No
sooner is its presence detected than the whole stock--big and little
alike, even the spawn--is blown out of existence with dynamite, poisoned
by quicklime, or captured wholesale (regardless of season or condition)
in nets, cruives, funnel-traps, and every other abomination. Kill and
eat, big or little, breeding female or immature--it matters not; kill
all you can to-day and leave the morrow to itself. True, there are
game-laws and close-seasons, but none observe them.[4]
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
DARTFORD WARBLER (_Sylvia undata_)
Resident. Frequents deep furze-coverts, seldom seen (as we are
constrained to represent it) in separate outline.]
We have selected these examples because we know and can speak with
absolute authority. Presumption and analogy will naturally suggest that
the same intelligence, the same blind improvidence will apply equally in
other and far more important matters. Not one of our Spanish friends
with whom we have discussed these subjects time and again but agrees to
the letter with the above conclusions and most bitterly regrets them.
CHAPTER II
UNEXPLORED SPAIN (_Continued_)
ON TRAVEL AND OTHER THINGS
Travel in all the wilder regions of Spain implies the saddle. Our Spain
begins, as premised, where roads end. For us railways exist merely to
help us one degree nearer to the final plunge into the unknown; and not
railways only, but roads and bridges soon "petter out" into trackless
waste, and leave the explorer face to face with open
wilds--_despoblados_, that is, uninhabited regions--with a route-map in
his pocket that is quite unreliable, and a trusty local guide who is
just the reverse.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
FANTAIL WARBLER (_Cisticola cursitans_)
Resident: builds a deep purse-like nest supported on long grass or
rushes.]
Riding light, with the "irreducible minimum" stowed in the saddle-bags,
one may traverse Spain from end to end. But it is only a hasty and
superficial view that is thus obtainable, and except for those who love
roughing it for roughness' sake, even the freedom of the saddle presents
grave drawbacks in a land where none live in the country and none travel
off stated tracks. In the _campo_, nothing--neither food for man nor
beast--can be obtained, and no provision exists for travellers where
travellers never come. The little rural hostelry of northern lands has
no place; there is instead a _venta_ or _posada_ which may too often be
likened to a stable for beasts with an extra stall for their riders. It
is a characteristic of pastoral countries everywhere that their rude
inhabitants discriminate little between the needs of man and beast.
But even towns of quite considerable size--when far removed from the
track--are totally devoid of inns in our sense. Inns are not needed. The
few Spanish travellers who, greatly daring, venture so far afield,
usually bespeak beforehand the hospitality of some local friend or
acquaintance.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
ROCK-THRUSH (_Petrocincla saxatilis_)
A beautiful spring-migrant to the highest sierras. Colours of male:
opal, orange, and black, with a white "mirror" in centre of back.
Female, yellow-brown barred with black.]
Incidentally it may be added that a visit to one of these
out-of-the-world cities--asleep most of them for the last few
centuries--is a pleasing and restful change amidst the racket of
exploration. One breathes a mediæval atmosphere and marvels at the
revelation, enjoying prehistoric peeps in lost cities replete for the
antiquary with historic memorial and long-forgotten lore. No one cares.
Yet in those bygone days of Spain's world-power these somnolent spots
produced the right stuff,--a minority, no doubt, belonged to the type
satirised by Cervantes,--but many more strong in mind as in muscle, who
went forth, knights-errant, Paladins and Crusaders, to conquer and to
shape the course of history. Is the old spirit extinct? Our own
impression is that the material is there all right ready to spring to
life like the stones of Deucalion, so soon as Spain shall have shaken
off her incubus of lethargy and the tyranny that clogs the wheels of
progress. Nor need the interval be long.
* * * * *
That sound human material continues to exist in rural Spain we have had
recent evidence during the calling-out of levies of young troops ordered
abroad to serve their country in Morocco. None could witness the
entrainment at some remote station of a detachment of these fine lads
without being struck by their bearing, their set purpose, and above all
their patriotism. With such material, with a well cared-for, contented,
and loyal army and a broadening of view, wisely graduated but equally
resolute, Spain moves forward. Alfonso XIII. is a soldier first--No!
Above that he is a king by nature, but his care for his army and its
well-being has already borne fruits that are making and will make for
the honour, safety, and advancement of his country.
* * * * *
To resume our interrupted note on travel: whether you are riding across
bush-clad hills, over far-spread prairie, or through the defiles of the
sierra, as shadows lengthen the problem of a night's lodging obtrudes.
There is a variety of solutions. At a pinch--as when belated or
benighted--one may, in desperate resort, seek shelter in a _choza_. Now
a _choza_ is the reed-thatched hut which forms the rural peasant's
lonely home. Assuredly you will be made welcome, and that with a grace
and a courtesy--aye, a courtliness--that characterises even the humblest
in Spain. The best there is will be at your disposal; yet--if
permissible to say so in face of such splendid hospitality (and in the
hope that these good leather-clad friends of ours may not read this
book)--the open air is preferable. There exists in a _choza_ absolutely
no accommodation--not a separate room; a low settee running round the
interior, or a withy frame, forms the bed; those kindly folk live all
together, along with their domestic animals--and pigs are reckoned such
in Spain. Let us gratefully pay this due tribute to our peasant
friends--but let us sleep outside.
At each village will usually be found a _posada_. These differ in
degree, mostly from bad downwards. The lowlier sort--little better than
the _choza_--is but a long, low, one-storeyed barn which you share with
fellow-wayfarers, and your own and their beasts, or any others that may
come in, barely separated by a thatched partition that is neither
noise-proof nor scent-proof. We can call instances to mind when even
that small luxury was lacking, and all, human and other, shared alike.
There are no windows--merely wooden hatches. If shut, both light and air
are excluded; if open, hens, dogs, and cats will enter with the
dawn--the former to finish what remains of supper. The cats will at
least disperse the regiment of rats which, during the night, have
scurried across your sleeping form.
Here we relate, as a specific example, a night we spent this last spring
in northern Estremadura:--
[Illustration: A VILLAGE _POSADA_]
Owing to a miscalculation of distance, it was an hour after sundown ere
we reached our destination, a lonely hamlet among the hills. Our good
little Galician ponies were dead-beat, for we had been in the saddle
since 5 A.M., and it was past eight ere we toiled up that last steep,
rock-terraced slope. We were a party of three, with a local guide and
our own Sancho Panza--faithful companion, friend, and servant of many
years' standing. At a dilapidated hovel, the last in the village and
perched on a crag, we drew rein, and after repeated knocks the door was
opened by a girl--she had set down a five-year-old child among the
donkeys while she drew the bolt, the ground-floor being (as usual) a
stable. To our inquiry as to food--and the hunger of the lost was upon
us--our hostess merely shrugged her shoulders, and with an expressive
gesture of open hands, answered "Nada"--nothing! Sancho, however, was
equal to the occasion. Within two minutes, while we yet stood
disconsolate, he returned with a cackling cockerel in his arms. "Stew
him quick before he crows," he adjured the girl, and turned to unload
the ponies.
What an age a cockerel takes to cook! It was midnight ere he smoked on
the board and, hunger satisfied, we could turn in. In an upper den were
two alcoves with beds, or rather stone ledges, ordinarily used by the
family, and which were assigned to us, the luckless No. 3 by lot having
to make shift (in preference to sleeping on a filthy floor) with three
cranky tables of varying heights, and whose united lengths proved a foot
too short at either end!
Oh, the joy of the morning's dawn and delicious freshness of the
mountain air, as we turned out at five o'clock for yet another
ten-league spell to our next destination. Two nights later we slept in
the gilded luxury of Madrid! But how we abused our previous neglect in
not having brought a camp-outfit.
The above, however, presents the gloomier side of the picture, and there
is a reverse, even in _posadas_. We cannot better describe the latter
side than in our own words from _Wild Spain_:--
A NIGHT AT A _POSADA_ (ANDALUCIA)
The wayfarer has been travelling all day across the scrub-clad
wastes, fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme, without perhaps
seeing a human being beyond a stray shepherd or a band of nomad
gypsies encamped amidst the green palmettos. Towards night he
reaches some small village where he seeks the rude _posada_. He
sees his horse provided with a good feed of barley and as much
broken straw as he can eat. He is himself regaled with one
dish--probably the _olla_ or a _guiso_ (stew) of kid, either of
them, as a rule, of a rich red-brick hue, from the colour of the
red pepper or capsicum in the _chorizo_ or sausage, which is an
important (and potent) component of most Spanish dishes. The
steaming _olla_ will presently be set on a table before the large
wood-fire, and with the best of crisp white bread and wine, the
traveller enjoys his meal in company with any other guest that may
have arrived at the time--be he muleteer or hidalgo. What a fund of
information may be picked up during that promiscuous supper! There
will be the housewife, the barber, and the padre of the village,
perhaps a goatherd come down from the mountains, a muleteer, and a
charcoal-burner or two, each ready to tell his own tale, or to
enter into friendly discussion with the "Ingles." Then, as you
light your _breva_, a note or two struck on the guitar falls on
ears predisposed to be pleased.
How well one knows those first few opening notes: no occasion to
ask that it may go on: it will all come in time, and one knows
there is a merry evening in prospect. One by one the villagers drop
in, and an ever-widening circle is formed around the open hearth,
rows of children collect, even the dogs draw around to look on. The
player and the company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet
of pathetic _malagueñas_ follow in quick succession. These songs
are generally topical, and almost always extempore; and as most
Spaniards can--or rather are anxious to--sing, one enjoys many
verses that are very prettily as well as wittily conceived.
But girls must dance, and find no difficulty in getting partners to
join them. The _malagueñas_ cease, and one or perhaps two couples
stand up, and a pretty sight they afford! Seldom does one see
girl-faces so full of fun and so supremely happy as they adjust the
castanets, and one damsel steps aside to whisper something sly to a
sister or friend. And now the dance begins; observe there is no
slurring or attempt to save themselves in any movement. Each step
and figure is carefully executed, but with easy, spontaneous grace
and precision both by the girl and her partner.
Though two or more pairs may be dancing at once, each is quite
independent of the others, and only dance to themselves; nor do the
partners ever touch each other.[5] The steps are difficult and
somewhat intricate, and there is plenty of scope for individual
skill, though grace of movement and supple pliancy of limb and body
are almost universal, and are strong points in dancing both the
_fandango_ and _minuet_. Presently the climax of the dance
approaches. The notes of the guitar grow faster and faster; the
man--a stalwart shepherd-lad--leaps and bounds around his
pirouetting partner, and the steps, though still well ordered and
in time, grow so fast that one can hardly follow their movements.
Now others rise and take the places of the first dancers, and so
the evening passes; perhaps a few glasses of _aguardiente_ are
handed round--certainly much tobacco is smoked--the older folks
keep time to the music with hand-clapping, and all is good nature
and merriment.
What is it that makes the recollection of such evenings so
pleasant? Is it merely the fascinating simplicity and freedom of
the dance, or the spectacle of those weird, picturesque groups,
bronze-visaged men and dark-eyed maidens, all lit up by the blaze
of the great wood-fire on the hearth, and low-burning oil-lamps
suspended from the rafters? Perhaps it is only the remembrance of
many happy evenings spent among these people since our boyhood.
This we can truly say, that when at last you turn in to sleep you
feel happy and secure among a peasantry with whom politeness and
sympathy are the only passports required to secure to you both
friendship and protection if required. Nor is there a pleasanter
means of forming acquaintance with Spanish country life and customs
than a few evenings spent thus at a farm-house or village inn in
any retired district of laughter-loving Andalucia.
For rough living we are of course prepared, and accept the necessity
without demur or second thought while travelling. But when more serious
objects are in hand--say big-game or the study of nature, objects which
demand more leisurely progress, or actually encamping for a week or more
at selected points--then we prefer to assure complete independence of
all local assistance and shelter.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
SERIN (_Serinus hortulanus_)
A true European canary, but its song is harsh and hissing.]
An expedition on this scale involves an amount of care and forethought
that only those who have experienced it would credit. For in Spain it is
an unknown undertaking, and to engineer something new is always
difficult. Quite an extensive camping-trip can be organised in Africa,
where the system is understood, with less than a hundredth part of the
care needed for a comparatively short trip in Spain where it is not. The
necessary bulk of camp-outfit and equipment requires a considerable
cavalcade, and this mule-transport (since no provender is obtainable in
the country) involves carrying along all the food for the animals--the
heaviest item of all. Naturally the cost of such expeditions works out
to nearly double that of simple riding.
But, after all, it is worth it! Compare some of the miseries we have
above but lightly touched upon--the dirt and squalor, the nameless
horrors of _choza_ or _posada_--with the sense of joyous exhilaration
felt when encamped by the banks of some babbling trout-stream or in the
glorious freedom of the open hill. Casting back in mental reverie over a
lengthening vista of years, we certainly count as among the happiest
days of life those spent thus under canvas--whether on the sierras and
marismas of Spain, on high field or dark forest in Scandinavia, or on
Afric's blazing veld.
Should some remarks (here or elsewhere in this book) appear
self-contradictory the reason will be found rather in our inadequate
expression than in any confusion of idea. We love Spain primarily
because she is wild and waste; but, loving her, are naturally desirous
that she should advance to that position among nations that is her due.
Such material development, nevertheless, need not--and will not--imply
the total destruction of her wild beauties. Development on those lines
would not consist with the peculiar genius of the Spanish race, and,
while we trust the development will come, we fear no such collateral
results. Take, for instance, the corn-lands. There the great bustard is
alike the index and the price of vast, unwieldy farms unfenced and but
half tilled, remote from rail, road, or market. That condition we
neither expect nor hope to see exchanged for smug fields with a network
of railways. For "three acres and a cow" is not the line of Spanish
regeneration; it is rather a claptrap catch-word of politicians--a
murrain on the lot of them!
True, the plan seems to answer in Denmark, and if the Danes are
satisfied, well and good--that is no business of ours. But no such
mathematical and Procrustean restriction of vital energies and ambitions
will subserve our British race, nor the Spanish. In Spanish sierra may
the howl of the wolf at dawn never be replaced by blast from factory
siren, nor the curling blue smoke of the charcoal-burner in primeval
forest be abolished in favour of black clouds belching from bristling
chimneys that pierce a murky sky. Either in such circumstance would be
misplaced.
Similarly, when the engineer shall have been turned loose in the Spanish
marismas, he can, beyond all doubt, destroy them for ever. His straight
lines and intersecting canals, hideous in utilitarian rectitude, would
right soon demolish that glory of lonely desolation--those leagues of
marshland, samphire, and glittering _lucio_. And all for nothing! Since
the desecration will not "pay" financially--the reason we give in detail
elsewhere--and you sacrifice for a shadow some of the grandest bits of
wild nature that yet survive--the finest length and breadth of utter
abandonment that still enrich a humdrum Europe. Should "progress" only
advance on these lines no scrap of that continent will be left to
wanderer in the wilds--no spot where clanging skeins of wild-geese serry
the skies, and the swish of ten thousand wigeon be heard overhead; or
that marvellous iridescence--as of triple flame--the passing of a flight
of flamingoes, be enjoyed.[6]
That national progress and development may come, for Spain's sake, we
earnestly pray. But does there exist inherent reason why progress, in
itself, should always come to ruin natural and racial beauties? Progress
seems nowadays to be misunderstood as a synonym for uniformity--and
uniformity to a single type. Disciples of the cult of insensate haste,
of self-assertion and advertisement, have pretty well conquered the
civilised world; but in Spain they find no foothold, and we glory to
think they never will. Spain will never be "dragooned" into a servile
uniformity. There remain many, among whom we count our humble selves,
who bow no knee to the modern Baal, and who (while conceding to the
"hustling" crowd not one iota of their pretensions to fuller efficiency
in any shape or form) are proud to find fascination in simplicity, a
solace in honest purpose and in old-world styles of life--right down (if
you will) to its inertia.
Yes, may progress come, yet leave unchanged the innate courtesy, the
dignity and independence of rural Spain--unspoilt her sierras and
glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, alternating with natural
woods of ilex and cork-oak--self-sown and park-like, carpeted between in
spring-time with wondrous wealth of wild flowers. There is nothing
incongruous in such aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with
misappreciation of the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked
down in the midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic
penny-a-ton (as per Prospectus); where pellucid streams are polluted
with chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes; or where
God's fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke-stacks.
If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain as she is.
A NOTE ON THE SPANISH FAUNA
After all, it is less with the human element that this book is concerned
than with the wild Fauna of Spain; a brief introductory notice thereof
cannot, therefore, be omitted.
[Illustration: BONELLI'S EAGLE (_Aquila bonellii_)
A pair disturbed at their eyrie.]
As head of the list must stand the Spanish Ibex (_Capra hispánica_), a
game-animal of quite first rank, peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula, and
whose nearest relative--the Bharal (_Capra cylindricornis_)--lives 2500
miles away in the far Caucasus. In Spain the ibex inhabits six great
mountain-ranges, each covering a vast area but all widely separated.
After a crisis that five years ago threatened extermination, this grand
species is now happily increasing under a measure of protection and the
ægis of King Alfonso. Next--a notable neighbour of the ibex (and
practically extinct in central Europe)--we place the lone and lordly
Lammergeyer. A memorable spectacle it is to watch the huge _Gypaëtus_
sweeping through space o'er glens and corries of the sierra in striking
similitude to some weird flying dragon of Miocene age--a vision of
blood-red irides set on a cruel head with bristly black beard, of hoary
grey plumage and golden breast. Watch him for half an hour--for half a
day--yet never will you discern a sign of force exerted by those 3-yard
pinions. With slightly reflexed wings he sinks 1000 feet; then, shifting
course, rises 2000, 3000 feet till lost to sight over some appalling
skyline. You have seen the long cuneate tail deflected ever so
slightly--more gently than a well-handled helm--but the wide lavender
wings remain rigid, not an effort that indicates force have you
descried. Yet the power (so defined as "horse-power") required to raise
a deadweight of 20 lbs. through such altitudes can be calculated by
engineers to a nicety--how is it exerted? That the power is there is
conspicuous enough, and at least it serves to explain fabled traditions
of giant lammergeyers hurling ibex-hunter from perilous hand-hold on the
crag, to feast on the remains below; or, in idler moment, bearing off
untended babes to their eyries--alas! that the duty of nature-students
involves dissipating all such romance.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
BLACK VULTURE (_Vultur monachus_)
Nests in the mountain-forests of Central Spain, and winters in
Andalucia. Sketched in Cote Doñana--"Getting under way."]
Spain, as geologically designed, being, as to one-half of her
superficies, either a desert wilderness or a mountain solitude,
naturally lends congenial conditions of life to the predatory forms that
rely on hooked bill, on tooth and claw, fang and talon, to ravage their
more gentle neighbours. Savage raptores, furred and feathered,
characterise her wilder scenes. Wherever one may travel, a day's ride
will surely reveal huge vultures and eagles circling aloft, intent on
blood. Throughout the wooded plains the majestic Imperial Eagle is
overlord--you know him afar in sable uniform, offset by snow-white
epaulets. Among the sierras a like condominium is shared by the Golden
and Bonelli's Eagles--and they have half-a-dozen rivals, to say nothing
of lynxes and fierce wolves (we give a photo of one, the gape of whose
jaws exceeds by one-half that of an African hyaena). Then there patrol
the wastes a horde of savage night-rovers, denominated in Spanish
_Alimañas_, to which a special chapter is devoted.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE
WHITE-FACED DUCK (_Erismatura leucocephala_)
Bill much dilated, waxy-blue in colour. Wings extremely short; a sheeny
grebe-like plumage, and long stiff tail, often carried erect.]
In Estremadura, where man is a negligible quantity, and along the wild
wooded valley of the Tagus, roams the Fallow-deer in aboriginal purity
of blood--whether any other European country can so claim it, the
authors have been unable to ascertain. In Cantabria and the Pyrenees the
Chamois abounds.
Of the big game (the list includes red, roe, and fallow-deer,
wild-boar, ibex, chamois, brown bear, etc.), we treat in full detail
hereafter.
As regards winged game, this south-western corner of Europe, is
singularly weak. There exists but a single resident species of true
game-bird--the redleg. Compare this with northern Europe, where, in a
Scandinavian elk-forest, we have shot five kinds of grouse within five
miles; while southwards, in Africa, francolins and guinea-fowl are
counted in dozens of species. True, there are ptarmigan in the Pyrenees,
capercaillie, hazel-grouse, and grey partridge in Cantabria, but all
these are confined to the Biscayan area. Nor are we overlooking the
grandest game-bird of all, the Great Bustard, chiefest ornament of
Spanish steppe, and there are others--the lesser bustard, quail,
sand-grouse, etc.--but these hardly fall within our definition. As for
the teeming hosts of wildfowl and waterfowl that throng the Spanish
marismas (some coming from Africa in spring, the bulk fleeing hither
from the Arctic winter), all these are so fully treated elsewhere as to
need no further notice here.
Spain boasts several distinct species peculiar to her limits. Among such
(besides the ibex) are that curious amphibian, the Pyrenean musk-rat
(_Myogale pyrenaica_), not again to be met with nearer than the eastern
confines of Europe. Birds afford an even more striking instance. The
Spanish azure-winged magpie (_Cyanopica cooki_) abounds in Castile,
Estremadura, and the Sierra Moréna, but its like is seen nowhere else on
earth till you reach China and Japan!
CHAPTER III
THE COTO DOÑANA: OUR HISTORIC HUNTING-GROUND
A Foreword by SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador
at Madrid.
Among my recollections of Spain none will be more vivid and delightful
than those of my visits to the Coto Doñana. From beginning to end,
climate, scenery, sport, and hospitable entertainment combine, in that
happy region, to make the hours all too short for the joys they bring.
Equipped with Paradox-gun or rifle, and some variety of ammunition, to
suit the shifting requirements of deer and boar, lynx, partridge,
wild-geese and ducks, snipe, rabbit and hare, nay, perhaps a chance shot
at flamingo, vulture, or eagle, the favoured visitor steps from the
Bonanza pier into the broad wherry waiting to carry him across the
Guadalquivir, a few miles only from its outflow into the Atlantic. In
its hold the first of many enticing _bocadillos_ is spread before him.
Table utensils are superfluous luxuries, but, armed with hunting blade
and a formidable appetite, he plays havoc with the red mullet,
_tortilla_, and _carne de membrillo_, washed down with a tumbler of
sherry which has ripened through many a year in a not far distant
_bodega_.
In half an hour he is in the saddle. Distances and sandy soil prohibit
much walking in the Coto Doñana.
[Illustration: SAND WASTE IN COTO DOÑANA.]
[Illustration: LANDSCAPE IN COTO DOÑANA, WITH MARISMA IN BACKGROUND.
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY H.R.H. PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS.]
[Illustration: SPANISH IMPERIAL EAGLE]
Marshalled by our host, the soul of the party, the cavalcade canters
lightly up the sandy beach of the river. Thence it strikes to the left
into the pine-coverts, leading in five hours more to the friendly roof
of the "Palacio." A picturesque group it is with Vazquez, Caraballo, and
other well-known figures in the van, packhorses loaded with luggage and
implements of the chase, and lean, hungry _podencos_ hunting hither and
thither for a stray rabbit on the way. The views are not to be
forgotten, the distant Ronda mountains seen through a framework of
stone-pines, across seventy miles of sandy dunes, marismas, and
intervening plains. After a couple of hours we skirt the famous
sandhills, innocent of the slightest dash of green, which for some
inscrutable reason attract, morning after morning, at the first tinge of
dawn, countless greylag geese to their barren expanse and on which, _si
Dios quiere_, toll shall be levied ere long. The marismas and long
lagoons are covered here and there with black patches crawling with
myriads of waterfowl, to be described after supper by the careful
Vazquez as _muy pocos, un salpicon_--a mere sprinkling. Their names and
habits, are they not written, with the most competent of pens, in this
very volume? We stop, perhaps, for a first deer-drive on our line of
march. How thrilling that sudden rustle in the brushwood! Stag is it, or
hind, or grisly porker? As we approach the "Palacio" we see the
spreading oak on which perched, contemptuous and unsuspecting, the
imperial eagle, honoured this year by a bullet from King Alfonso's
unerring rifle. As we ride through the scrub the whirr of the
red-legged partridge sends an involuntary hand to the gun. They may
await another day. At dusk we ride into the whitewashed _patio_, just in
time to sally forth and get a flighting woodcock between gun and
lingering glow of the setting sun.
For no precious hours are wasted in the Coto Doñana. Next day at early
dawn, maybe, if the lagoon be our destination, or at any rate after a
timely breakfast, off starts again the eager cavalcade, be it in quest
of red deer or less noble quarry. Then all day in the saddle, from drive
to drive, dismounting only to lie in wait for a stag, or trudge through
the sage-bushes after partridge, or flounder through the boggy _soto_,
beloved of snipe, with intervening oases for the unforgotten
_bocadillo_.
If Vazquez be kind, he will take you one day to crouch with him behind
his well-trained stalking-horse, drawing craftily nearer and nearer to
where the duck sit thickest, till, straightening your aching back, you
have leave to put in your two barrels, as Vazquez lays low some twenty
couples with one booming shot from his four-bore, into the brown.
[Illustration: EGRET-HERONRY AT SANTOLALLA, COTO DOÑANA.
(THE FOREGROUND IS SAND.)
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY H. R. H. PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS.]
But one morning surely a visit must be paid to the sandhills. Caraballo
will call you at 4 A.M., and soon after you will be jogging over the six
or eight miles which separate the "Palacio" from that morning
_rendezvous_ of the greylag. The stars still shine brightly as you
dismount at the foot of the long stretch of dunes. A few minutes' trudge
will deposit you in a round hole dug deep in the dazzling white expanse
the day before; for a hole too freshly dug will expose the damp brown
sand from below, staining the spotless surface with a warning blotch,
and causing the wary geese to swerve beyond the range of your No. 1
shot. It is still dark as you drop into your hole. Gradually the sky
grows greyer and lighter, till the sun rises from the round yellow rim
of the blue morning sky. Who shall describe the magic thrill of the
first hoarse notes falling on your straining ear? The temptation to peep
out is strong, but crouching deep down, you wait till the mighty pinions
beat above you, and the first wedge of eight or ten sails grandly away
in the morning sun. You judge them out of shot. But surely this second
batch is lower down? Are they not close upon you? Why then no response
to your two barrels? Was the emotion too great, or have you misjudged
the speed of that easy flight or its distance through the crystal
air? All the keener is the joy when, with heavy thump, your first goose
is landed on the sand amid the tin decoys. When three or four lie there,
Vazquez will send his fleet two-legged "water-dog" to set them up with
twigs supporting their bills, to beguile more of their kind into line
with the barrels. If the day be propitious, the sky will be dotted at
times with geese in all directions. Now and again they will give you a
shot, the expert taking surely three or four to the tyro's one. It is
half-past eight, and you have sat in your hole close on two hours before
Vazquez comes to gather the slain, to which he will add two or three
more, marked down afar, and picked up as dead as the rest. Never have
two of your waking hours passed so quickly. What would you not give to
live them over again and undo some of those inexplicable misses? But one
goose alone would amply repay that early start. Even four or five are
all you can carry, and the twenty or thirty that our expert [who must be
nameless] would have shot, will live to stock the world afresh.
[Illustration: SPANISH LYNX]
Among the fauna of the Coto Doñana, a word must be given to the lynx.
Never can I forget sitting one afternoon, Paradox in hand, on the fringe
of a covert. I was waiting for stag, rather drowsily, for the beat was a
long one and the sun hot, when my eyes suddenly rested on a lynx
standing broadside among the bushes, beyond a bare belt of sand, some
fifty yards off. Fain would I have changed my bullet for slugs, but
those sharp ears would have detected the slightest click; so I loosed
my bullet for what it was worth.
The lynx was gone. When the beat came at last to an end, I thought I
would just have a look at his tracks. He lay stone-dead behind a bush,
shot through the heart.
The eventful days are all too soon over. But the recollection remains of
happy companionship and varying adventure, of easy intercourse between
Spaniard and Englishman, with the echo of many a sporting tale, mingled
with sage discourse from qualified lips on the habits of bird and beast.
Who can tell you more about them than that group of true sportsmen and
lovers of nature whose names, Garvey, Buck, Gonzalez, and Chapman, are
indissolubly linked with the more modern history of the famous Coto
Doñana?
MAURICE DE BUNSEN.
BRITISH EMBASSY, MADRID,
_July 1910_.
[Illustration: GREENSHANK (_Totanus canescens_)]
CHAPTER IV
THE COTO DOÑANA
NOTES ON ITS PHYSICAL FORMATION, FAUNA, AND RED DEER
The great river Guadalquivir, dividing in its oblique course seawards
into double channels and finally swerving, as though reluctant to lose
all identity in the infinite Atlantic, practically cuts off from the
Spanish mainland a triangular region, some forty miles of waste and
wilderness, an isolated desert, singular as it is beautiful, which we
now endeavour to describe. This, from our having for many years held the
rights of chase, we can at least undertake with knowledge and affection.
[Illustration]
Its precise geological formation 'twere beyond our power, unskilled in
that science, to diagnose. But even to untaught eye, the existence of
the whole area is obviously due to an age-long conflict waged between
two Powers--the great river from within, the greater ocean without. The
Guadalquivir, draining the distant mountains of Moréna and full 200
miles of intervening plain, rolls down a tawny flood charged with yellow
mud till its colour resembles _café au lait_. Thus proceeds a ceaseless
deposit of sediment upon the sea-bed; but the external Power forcibly
opposes such infringement of its area. Here the elemental battle is
joined. The river has so far prevailed as to have grabbed from the sea
many hundred square miles of alluvial plain, that known as the marisma;
but at this precise epoch, the Sea-Power appears to have called
checkmate by interposing a vast barrier of sand along the whole
battle-front. The net result remains that to-day there is tacked on to
the southernmost confines of Europe a singular exotic patch of African
desert.
This sand-barrier, known as the Coto Doñana, occupies, together with its
adjoining dunes on the west, upwards of forty miles of the Spanish
coast-line, its maximum breadth reaching in places to eight or ten
miles. The Coto Doñana is cut off from the mainland of Spain not only by
the great river, but by the marisma--a watery wilderness wide enough to
provide a home for wandering herds of wild camels. (See rough sketch-map
above.)
Sand and sand alone constitutes the soil-substance of Doñana, overlying,
presumably, the buried alluvia beneath. Yet a wondrous beauty and
variety of landscape this desolate region affords. From the river's
mouth forests of stone-pine extend unbroken league beyond league, hill
and hollow glorious in deep-green foliage, while the forest-floor revels
in wealth of aromatic shrubbery all lit up by chequered rays of dappled
sunlight. Westward, beyond the pine-limit, stretch regions of Saharan
barrenness where miles of glistening sand-wastes devoid of any vestige
of vegetation dazzle one's sight--a glory of magnificent desolation, the
splendour of sterility. To home-naturalists the scene may recall St.
John's classic sandhills of Moray, but magnified out of recognition by
the vastly greater scale, as befits their respective creators--in the
one case the 100-league North Sea, here the 1000-league Atlantic. Rather
would we compare these marram-tufted, wind-sculptured sand-wastes with
the Red Sea litoral and the Egyptian Soudan, where Osman Digna led
British troops memorable dances in the 'nineties--alike both in their
physical aspect and in their climate, red-hot by day, yet apt to be
deadly chilly after sundown. Resonant with the weird cry of the
stone-curlew and the rhythmic roar of the Atlantic beyond, these seaward
dunes are everywhere traced with infinite spoor of wild beasts, and
dotted by the conical pitfalls dug by ant-lions (_Myrmeleon_).
[Illustration: IN DOÑANA.]
Between these extremes of deep forest and barren dune are interposed
intermediate regions partaking of the character of both. Here the
intrusive pine projects forest-strips, called _Corrales_, as it were
long oases of verdure, into the heart of the desert, hidden away between
impending dunes which rear themselves as a mural menace on either hand,
and towering above the summits of the tallest trees. Nor is the
menace wholly hypothetic; for not seldom has the unstable element
shifted bodily onwards to engulf in molecular ruin whole stretches of
these isolated and enclosed _corrales_. Noble pines, already half
submerged, struggle in death-grips with the treacherous foe; of others,
already dead, naught save the topmost summits, sere and shrunk, protrude
above that devouring smiling surface, beneath which, one assumes, there
lie the skeletons of buried forests of a bygone age.
All along these lonely dunes there stand at regular intervals the grim
old watch-towers of the Moors, reminiscent of half-forgotten times and
of a vanished race. Arab telegraphy was neither wireless nor fireless
when beacon-lights blazing out from tower to tower spread instant alarm
from sea to sierra, seventy miles away.
In contrast with the scenery of both these zones, shows up the landscape
of a third region, on the west--that of scrub. Here, one day later in
geological sense, the eye roams over endless horizons of rolling
grey-green brushwood, the chief component of which is cistus
(_Helianthemum_), but interspersed in its moister dells with denser
jungle of arbutus and lentisk, genista, tree-heath, and giant-heather,
with wondrous variety of other shrubs; the whole studded and ornamented
by groves of stately cork-oaks or single scattered trees. All these,
with the ilex, being evergreen, one misses those ever-changing autumnal
tints that glorify the "fall" in northern climes. Here only a sporadic
splash of sere or yellow relieves the uniform verdure.
Obviously regions of such physical character can ill subserve any human
purpose. As designed by nature, they afford but a home for wild beasts,
fowls of the air, and other _ferae_ which abound in striking and
charming variety. For centuries the Coto Doñana formed, as the name
imports, the hunting-ground of its lords, the Dukes of Medina Sidonia,
and to not a few of the Spanish kings--from Phillip IV. in the early
part of the seventeenth century (as recorded by the contemporary
chronicler, Pedro Espinosa) to Alfonso XII. in 1882, and quite recently
to H.M. Don Alfonso XIII. For five-and-twenty years the authors have
been co-tenants, previously under the aforesaid ducal house; latterly
under our old friend, the present owner.
The sparse population of Doñana includes a few herdsmen (_vaqueros_)
who tend the wild-bred cattle and horses that in semi-feral condition
wander both in the regions of scrub and out in the open marisma. Nomadic
charcoal-burners squat in the forests, shifting their reed-built wigwams
(_chozas_) as the exigencies of work require; while the gathering of
pine-cones yields a precarious living to a handful of _piñoneros_.
Lastly, but most important to us, there are the guardas or keepers,
keen-eyed, leather-clad, and sun-bronzed to the hue of Red Indians.
There are a dozen of these wild men distributed at salient points of the
Coto, most of them belonging to families which have held these posts,
sons succeeding fathers, for generations. Of three such cycles we have
ourselves already been witnesses.
Briefly to summarise a rich and heterogeneous fauna is not easy; a
volume might be devoted to this region alone. Elsewhere in this book
some few subjects are treated in detail. Here we merely attempt an
outline sketch.
[Illustration: MARSH-HARRIER (_Circus aeruginosus_)]
Throughout the winter (excepting only the wildfowl) there exists no such
conspicuous ornithic display as appeals to casual eye or ear--those,
say, of the average traveller. Ride far and wide through these wild
landscapes in December or January, and you may wonder if their
oft-boasted wealth of bird-life be not exaggerated. You see, perhaps,
little beyond the ubiquitous birds-of-prey. These are ever the first
feature to strike a stranger. Great eagles, soaring in eccentric
circles, hunt the cistus-clad plain; the wild scream of the kite rings
out above the pines, and shapely buzzards adorn some dead tree. Over
rush-girt bogs soar weird marsh-harriers--three flaps and a drift as,
with piercing sight, they scan each tuft and miss not so much as a frog
or a wounded wigeon. All these and others of their race are naturally
conspicuous. But, though unseen, there lurk all around other forms of
equal beauty and interest, abundant enough, but secretive and apt to be
overlooked save by closest scrutiny. That, however, is a characteristic
of winter in all temperate lands. Birds at that season are apt to be
silent and elusive, but their absence is apparent rather than real.
[Illustration: "SILENT SONGSTERS"]
All around you, in fact, forest and jungle, scrub, sallow, and
bramble-brake abound with minor bird-forms--with our British summer
visitors, here settled down in their winter quarters; with charming
exotic warblers and silent songsters--all off work for the season. Where
nodding bulrush fringes quaking bog, or miles of tasselled cane-brakes
border the marsh, there is the home of infinite feathered amphibians,
crakes and rails, of reed-climbers and bush-skulkers, all for the nonce
silent, shy, reclusive.
[Illustration: BLACKSTART (_Ruticilla titys_)
Abundant in winter; retires to the sierra to nest.]
Their portraits, roughly caught during hours of patient waiting, may be
found (some of them) scattered through these chapters. But the present
is not the place for detail.
The land-birds in winter you hardly see, for they "take cover."
Diametrically different--in cause and effect--is the case of wildfowl.
These, by the essence of their natures and by their economic
necessities, are always conspicuous, for they inhabit solely the open
spaces of earth--the "spaces" that no longer exist at home: shallows,
wastes, and tidal flats devoid of covert. Wildfowl, for that reason,
have long learnt to discard all attempt at concealment, to rely for
safety upon their own eyesight and incredible wildness. No illusory idea
that security may be sought in covert abuses their keen and receptive
instincts. Probably it never did. Nowadays, at any rate, they openly
defy the human race with all its brain-begotten devices. There, in
"waste places," wildfowl sit or fly--millions of them--conspicuous and
audible so far as human sense of sight and sound can reach, and there
bid defiance to us all. Much of these wastes are not (in the cant of a
hypocritical age) "undeveloped," but rather, as means exist, incapable
of development. Such spectacles of wild life as these Andalucian
marismas to-day present are probably unsurpassed elsewhere in Europe--or
possibly in the world. In foreground, background, and horizon both earth
and sky are filled with teeming, living multitudes; while the shimmering
grey monotony of the marisma, tessellated with its grey armies of the
_Anatidae_, is everywhere brightened and adorned by rosy battalions of
flamingoes. And out there, far beyond our visible horizon, there wander
in that watery wilderness the wild camels, to which we devote a separate
chapter.
Flamingoes ignore the limits of continents, and shift their mobile
headquarters between Europe and Africa as the respective rainfall in
either happens to suit their requirements. Hence, whether by day or
night, the sight or sound of gabbling columns of flamingoes passing
through the upper air is a characteristic of these lonely regions,
irrespective of season. Cranes also in marshalled ranks, and storks,
continually pass to and fro. The African coast, of course, lies well
within their range of vision from the start.
[Illustration: (1) SAHARAN SAND-DUNES.]
[Illustration: (2) TRANSPORT.]
[Illustration: (3) A CORRAL, OR PINE-WOOD ENCLOSED BY SAND.
THREE VIEWS IN COTO DOÑANA.]
Then as winter merges into spring--what time those clanging crowds of
wild-geese and myriad north-bound ducks depart--there pours into
Andalucia an inrush of African and subtropical bird-forms. The sunlit
woodland gleams with brilliant rollers and golden orioles, while
bee-eaters, rivalling the rainbow in gorgeous hues, poise and dart in
the sunshine, and their harsh "chack, chack," resounds on every side.
Woodchats, spotted cuckoos, hoopoes, and russet nightjars appear; lovely
wheatears in cream and black adorn the palm-clad plain. With them comes
the deluge--no epitomised summary is possible when, within brief limits,
the whole feathered population of southern Europe is metamorphosed. The
winter half has gone north; its place is filled by the tropical inrush
aforesaid. Warblers and waders, larks, finches, and fly-catchers,
herons, ibis, ducks, gulls, and terns--all orders and genera pour in
promiscuously, defying cursory analysis.
[Illustration: GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO (_Oxylophus glandarius_)]
A single class only will here be specifically mentioned, and that
because it throws light on climatic conditions. Among these vernal
arrivals come certain raptores in countless numbers--all those which are
dependent on reptile and insect food. For even in sunny Andalucia the
larger reptiles and insects hibernate; hence their persecutors
(including various eagles, buzzards, and harriers, with kites and
kestrels in thousands) are driven to seek winter-quarters in Africa.
Another phenomenon deserves note. Weeks, nay months, after this great
vernal upturn in bird-life has completed its revolution, and when the
newcomers have already half finished the duties of incubation, then in
May suddenly occurs an utterly belated little migration quite
disconnected from all the rest. This is the passage, or rather
through-transit, of those far-flying cosmopolites of space that make the
whole world their home. They have been wintering in South Africa and
Madagascar, in Australia and New Zealand, and are now returning to
their summer breeding-grounds in farthest Siberia, beyond the Yenisei.
Thus some morning in early May one sees the marismas filled with godwits
and knots, curlew-sandpipers and grey plovers, all in their glorious
summer-plumage. But these only tarry here a few days. A short week
before they had thronged the shores of the southern hemisphere--far
beyond the zodiac of Capricorn. A week hence and they are at home in the
Arctic.
Andalucia possesses a feathered census that approaches 400 species; but
of these hardly a score are permanently resident throughout the year.
[Illustration: "GLOBE-SPANNERS"
Rest twelve hours in Spain on the journey--Australia to Siberia.]
Four-footed creatures are less difficult of diagnosis than are birds. By
nature less mobile, they are infinitely less numerous specifically.
Relatively the Spanish census is long, and includes, locally, quite a
number of interesting beasts that are "lumped together" as
_Alimañas_--to wit, lynxes, wild-cats, genets, mongoose, foxes, otters,
badgers, of which we treat separately. The two chief game-animals of the
Coto Doñana are the red deer and the wild-boar. These two we here
examine from the sportsman's point of view as much as from that of the
naturalist.
The Spanish red deer are specifically identical with those of Scotland
and the rest of Europe, and are distributed over the whole southern half
of the Iberian Peninsula--say south of a line drawn through Madrid.
Their haunts, as a rule, are restricted to the
mountain-ranges--especially the Sierra Moréna, where they attain their
highest development. That red deer should be found inhabiting lowlands
such as the Coto Doñana is wholly exceptional. In Estremadura, it is
true, there are wild regions (in Badajoz and Cáceres) where deer are
spread far and wide over wooded and scrub-clad plains, all these,
however, being subjacent to neighbouring sierras, which refuges are
available for retreat in case of need. Nowhere else in Spain, save here
in the Coto Doñana only, are red deer restricted exclusively to
lowlands.
[Illustration: CONFIDENCE]
This South-Spanish race (the southernmost of all if we except the
distinct but limited breed that yet maintains a foothold in North
Africa, the Barbary stag, which is white-spotted) differs from Scotch
types in their longer faces and slim necks unadorned with the hairy
"ruff" of harsher climes. Beyond a doubt, when our species-splitting
friends arrive in Spain, they will differentiate her red deer (and ibex
also) in various species or subspecies, each with a Latin trinomial.
Such energies, however, may easily be superfluous, even where not
actually mischievous. For practical purposes there exists but one
European species, though it has, even within Spain, its local varieties;
while, further afield, geographical and climatic divergencies naturally
tend to increase.[7]
We cannot claim for our lowland deer of Doñana a high standard of
comparative quality; they are, in fact, the smallest race in Spain,
almost puny as compared with her mountain breed--smaller also than the
Barbary stag. Clean weights here rarely exceed 200 lbs., while a 30-in.
head must be accounted beyond the average. The general type, both of
horn and body, is illustrated by various photos and drawings in this
book.
Deer-shooting in Spain takes place in the winter. The rutting season
commences at the end of August, terminating early in October, and stags
have recovered condition by the end of November.
The habits of red deer being, here as elsewhere, strictly nocturnal, and
the country densely clad with bush, it follows that these animals are
seldom seen amove during daylight. Hence deer-stalking, properly so
called, is not available, nor is the method much esteemed in Spain. In
Scotland one may detect deer, though it be but a tip of an antler, when
couched in the tallest heather or fern. Here, where heather grows six or
eight feet in height with a bewildering jumble of other shrubbery of
like proportions, no such view is possible. Hence "driving" is in Spain
the usual method of deer-shooting, whether in mountain or lowland.
[Illustration: ABNORMAL CAST ANTLER
(Picked up in Doñana.)]
[Illustration]
There is, nevertheless, one opportunity of stalking which (though not
regarded with favour) has yet afforded us delightful mornings, and to
which a few lines of description are due. The plan is based upon
cutting-out the deer as they return from their nocturnal pasturages at
daybreak. As the last watch of night wears on towards the dawn, the
deer, withdrawing from their feeding-grounds on open strath or marsh,
slowly direct a course covertwards, lingering here and there to nibble a
tempting genista, or to snatch up a bunch of red bog-grass on their
course. We have reached a favourite glade, often used by deer. It is not
yet light--rather it might be described as nearly dark--when the
splashing of light hoofs through water puts us on the alert. A few
moments suffice to gain a bushy point beyond; whence presently six or
eight nebulous forms emerge from deceitful gloom. Of course there is not
a horn among them, bar a little yearling, for good stags never come thus
in troops, and with all due caution, so as to avoid alarming these, we
hurry away to try another likely spot. Time is of the essence of this
business, for light is now strengthening, and in another half-hour the
deer will all have gained their coverts and the chance will be past.
Again groups of hinds and small beasties meet our gaze; but some
distance beyond are a couple of stags. It is light enough now, by aid of
the glass, to count their points--only eight apiece, no use. While yet
we watch, a pack of graceful white egrets alight close around the nearer
deer--some dart actively between the grazing animals picking flies and
insects from their legs and stomachs; two actually perching,
cavalier-like, on their withers to search for ticks--magpies, on
occasion, we have observed similarly employed. The sun's rim now peers
from out the watery wastes in front; nothing worth a bullet has
appeared, and our morning's work looks as good as lost when my
companion, Pepe, detects two really good stags which, though already
within the shelter of fringing pines, yet linger in a lovely glade,
tempted for fatal minutes by a clump of flowering rosemary. The wind
demands a considerable detour; yet the pair still dally while we gain
the deadly range, and a second later the better of the two drops amidst
the ensnaring blue blossoms. Pepe's half-soliloquising comment precisely
interprets the Spanish estimate of stalking:--"The first stag I ever
saw shot with his head down!" Other countries, other standards; but
there is a ring of sterling chivalry in it too. The idea conveyed is
that the noble stag should meet his death, only when duly forewarned of
danger and bounding in wild career o'er bush and brake.
Without unduly trespassing on our Spanish friends' susceptibilities, we
have nevertheless enjoyed such mornings as this. To begin with, that
hour of breaking day is ever delicious to spend afield. Therein one
observes to best advantage the wild beasts, undisturbed and following
their secret, solitary lives--one learns more in that hour than in all
the other twenty-three. One seems almost to associate with deer, so near
can the troops of hinds and small staggies be approached; and, moreover,
there may be afforded the advantage of selecting some splendid head
afar, and thus commencing a stalk which, believe me, does not always
prove easy. Yonder comes a fox, trotting straight in from his night's
hunting in the distant marisma. Let him come on within fifty yards, and
then give him a bit of a fright--it is a wild goose he drops as he turns
to fly! A single glint of something ruddy catches the eye; this the
glass shows to be a sunray playing on the pelt of a prowling lynx,
hateful of daylight and hurrying junglewards. Rarely are these
nocturnals seen thus, after sun-up, and not for many seconds will the
spectacle last; for no animal is more intensely habituated to
concealment, or hates so much to move even a few yards in the open.
Following are two or three incidents selected as illustrative of this
matutinal work:--
...A really fine stag--already against the glory of the eastern light, I
have counted thirteen points and there may be more. Half an hour later
we have gained a position--not without infinite manoeuvres, including
a crawl absolutely flat across forty yards of bog and black mire--a
position that in five more minutes should secure to us that trophy. The
five hinds that, before it was fully light, had been in the Royal
company, have already, long ago, passed away in the scrub on our right,
and give us now no further concern. Never should hinds be thus lightly
regarded! The slowly approaching stag stops to nibble a golden broom. He
is already almost within shot--seconds must decide his fate--when a
triple bark, petulant and defiant, breaks the silence behind. Those five
hinds, sauntering round, have gone under our wind, and now ... the
landscape is vacant.
[Illustration: APRIL.]
[Illustration: JUNE.]
"Hinds only bark at a _persona_," remarks Dominguez, as we turn
homewards, "never at any other _bicho_." The stag knew that too. But it
was a curious way of putting it.
...We are too early; it is still pitch-dark; no sign of dawn beyond a
slight opalescence low on the eastern horizon. Moreover, an icy wind
rustles across the waste, and for dreary minutes we seek shelter,
squatting beneath some friendly gorse. Presently a strange sound--a
distinct champing, and close by--strikes our ears. "Un javato comiendo"
= "a boar feeding," whispers Dominguez, and creeping a few yards towards
an open strath, we dimly descry a dusky monster. At the moment his snout
is buried deep in the soil, up to the eyes, and the tremendous muscular
power exerted in uprooting bulbs of palmetto arrests attention even in
the quarter-light. Now he stands quiescent, head up, and the champing is
resumed--a rare scene. The distance is a bare fifteen yards, and all the
while my companion insists on hissing in my ear, "tiré-lo, tiré-lo" =
"shoot, shoot." Presently up goes the boar's muzzle; straight and
steadfastly he gazes in our direction, but his glance seemed to pass
high over our heads. I don't think he saw us; yet a consciousness of
danger had got home--in two bounds he wheeled and disappeared, headlong,
amid the bush beyond.
...Far and wide the bosky glade is furrowed with sinuous trenches, and
infinite turrets stand erect as where children build sand-castles on the
beach. Last night a troop of wild-pig have sought here for
mole-crickets--small fry, one may think; yet even worms they don't
despise, for we have seen masses of these reptiles (some still alive) in
the stomach of a newly-shot boar. Follow the spoor onwards, and where it
enters a pine-grove, you notice splintered cones and scattered seed.
Thus wild-beasts are assisting to fulfil nature's plan, and if you care
to advance it another stage, turn some soil over those overlooked
pine-nuts, and some day forest-monarchs will result to reward another
generation.
* * * * *
Such matutinal forays are, however, but an incident. The main system of
dealing with the deer is by driving. For this purpose both the fragrant
solitudes of pine and far-stretched wilds of bending cistus are mentally
mapped out by the forest-guards into definite "beats," each of which
has its own name; though to a casual visitor (since guns are necessarily
placed differently day by day according to the wind) the actual
boundaries may appear indefinite enough.
On lowlands such as the Coto Doñana, which is more or less level and
open, the use of far-ranging rifles is necessarily restricted by
considerations of safety. Obviously no shot, on any pretext whatever,
may be fired either into the beat or until the game has passed clear of
and well outside the line of guns. In every instance, as a gun is
placed, the keeper in charge indicates by lines drawn in the sand or
other unmistakable means the limits within which shooting is absolutely
prohibited. The result, it follows, not only increases the prospective
difficulty of the shot, but gives fuller scope to the instinctive
intelligence of the game. For deer, unlike some winged game, do not,
when driven, dash precipitately straight for illusory safety, but retire
slowly and with extreme circumspection; all old stags, in particular,
fully anticipate hidden dangers to lie on their line of flight, and
narrowly scrutinise any suspicious feature ahead before taking risks.
The gunner will therefore be wise to occupy the few minutes that remain
available in so arranging both himself and his post as to be
inconspicuous; and also in an accurate survey of his environment with
its probable chances, thereby minimising the danger of being taken by
surprise. The cunning displayed by an old stag when endeavouring to
evade a line of guns at times approaches the marvellous. Thus, on one
occasion, the writer was warned of the near approach of game by a single
"clink"--a noise which deer sometimes make, probably unintentionally,
with the fore-hoof--yet seconds elapsed, and neither sight nor sound
were vouchsafed. Then the slightest quiver of a bough beneath caught my
eye. A big stag with antlers laid flat aback, and crouching to half his
usual height, though going fairly fast, was slipping, silent and
invisible, through thick but low brushwood immediately beneath the
little hillock whereon I lay. On examining the spot, the spoor showed
that he had passed thus through openings barely exceeding two feet in
height, though he stood himself forty-six inches at the withers. The
feat appeared impossible.[8]
[Illustration: SUSPICION]
In thick forest or brushwood that limits the view it may be advisable to
sit with back towards the beat, relying on ears to indicate the approach
or movements of game. While sitting thus, it will occur that you become
aware of the arrival of an animal, or of several animals, immediately
behind you. The natural inclination to look round is strong; but 'twere
folly to do so--fatal to success. This is the critical moment, when a
few seconds of rigid stillness will be rewarded by a shot in the open.
But that stillness must be statuesque, as of a stone god. For piercing
eyes are instantly studying each bush and bough, and analysing at close
quarters the least symptom of danger ahead.
Should a good stag break fairly near, it is advisable to allow it to
pass well away before moving a muscle. For should the game be
prematurely alarmed--say by your missing exactly upon the firing-line,
or otherwise by its detecting your movement of preparation--that stag
will instantly bounce back again into the beat. Then, assuming that the
sportsman is a tyro, or subject to "emotions" or buck-fever, there is
danger of his forgetting for one moment his precise permitted line of
fire; in which case a perilous shot must result. Once allowed to pass
_well outside_, the stag will usually continue on his course.
In this, as in every form of sport, "soft chances" occasionally occur.
More often, the rifle will be directed at a galloping stag crashing
through bush that conceals him up to the withers; or, it may be,
bounding over inequalities of broken ground or brushwood, or among
timber, at any distance up to 100 yards, sometimes 150, while, should he
have touched a taint in the wind, his pace will be tremendous.
Although to casual view a plain of level contours this country is
undulated to an extent that deceives a careless eye--the more
accentuated by the monotone of cistus-scrub that appears so uniform. In
reality there traverse the plain glens and gently graded hollows the
less apt to be noticed, inasmuch as the scrub in moister dell grows
higher.
Far through the marish green and still the watercourses sleep.
Inspiring moments are those when--before the beat has commenced--your
eye catches on some far-away skyline the broad antlers of a stag. This
animal has perhaps been on foot and alert, or maybe has taken the "wind"
from the group of beaters wending a way to their points far beyond. For
three seconds the antlers remain stationary, then vanish into some
intervening glen. A glance around shows your next neighbour still busy
completing his shelter--meritorious work if done in time--and you have
strong suspicion that the man beyond will just now be lighting a
cigarette! Such thoughts flash through one's mind; the dominant question
that fills it is: "Where will that great stag reappear?" But few seconds
are needed to solve it. Perhaps he dashes, harmless, upon the careless,
perhaps upon the slow--lucky for him should either such event befall! On
the other hand, those moments of glorious expectancy may resolve in a
crash of brushwood hard by, in a clinking of cloven hoofs, and a noble
hart with horns aback is bounding past your own ready post. What
proportion, we inwardly inquire, of the stags that are killed by
craftsmen has already, just before, offered first chance to the careless
or the slovenly?
[Illustration: "INSPIRING MOMENTS."
(NEITHER CAUGHT NAPPING.)]
We may conclude this chapter with an independent impression.
Lying hidden in one of these lonely _puestos_--writes J. C.
C.--ever induces in me a powerful and sedative sense of
contemplation and reflection, though fully alert all the time.
While thus waiting and watching, I can't but marvel, first at
nature's wondrous plan of waste--a scheme here without apparent
object or promise of fulfilment. Where I lie the prospect comprises
nothing but melancholy and unutterably silent solitudes of sand,
droughty wastes with but at rare intervals some starveling patch of
scant weird shrub destined either to shrivel in summer's sun or
shiver in winter's winds. But, lying in that environment, one
marvels yet more at the extreme caution displayed by wild animals;
one has exceptional opportunity of admiring the exquisitive gifts
bestowed by nature upon her _ferae_. Here is a young stag coming
straight along, down-wind, ere yet the beat has begun, and in a
desolate spot which to human sense could betray absolutely no
feature or taint of danger. Suddenly he becomes rigid, arrested in
mid-career--sniffing at a pure untainted air, yet conscious somehow
of something wrong somewhere! It is a miraculous gift, though one
cannot but feel grateful that we humans are devoid of senses that
ever keep nerves in highest tension. Here is a sketch of a
non-shootable stag thus suddenly statuetted thirty yards from me
snugly hidden well down-wind, and so intensely interested that
_something else_ (a very old pal) well-nigh escaped notice.
[Illustration: ALTABACA (_Scrofularia_)
The starveling shrub that grows in sand.]
[Illustration: TOMILLO DE ARENA
Another sand-plant (in spring has a lovely pink bloom like
sea-thrift).]
That something was our good friend Reynard--_Zorro_ they style him
out here--whose proverbial cunning exceeds all other cunnings. He
has come down to my track and there stopped dead, expressing in
every detail the very essence of doubly-distilled subtlety and
craft. At those footprints he halts, sniffs the wind, curls his
brush dubiously--as a cat will do when pleased--but not sure yet of
his next move. One second's consideration decides him and it is
executed at once--he is off like a gust of wind. But a Paradox ball
at easy range in the open broke a hind-leg, and it was curious to
note his evolutions--he, poor fellow, not realising what had
occurred, flung himself round and round in rapid gyrations, the
while biting at his own hind-leg. Needless to say not an instant
passed ere a second ball terminated his sufferings. To observe the
beautiful traits in the habits of wild beasts is to me quite as
great a joy as adding them to my score and immensely augments the
enjoyment of a big-game drive.
[Illustration: "WHAT'S THIS?"]
RED DEER HEADS--_COTO DOÑANA_.
This list is neither comprehensive nor consecutive, but merely a record
of such good and typical heads as we happened to have within reach.
_For Table of Heads of Mountain-Deer see Chapter on Sierra Moréna._
---------------+---------------+--------------+--------+-------+--------------
| | Widest. | | |
| Length. |--------------|Circum- |Points.| Remarks.
| (Inches.) |Tips. |Inside.|ference.| |
---------------+---------------+------+-------+--------+-------+--------------
W. I. B. |32-1/4 |30 |... | ... | 13 |
Do. |31 + 30-1/4 |32-5/8|... | ... | 10 |No bez.
P. Garvey | 31 |28 |... | 4-5/8 | 15 |
Col. Brymer |30-1/2 + 28 |27 |23 | 4-1/4 | 10 |No bez.
Col. Echagüe |30-1/8 + 28-1/2|20 |18 | 4-1/2 | 14 |4 on each top.
Villa-Marta, |29-3/4 + 29-1/2|31-1/4|... | 4-1/2 | 13 |4 on each top,
Marquis | | | | | | but 1 bez
| | | | | | wanting.
Segovia, | | | | | |
Gonzalo[9] |29-3/4 + 29-1/2|39-1/2|... | 5-1/4 | 10 |No bez.
Arión, Duke of |29 + 28 |30 |... | ... | 14 |
A. C. |29 + 28-1/4 |25 |... | 5 | 12 |
Do. |28-1/2 |26-1/2|... | 5-1/8 | 13 |
P. N. Gonzalez |28-1/2 |25 |22 | 5 | 12 |
Arión, Duke of |28-1/4 |23 |21-1/2 | 4-1/8 | 10 |No bez.
F. J. Mitchell |28 + 27 |30-1/2|... | ... | 14 |4 on each top.
A. C. |27 + 26-3/4 |24 |24 | 4-1/4 | 10 |
Do. |25-1/2 |28-1/4|24 | 4-1/5 | 11 |At British
| | | | | | Museum.
Williams, Alex.|25-1/2 |27-3/4|23-1/4 | 4-1/4 | 12 |
B. F. B. |25-3/4 + 24 |27-1/4|22-3/4 | 4-1/4 | 12 |
De Bunsen, | | | | | |
Sir M. |25-1/2 + 25 |27 |... | 4-1/2 | 11 |
B. F. B. |24-1/2 + 24-1/2|27-1/2|... | 4-1/2 | 12 |
J. C. C. | 23 |29-1/2|22-1/2 | 4-1/8 | 12 |
B. F. B. |22-1/2 |21-1/2|19 | 4-1/4 | 12 |
---------------+---------------+------+-------+--------+-------+-------------
Ordinary Royals (by which we mean full-grown stags in their first prime)
average 24 or 25 inches in length of horn. Heads of 26 to 28 inches
belong to rather older beasts which have continued to improve. Anything
beyond the latter measurement is quite exceptional, and is often due,
not so much to fair straight length of the main beam as to an abnormal
development of one of the top tines--usually directed backwards. There
are, however, included in our records two or three examples of long
straight heads which fairly exceed the 30-inch length.
CHAPTER V
ANDALUCIA AND ITS BIG GAME
STILL-HUNTING (RED DEER)
The line of least resistance represents twentieth-century
ideals--maximum results for the minimum of labour or technical skill. In
the field of sport, wherever available, universal "driving" supersedes
the arts of earlier venery--the pride of past generations.
In Spain, more leisurely while no less dignified, there survive in
sport, as in other matters, practices more consonant with the dash and
chivalry popularly ascribed to her national character. Such, for
example, is the attack, single-handed, on bear or boar with cold
steel--_á arma blanca_, in Castilian phrase. Here we purpose describing
the system of "Still-hunting" (_Rastreando_) as practised in Andalucia
with a skill that equals the best of the American "Red Indian," and is
only surpassed, within our experience, by Somalis and Wandorobo savages
in East Africa.
Before day-dawn we are away with our two trackers. Maybe it is a lucky
morning, and as the first streaks of light illumine the wastes, they
reveal to our gaze a first-rate stag. In that case the venture is vastly
simplified. It is merely necessary to allow time for the stag to reach
his lie-up, and the spoor can be followed at once. But barring such
exceptional fortune, it is necessary to find, or rather to select from
amidst infinity of tracks crossing and recrossing hither and thither in
bewildering profusion the trail of such a master-beast as clearly is
worthy the labour of a long day's pursuit. Twice and again we follow a
spoor for 100 yards or more over difficult ground before finally
deciding that its owner is not up to our standard of quality, and the
interrupted search is resumed. Once found, there is rarely room for
mistake with a really big spoor. The breadth of heel, the length and
deep-cut prints of the cloven toes attest both weight and quality. The
ground is open, soft, and easy. The big new track, with its spurts of
forward-projected sand, are visible yards ahead. We follow almost at a
run--how simple it seems! But not for long. Soon comes check No. 1. A
dozen other deer have followed on the same line, and the original trail
is obliterated. The troop leads on into a region of boundless bush,
shoulder-high, where the ground is harder and the trackers spread out to
right and left, backing each other with silent signals. Their skill and
patience fascinate; but it is to me, in the centre, that after a long
hour's scrutiny, falls the satisfaction of rediscovering that big track
where it diverges alone on the left. Half a mile beyond, our erratic
friend has passed through water. For a space a broken reed here or
displaced lilies there help us forward; then the deepening water, all
open, bears no trace. The opposite shore, moreover, is fringed by a
200-yard belt of bulrush and ten-foot canes, and beyond all that lies
heavy jungle.
You give it up? Admittedly these are no lines of least resistance, but
we will cut the unpopular part as short as may be and merely add that it
was high noon ere, after three hours' work--puzzling out problems and
paradoxes, now following a false clue, anon recovering the true
one--that at last the big spoor on dry land once more rejoiced our
sight. More than that, it now bears evidence--to eyes that can
read--that our stag is approaching his selected stronghold. He goes
slowly. Here he has stopped to survey his rear--there he has lingered to
nibble a genista, and the spoor zigzags to and fro. Now it turns at
sharp angle, following a cheek-wind, and a suggestive grove of cork-oaks
embedded in heavy bush lies ahead. One hunter opines the stag lies up
here: the other doubts. No half-measures suffice. We turn down-wind,
detouring to reach the main outlet (_salida_) to leeward; here I remain
hidden, while my companions, separating on right and left, proceed to
encircle the _mancha_. Two hinds break hard by, and presently Juan
returns with word that the stag has passed through the covert--better
still, that a second big beast has joined the first, and that the double
spoor, moving dead-slow and three-quarters up wind, proceeds due north.
Another mile and then right ahead lies heavy covert, but long and
straggling, and the halting trail indicates this as a certain find.
The strategic position is simple, but tactics, for a single gun, leave
endless scope for decision. Our first rule in all such cases is to get
_close in_, risk what it may. Hence, while my companions separated, as
before, to encircle the covert from right and left, the writer crept
forward yard by yard till a fairly broad and convenient open suggested
the final stand.
Not ten minutes had elapsed, nor had a sound reached my ears, when as by
magic the figure of a majestic stag filled a glade on the left--what a
picture, as with head erect he daintily picked his unconscious way!
Clearly he suspected nothing _here_; but, having got sense, sight, or
scent of Juan far beyond, was astutely moving away, with intelligent
anticipation, to safer retreat. The shot was of the simplest, and merely
black antlers crowned with triple ivory tips marked the fatal point
among deep green rushes.
Now when two big stags fraternise, as they frequently do, it usually
happens that, when pressed, both animals will finally seek the same
exit, even though a shot has already been fired there. I had accordingly
instructed the keepers that in the event of my firing, each should
discharge his gun in the air, at the same time loosing one dog. The
expected shots now rang out, presently followed by a crashing in the
brushwood. This proved to be caused by a handful of hinds with, alas!
the loose dog baying at their heels. The adverse odds had fallen to
zero, till Juan, divining what had occurred, fired again and slipt the
other dog. Anxious minutes slowly passed while my two biped
sleuth-hounds on the other side gradually, yard by yard, made good their
advance; for the wit and wiles, the practised cunning of an old stag
when thus cornered, need every scrap of our human skill to out-general,
and nothing to spare at that. But that skill was not at fault to-day,
and in the thick of the _mancha_, Manuel presently "jumped" the recusant
hart from almost beneath his feet, and his view-halloa reached expectant
ears.
[Illustration]
Then, within a few yards of the spot where No. 1 had silently appeared,
out bounced No. 2, but in widely different style. In huge bounds, with
head and neck horizontal and antlers laid flat aback, he covered the
open like a racer. The first shot got in too far back, but the second
went right, and the two friends lay not divided in death. Both were
_coronados_ (triple-crowned), indeed the second carried four-on-top in
double pairs as sketched--a not uncommon formation--but being very old,
lacked bez tines.
Very nearly five hours had elapsed since we had first struck the spoor,
five hours of concentrated attention, crowned by the final assertion of
human "dominion." And during these moments of permissible expansion,
there was impressed on our minds the fact that such success involves
mastery of a difficult craft.
[Illustration: "TAKING THE WIND"
(A stag, on recognising human scent, will give a bound as though a knife
had been plunged into his heart.)]
Illustrative of how astutely a cornered stag will exploit every device
and avenue of escape, an excellent instance is given in _Wild Spain_, p.
434.
Skilled deer-driving is a different undertaking from the _force majeure_
by which pheasants and such-like game may be pushed over a line of guns.
For deer do not act on timid impulse, but on practical instinct. Scent
is their first safeguard when danger threatens and their natural flight
is up-wind. But as it is obviously impossible to place guns to windward,
the operation resolves itself into moving the game--dead against its
instinct and set inclination--down-wind, or at least on a "half-wind."
The latter is easier as an operation, but less effective in result:
since the guns must be posted in echelon--otherwise each "gives the
wind" to his next neighbour below. Consequently the firing-zone of each
is greatly circumscribed.
In practice, therefore, the game has to be moved or cajoled--it can
hardly be said to be "driven"--into going, at least so far, down-wind by
skilled handling of the driving-line and by intelligent co-operation on
the part of each individual driver. In the great mountain-drives of the
sierras (elsewhere described) packs of hounds, being carefully trained,
perform infinite service. Always under control of their huntsman, they
systematically search out thickets impenetrable to man and push all game
forward. In the Coto Doñana, our scratch-pack of _podencos_ and mongrels
of every degree, run riot unchecked at hind, hare, or rabbit, giving
tongue in all directions at once, and probably do as much harm as good.
Our mounted keepers, however, expert in divining afar the yet unformed
designs of the game ahead, are quick to counter each move by a feint or
demonstration behind; and when desirable, to forestall attempted escape
by resolute riding. The Spanish are a nation of horsemen, and a fine
sight it is to see these wild guardas galloping helter-skelter through
scrub that reaches the saddle--especially the way they ride down a
wounded stag or boar with the _garrocha_--a long wooden lance.
Despite it all, however, many stags break back. Riding with the beaters
it is instructive to watch the manoeuvres of an old stag as, sinking
from sight, he couches among quite low scrub on some hillock, or stands
statuesque with horns aback hiding behind a clump of tall
tree-heaths--alert all the while, stealthily to shift his position as
yapping _podencos_ on one side or the other may suggest--and watching
each opportunity to evade the encompassing danger. Now a stretch of
denser jungle obstructs the advancing line. The beaters are forced apart
to pass it, and a gap or two yawns in the attack. Instantly that
introspective wild beast realises his advantage--he springs to sight,
ignores Spanish expletives that scorch the scrub, and in giant bounds
breaks back in the very face of encircling foes. Within thirty seconds
he has regained security amid leagues of untrodden wilds.
Some years ago we tried the plan of placing one (or two) guns with the
driving-line; but the experiment proved impracticable. Obviously only
the coolest and most reliable men could be trusted in an essay which
otherwise involved danger. Unfortunately--and it is but human
nature--every one considers himself equally cool and reliable. Hence the
breakdown and abandonment of the practice. For the long line of beaters,
struggling at different points through obstacles of varying difficulty,
necessarily loses precise formation; it becomes more or less broken and
scattered. Here and there a man may get "stuck" and left a hundred yards
behind the general advance. The risk in "firing back" is obvious. The
writer remembers being one of two guns with the beaters, when a pair of
stags, jumping up close ahead, bolted straight back, passing almost
within arm's length. As the second carried a fairly good head, I
dismounted and shot it, but was then horrified to discover that my
companion-gun had (contrary to all rules) gone back in that very
direction to shoot a _woodcock_!
DRIVING BIG GAME
On "driving" as such we do not propose to enlarge. The system is simple
though the practice is subject to variation. On the gently undulated
levels of Doñana, for example, the latter (as already indicated) is
widely differentiated from the systems practised in mountainous
countries--whether in Scotland or the Spanish sierras--where shots can
safely be accepted at incoming or at passing game. Guns are there
protected from danger by intervening ridges, crags, and piled-up rocks
that flank each "pass." Here the game must be left to pass well through
and outside the line of guns before a shot is permissible.
Our "drives," whether in forest or scrub, seldom exceed a couple of
miles in extent; but in wild regions where isolated patches of covert
are scattered, inset amid wastes of sand, the area may be extended to
half a day's ride. These long scrambling drives gain enhanced interest
to a naturalist in precisely inverse ratio with their probability of
success.
In a big-game drive the first animals to come forward are, as a rule,
foxes and lynxes--creatures which move on impulse, and instantly quit a
zone where danger threatens. Both, however, will certainly pass unseen
should there be any scrub to conceal their retreat. The lynx especially
is adept at utilising cover, however slight. Should open patches or
sandy glades occur among the bush, foxes will be viewed bundling along,
to all appearance quite carelessly. Here in Spain foxes are merely
"vermin"; but it is a mistake to shoot them, owing to the risk of
thereby turning back better game. Neither lynx nor fox, by the way, are
accounted _caza mayor_ unless killed with a bullet.
[Illustration: _SYLVIA MELANOCEPHALA_
(Sardinian warbler; conspicuous by its strong colour-contrasts.)]
As elsewhere mentioned, there is always a considerable possibility at
the earlier period of a "drive" (and even _before_ the operation has
actually commenced) of some old and highly experienced stag attempting
to slip through the line in the calculated hope (which is often well
founded) that he will thereby take most of the guns by surprise and so
escape unshot at. Never be unready.
Although in "driving," that element of ceaseless personal effort,
observation and self-reliance that characterise stalking, still-hunting,
or spooring, is necessarily reduced, yet it is by no means eliminated.
Nor are there lacking compensating charms in those hours of silent
expectancy spent in the solitude of jungle or amid the aromatic
fragrance of pine-forest. Every sense is held in tension to mark and
measure each sign or sound; 'tis but the fall of a pine-cone that has
caught your ear, but it might easily have been a single footfall of
game. The wild-life of the wilderness pursues its daily course around
unconscious of a concealed intruder in its midst. Overhead, busy
hawfinches wrestle with ripening cones, swinging in gymnastic attitude.
These are silent. You have first become aware of their presence by a
shower of scales gently fluttering down upon the shrubbery of genista
and rosemary alongside, amidst the depths of which lovely French-grey
warblers with jet-black skull-caps (_Sylvia melanocephala_) pursue
insect-prey with furious energy--dashing into the tangle of stems
reckless of damage to tender plumes. There are other bush-skulkers
infinitely more reclusive than these--some indeed whose mere existence
one could never hope to verify (in winter) save by patience and these
hours of silent watching. Such are the Fantail, Cetti's, and Dartford
warblers, while among sedge and cane-brake alert reed-climbers beguile
and delight these spells of waiting. Soldier-ants and horned beetles
with laborious gait, but obvious fixity of purpose, pursue their even
way, surmounting all obstruction--such as boot or cartridge-bag. Earth
and air alike are instinct with humble life.
[Illustration: REED-CLIMBERS]
To a northerner it is hard to believe that this is mid-winter, when
almost every tree remains leaf-clad, the brushwood green and
flower-spangled. Arbutus, rosemary, and tree-heath are already in bloom,
while bees buzz in shoulder-high heather and suck honey from its
tricoloured blossoms--purple, pink, and violet. Strange diptera and
winged creatures of many sorts and sizes, from gnat and midge to savage
dragon-flies, rustle and drone in one's ear or poise on iridescent wing
in the sunlight, and the hateful hiss of the mosquito mingles with the
insect-melody. Over each open flower of rock-rose or cistus hovers the
humming-bird hawk-moth with, more rarely, one of the larger sphinxes
(_S. convolvuli_), each with long proboscis inserted deep in tender
calyx. Not even the butterflies are entirely absent. We have noticed
gorgeous species at Christmas time, including clouded yellows, painted
lady and red admiral, southern wood-argus, Bath white, _Lycaena
telicanus_, _Thäis polyxena_, _Megaera_, and many more. On the warm sand
at midday bask pretty green and spotted lizards,[10] apparently asleep,
but alert to dart off on slightest alarm, disappearing like a thought in
some crevice of the cistus stems.
[Illustration: GREAT GREY SHRIKE (_Lanius meridionalis_)]
Hard by a winter-wandering hoopoe struts in an open glade, prodding the
earth with curved bill and crest laid back like a "claw-hammer"; from a
tall cistus-spray the southern grey shrike mumbles his harsh soliloquy,
and chattering magpies everywhere surmount the evergreen bush. Where the
warm sunshine induces untimely ripening of the tamarisk, some brightly
coloured birds flicker around pecking at the buds. They appear to be
chaffinches, but a glance through the glass identifies them as
bramblings--arctic migrants that we have shot here in midwinter with
full black heads--in "breeding-plumage" as some call it, though it is
merely the result of the wearing-away of the original grey fringe to
each feather, thus exposing the glossy violet-black bases.
[Illustration: SPANISH GREEN WOODPECKER (_Gecinus sharpei_)
(1) Alighting.
(2) Calling.
]
Birds, as a broad rule, possess no "breeding-plumage." They only renew
their dress once a year, in the autumn, and breed the following spring
in the worn and ragged plumes. It's not poetic, but the fact.[11] This
is not the place to enumerate all the characteristic forms of bird-life,
and only one other shall be mentioned, chiefly because the incident
occurred the day we drafted this chapter. One hears behind the rustle of
strong wings, and there passes overhead in dipping, undulated flight a
green woodpecker of the Spanish species, _Gecinus sharpei_. With a
regular thud he alights on the rough bark of a cork-oak in front, clings
in rigid aplomb while surveying the spot for any sign of danger, then
projects upwards a snake-like neck and with vertical beak gives forth a
series of maniacal shrieks that resound through the silences.[12] By all
means watch and study every phase of wild-life around you--the habit
will leave green memories when the keener zest for bigger game shall
have dimmed--but never be caught napping, or let a silent stag pass by
while your whole attention is concentrated on a tarantula!
[Illustration: A TARANTULA]
By way of illustrating the practice of "driving," we annex three or four
typical instances:--
LAS ANGOSTURAS, _February 5, 1907_.--The writer's post was in a green
glade surrounded by pine-forest. A heavy rush behind was succeeded (as
anticipated) by the appearance of a big troop of hinds followed by two
small staggies. A considerable distance behind these came a single good
stag, and already the sights had covered his shoulder, when from the
corner of an eye a second, with far finer head, flashed into the
picture, going hard, and I decided to change beasts. It was, however,
too late. Half automatically, while eyes wandered, fingers had closed on
trigger. At the shot the better stag bounded off with great uneven
strides through the timber, offering but an uncertain mark. Both
animals, however, were recovered. The first, an eleven-pointer, lay dead
at the exact spot; the second was brought to bay within 300 yards, a
fine royal.
LOS NOVARBOS, _January 9, 1903_.--My post was among a grove of
pine-saplings in a lovely open plain surrounded by forest. Two good
stags trotted past, full broadside, at 80 yards. The first dropped in a
heap, as though pole-axed, the second receiving a ball that clearly
indicated a kill. While reloading, noticed with surprise that No. 1 had
regained his legs and was off at speed. A third bullet struck behind;
but it was not till two hours later, after blood-spooring for half a
league, that we recovered our game. The first shot had struck a horn (at
junction of trez tine) cutting it clean in two. This had momentarily
stunned the animal, but the effect had passed off within ten seconds.
Both were ten-pointers, with strong black horns, ivory-tipped. During
that afternoon I got & big boar at Maë-Corra; and B., who had set out at
4 A.M., twenty-three geese at the Cardo-Inchal.
FAR NORTH, _January 31, 1907_.--First beat by the "Eagles' Nest" (in the
biggest cork-oak we ever saw, the imperial bird soaring off as we rode
up). Brushwood everywhere tall and dense, giving no view. On placing me
the keeper remarked, "By this little glade (_canuto_) deer _must_ break,
but amidst such jungle will need _un tiro de merito_!" Four stags broke,
two were missed, but one secured--seven points on one horn, the other
broken. So dense is the bush here that a lynx ran almost over the
writer's post, yet had vanished from sight ere gun could be brought to
shoulder. In the next beat, La Querencia del Macho (again all dense
bush), B. shot two really grand companion stags, but again one of these
had a broken horn. This animal while at bay so injured the spine of one
of our dogs that it had to be killed two days later.[13] A third beat
added one more big stag, and the day's result--four stags with only two
"heads"--is so curious that we give the detail:--
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| | Length. | Breadth. | Points. |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| W. E. B.[14] | 23-1/2" | (One horn) | 7 × 2 |
| W. J. B. (No. 1) | 28" | Do. | 6 × 2 |
| W. J. B. (No. 2) | 25" × 25" | 25" | 7 × 6 = 13 |
| A. C. | 26" × 24" | 20-1/2" | 6 × 5 = 11 |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
Amidst forest or in dense jungle (such as last described) where no
distant view is possible, it is usually advisable to watch
outwards--that is, with back towards the beat, relying on _ears_ to
give notice of the movements of game within. But in (more or less) open
country where a view, oneself unseen, can be obtained afar, the
situation is modified. The following is an example:--
CORRAL QUEMADO, _February 1, 1909_.--The authors occupied the two
outmost posts on a high sand-ridge which commanded an introspect far
away into the heart of the covert. Already before the distant signal had
announced that the converging lines of beaters had joined, suddenly an
apparition showed up. Some 300 yards away a low pine-clad ridge
traversed the forest horizon, and in that moment the shadows beneath
became, as by magic, illumined by an inspiring spectacle--the tracery of
great spreading antlers surmounting the sunlit grey face and neck of a
glorious stag. For twenty seconds the apparition (and we) remained
statuesque as cast in bronze. Then, with the suddenness and silence of a
shifting shadow, the deep shade was vacant once more. The stag had
retired. It boots not to recall those agonies of self-reproach that
gnawed one's very being. Suffice it, they were undeserved; for five or
six minutes later that stag reappeared, leisurely cantering forward.
Clearly no specific sign or suspicion of danger ahead had struck his
mind or dictated that retirement. But his course was now, by mere chance
and uncalculated cunning, 300 yards outside the sphere of your humble
servants, the authors. That stag was now about to offer a chance to gun
No. 3, instead of, as originally, to Nos. 1 and 2. Eagerly we both
watched his course, now halting on some ridge to reconnoitre, gaze
shifting, and ears deflecting hither and thither, anon making good
another stage towards the goal of escape. A long shallow _canuto_
(hollow) concealed his bulk from view, but we now saw by the bunchy
"show" on top that this was a prize of no mean merit. Then came the
climax. Rising the slope which ended the _canuto_, in an instant the
stag stopped, petrified. Straight on in front of him, not 100 yards
ahead, lay No. 3 gun, and the fatal fact had been discovered. It may
have been an untimely movement, perhaps a glint of sunray on exposed
gun-barrel, or merely the outline of a cap three inches too high--anyway
the ambush had been detected, and now the stag swung at right angles and
sought in giant bounds to pass behind No. 2. It was a long shot, very
fast, and intercepted by intervening trees and bush--the second barrel
directed merely at a vanishing stern. Yet such was our confidence in the
aim--in both aims--that not even the subsequent sight of our antlered
friend jauntily cantering away down the long stretch of Los Tendidos
impaired by one iota its self-assurance. For a mile and more we followed
that bloodless spoor, far beyond the point whereat the keeper's solemn
verdict had been pronounced, "No lleva náda--that stag goes scot-free."
As usual, that verdict was correct.
[Illustration]
An incident worth note had occurred meanwhile. On the extreme left of
our line, a mile away, two stags out of four that broke across the
sand-wastes had been killed; and these, while we yet remained on the
scene (though a trifle delayed by fruitless spooring) had already been
attacked and torn open by a descending swarm of vultures. That, in
Africa, is a daily experience, but never, before or since, have we
witnessed such unseemly voracity in Europe.
MAJADA REAL.--This is the one lowland covert where shots are permissible
at incoming game. Being flanked on the west by gigantic sand-dunes, the
guns (under certain conditions) may be lined out a couple of miles away,
along the outskirts of the next nearest covert--the idea being to take
the stags as they canter across the intervening dunes. The conditions
referred to are (1) a straight east wind, and (2) reliable guns.
Obviously the element of _danger_ under this plan is vastly increased,
and as the keepers are responsible for any accident, they are reluctant
to execute the drive thus save only when their confidence in the guns is
complete.[15] A careless man on a grouse-drive is dangerous enough; but
here, with rifle-bullets, a reckless shot may spell death. The
"in-drive," nevertheless, is both curious and interesting. A spectacle
one does not forget is afforded when the far-away skyline of dazzling
sand is suddenly surmounted by spreading antlers, and some great hart,
perhaps a dozen of them, come trotting all unconscious directly towards
the eager eyes watching and waiting. The effect of a shot under these
conditions is frequently to turn the game off at right angles. The deer
then hold a course parallel with the covert-side, thus running the
gauntlet of several guns, and the question of "first blood" may become a
moot point--easily determined, however, by reference to the spoor. Boar
naturally are averse to take such open ground; but when severely
pressed, we have on occasion seen them scurrying across these Saharan
sands, a singular sight under the midday sun.
To introspective minds two points may have showed up in these rough
outline illustrations. First, that the best stags are ever the earliest
amove when danger threatens. These not seldom escape ere a slovenly
gunner is aware that the beat has begun. The moral is clear. Secondly,
as these bigger and older beasts exhibit fraternal tendencies, it
follows that a first chance (whether availed or bungled) need not
necessarily be the last.
Besides deer, it is quite usual that wild-boar, as well as lynxes and
other minor animals, come forward on these "drives." The divergent
nature of pig, however, renders a more specialised system advisable
when wild-boar only are the objective. For whereas the aboriginal stag
seeking a "lie-up" wherein to pass the daylight hours was satisfied by
any sequestered spot that afforded shelter and shade from the sun, that
was never the case with the jungle-loving boar. To the stag strong
jungle and heavy brushwood were ever abhorrent, handicapping his light
build and branching antlers. Clumps of tall reed-grass or three-foot
rushes, a patch of cistus or rosemary, amply fulfilled his diurnal
ideals and requirements. Nowadays, it is true, the expanded sense of
danger, the increasing pressure of modern life--even cervine life--force
him to select strongholds which offer greater security though less
convenience. The wild-boar, on the reverse, with lower carriage and
pachydermatous hide, instinctively seeks the very heaviest jungle within
his radius--the more densely briar-matted and impenetrable the better he
loves it.
Many such holts--some of them may be but a few yards in extent--are
necessarily passed untried both by dogs and men when engaged in
"driving" extended areas, sometimes miles of consecutive forest and
covert. The somnolent boar hears the passing tumult, lifts a grisly
head, grunts an angry soliloquy, and goes to sleep again, secure.
Another day you have returned expressly to pay specific attention to
him. In brief space he has diagnosed the difference in attack. Instantly
that boar is alert, ready to repel or scatter the enemy, come who may,
on two legs or four.
[Illustration: HOOPOES
On the lawn at Jerez, March 19, 1910.]
CHAPTER VI
ANDALUCIA AND ITS BIG GAME (_Continued_)
WILD-BOAR
From one's earliest days the wild-boar has been invested with a sort of
halo of romance, identified in youthful mind with grim courage and brute
strength. Perhaps his grisly front, the vicious bloodshot eyes, savage
snorts, and generally malignant demeanour, lend substance to such idea.
But even among adults there exists in the popular mind a strange mixture
of misconception as between big game and dangerous game--to hundreds the
terms are synonymous. Thus a lady, inspecting our trophies, exclaimed,
"Oh, Mr.----, aren't these beasts very treacherous?" which almost
provoked the reply, "You see, we are even more treacherous!"
In sober truth, nevertheless, a big old boar when held up at bay, or
charging in headlong rushes upon the dogs, his wicked eyes flashing
fire, and foam flying from his jaws as tushes clash and champ, presents
as pretty a picture of brute-fury and pluck as even a world-hunter may
wish to enjoy.
Yet among hundreds of boars that we have killed or seen killed (though
dogs are caught continually, and occasionally a horse), there has never
occurred a serious accident to the hunter, and only a few narrow
escapes.
As an example of the latter: the keeper, while "placing" the writer
among bush-clad dunes outside the Mancha of Majada Real, mentioned that
a very big boar often frequented some heavy rush-beds on my front.
"Should the dogs give tongue to pig at that point, your Excellency will
at once run in to the function." Such were his instructions.
[Illustration: ROOM FOR TWO]
At the point indicated the dogs bayed unmistakably, and seizing a light
single carbine, ·303 (as there was a stretch of heavy sand to cover) I
ran in. Arriving at the covert and already close up to the music,
suddenly the "bay" broke, and I felt the bitter annoyance of being
twenty seconds too slow. I had entered by a narrow game-path, and was
still hurrying up this when I met the flying boar face to face. By
chance he had selected the same track for his retreat! As we both were
moving, and certainly not six yards apart, there was barely time to pull
off the carbine in the boar's face and throw myself back against the
wall of matted jungle on my left. Next moment the grizzly head and
curving ivories flashed past within six inches of my nose! The spring he
had given carried the boar a yard past me, and there he stopped,
stern-on, champing and grunting, both tushes visible--I could see them
in horrid projection, on either side of the snout! I had brought the
empty carbine to the "carry," so as to use it bayonet-wise, to ward the
brute off my legs; but he remained stolidly where he had stopped, and,
as may be imagined, I stood stolid too. As it proved, the bullet,
entering top of shoulder, had traversed the vitals--hence the cessation
of hostilities. A few moments later the arrival of the dogs terminated
an untoward interval.
On another occasion at the Veta de las Conchas, amidst the lovely
_pinales_, just as the beat was concluded, there dashed from a small
thicket a troop of a dozen pig, making direct for the solitary pine
behind which the writer held guard. Passing full broadside, at thirty
yards the biggest dropped dead on the sand, and, just as the troop
disappeared in a donga, a second, it seemed, was knocked over. On the
beaters approaching I walked across to see, and there, in the hollow,
lay the second pig apparently dead enough. Having picked up my
field-glasses, cartridge-pouch, etc., I stood close by awaiting the
keeper's arrival. Three or four dogs, however, following on the spoor,
arrived first; and on their worrying the deceased, it at once sprang to
its feet, gazed for one instant, and charged direct. Never have I seen
an animal cover twenty yards more quickly! Dropping the handful of
_chismes_ aforesaid, I pulled off an unaimed cartridge in my assailant's
face and a lucky bullet struck rather below the eyes. This is not a dead
shot, but the shock at that short distance proved sufficient.
An amusing incident, not dissimilar, occurred at Salavar. A youthful
sportsman was approaching a boar which had fallen and lay apparently
dead, when it, too, suddenly sprang up and charged. Our friend turned
and fled; but, tripping over a fallen branch, fell headlong amidst the
green rushes. There, face-downwards, he lay, preferring, as he explained
later, "to receive his wound behind rather than have his face messed
about by a boar!" Luckily the animal, on losing sight of its flying foe,
pulled up and stood, grunting surprise and disapproval.
A similar experience befell King Alfonso XIII. in this Mancha of
Salavar, December 29, 1909. We need not tell English readers that His
Majesty proved equal to this, as to every occasion, and dropped his
adversary at arm's length.
When one reads (as we do) descriptions of big-game hunting, a recurring
expression gives pause--that of "charging." A recent discussion in a
sporting paper turned on the question of "the best weapon for a charging
boar." Now such a thing as a "charging boar" has never, in a long
experience, occurred to the authors--that is, a boar charging
deliberately, and of its own initiative, upon human beings; and we do
not believe in the possibility of such an event. Of course should a boar
(or any other savage animal) be disabled, or in a corner, that is a
different matter--then a wild-boar will fight, and right gallantly too.
The nearest approach to a "charge" (though it wasn't one really)
occurred at the Rincon de los Carrizos. Towards the end of the beat the
dogs ran a pig, and, seeing it was a big one, the writer followed, and
after a spin of 300 yards overtook the boar at bay in a deep water-hole.
The place was all overhung with heavy foliage and thick pines above,
giving very poor light. Though the boar's snout pointed straight towards
me about ten yards away, I imagined (wrongly) that his body stood at an
angle--about one-third broadside: hence the bullet (aimed past the ear),
splashed harmlessly in the water, and next moment the pig was coming
straight as a die, apparently meaning mischief. When within five yards,
however, he jinked sharply to right, passing full broadside, when I
killed him _á-boca-jarro_, as the phrase runs, "at the mouth of the
spout."
[Illustration]
That idea of "charging at large" is so splendidly romantic, and fits in
so appropriately with preconceived ideas, that we almost regret to
disturb its semi-fossilised acceptance. But, in mere fact, neither boars
nor any other wild beasts "charge" at sight--always and only excepting
elephant and rhinoceros, either of which _may_ (or may not) do so,
though previously unprovoked. It would, at least, be unwise entirely to
ignore the contingency of either of these two so acting.
There exist, nevertheless, old and evil-tempered boars that are quite
formidable adversaries. We have many such in our Coto Doñana--boars
that, having once overmastered our hounds, practically defy us. Each of
these old solitary tuskers occupies some densely briared stronghold--it
may be but an isolated patch of jungle, scarce half an acre in extent,
or alternatively, a little sequence of similar thickets, each connected
by intervals of lighter bush. Such spots abound by the hundred, but once
the lair of our bristled friend is found, then there is work cut out for
man, horse, and hound. For long-drawn-out minutes the silence of the
wilderness re-echoes with doubly concentrated fury--frantic hound-music
mingled with lower accompaniment of sullen, savage snorts and grunts and
the champing of tusks; then a sharp crunch of breaking boughs ... and
the death-yell of a _podenco_ tells that _that_ blow has got home. But
the seat of war remains unchanged--the same rush and the same fatal
result are repeated. Presently some venturous hound may discover an
entry from behind. The enemy's flank is turned, and with a crash that
seems to shake the very earth, our boar retreats to a second stronghold
only twenty yards away. All this is occurring within arm's length; one
hears, can almost feel, the stress of mortal combat, but one sees
nothing inside the mural foliage, nor knows what moment the enemy may
sally forth. Such moments may even excite what are termed in Spanish
phrase "emotions."
In his second "Plevna" our boar is secure, and he knows it. With rear
and flanks protected by a _revêtement_ of gnarled roots and a labyrinth
of stems, he fears nothing behind, while the furiously baying hounds on
his front he now utterly despises. Blank shots fired in the air alarm
him not, nor will Pepe Espinal--in a service of danger--succeed in
dislodging him with a _garrocha_, after a perilous climb along the
briar-matted roof. That boar is victor--master of a stricken field.
One human resource remains, to go in _á arma blanca_--with the cold
steel. There are dashing spirits who will do this--in Spain we have seen
such. But to crawl thus, prostrate, into the dark and gloomy tunnels
that form a wild-boar's fortress, intercepted and obstructed on every
side, there to attack in single combat a savage beast, still unhurt and
in the flush of victory, pachydermatous, and whose fighting weight far
exceeds your own--well, _that_ we place in the category of pure
recklessness. Courage is a quality that all admire, though one may
wonder if it is not sometimes over-esteemed, when we find it possessed
in common, not only by very many wild-beasts, but even by savage races
of human kind--races which we regard as "lower," yet not inferior in
that cherished quality of "pluck."
Before you crawl in there, stop to think of the annoyance the act may
cause not merely to our hunt, but possibly to a wife, otherwise to
sisters, friends, or hospital nurses, even, it may be, to an
undertaker--though he will not object.
Once victorious over canine foes, it will be a remote chance indeed that
that boar, unless caught by mishap in some carelessly chosen lair, will
ever again show up as a mark for the fore-sight of a rifle.
After one such rout, we remember finding our friend the Reverend Father,
who had sallied forth with us for a mild morning's shooting, perched
high up among the branches of a thorny _sabina_ (a kind of juniper),
whence we rescued him, cut and bleeding, and badly "shaken in nerve!"
We add the following typical instances of boar-shooting:--
SALAVAR, _February 1, 1900_.--A lovely winter's morn, warm sun and dead
calm. The distant cries of the beaters (nigh three miles away) had just
reached my ears, when a nearer sound riveted attention--the soft patter
of hoofs upon sand. Then from the forest-slope behind appeared a
pig--big and grey--trotting through deep rushes some forty yards away.
Already the fore-sight was "touching on" its neck, when a lucky
suspicion of striped piglings following their mother arrested the ball.
Next came along a gentle hind with all her infinite grace of contour and
carriage. At twenty-five yards she faced full round, and for long
seconds we stared eye to eye. Curious it is that absolute quiescence
will puzzle the wildest of the wild! Hardly had she vanished 'midst
forest shades, than once again that muffled patter--this time an
unmistakable tusker. But, oh! what an abominable shot I made--too low,
too far back--and onwards he pursued his course. By our forest laws it
was my _deber_ (bounden duty) to follow the stricken game. All that
noontide, all the afternoon--through bush and brake, by dell and dusky
defile--patiently, persistently, did Juanillo Espinal and I follow every
twist and turn of that unending spoor. There was blood to help us at
first, none thereafter. Through the thickets of Sabinal, then back on
the left by Maë-Corra, forward through the Carrizal, thence crossing the
Corral Grande, and away into the great _pinales_ beyond--away to the
Rincon de los Carrizos, three solid leagues and a bit to spare! That was
the price of a bungled shot.
Here at last we have tracked him to his lair. Within that sullen
fortress of the Rincon lies our wounded boar. How to get him out is a
different problem. Though wounded, he is in no way disabled, and is
ready, aye "spoiling," to put up a savage fight for his life. Having
precisely located him in a dense tangle of lentisk and briar, our single
dog, Careto, a tall, shaggy _podenco_, not unlike a deerhound, but on
smaller scale, is let go. Up a gloomy game-path he vanishes, and in a
moment fierce music startles the silent woods. The boar refused to move.
But one resource remained. We must go in to help Careto, crawling up a
briar-laced tunnel. It was horribly dark at first, and I began to think
of ... when, fortunately, the light improved, and a few yards farther in
a savage scene was enacting in quite a considerable open. Beneath its
brambled roof we could stand half upright. In its farthest corner stood
our boar at bay, a picture of sullen ferocity. Upon Juanillo's
appearance the scene changed as by magic--there was a rush and
resounding crash. Precisely what happened during the three succeeding
seconds deponent could not see, it being so gloomy, and Juanillo on my
front. Ere a cartridge could be shoved into the breech the great boar
was held up, Careto hanging on to his right ear, and Juanillo, springing
over the dog, had seized the grisly beast by both hind-legs--at the
hocks--and stepping backward, with one mighty heave flung the boar
sidelong on the earth. Next moment I had driven the knife through his
heart.
Though the method described is regularly employed by Spanish hunters to
seize and capture a wounded or "bayed" boar--and we have seen it
executed dozens of times--yet seldom in such a spot as this, cramped in
space, handicapped by bad light and intercepting boughs and briars. It
was a dramatic scene, and a bold act that bespoke cool head and brawny
biceps.
The head of this boar hangs on our walls to commemorate an event we are
not likely to forget.
We remember following a wounded lynx into a similar spot--a deep
hollowed jungle. A pandemonium of savage snarling and spitting, barks
and yowls greeted our ears as we crawled in, while on reaching the
cavern the green eyes of the lynx flashed like electric lights from a
dark recess. Though one hind-leg had been broken and the other damaged
by a rifle-ball, yet she held easy mastery over five or six dogs.
Sitting bolt upright, she kept the lot at bay with sweeping half-arm
blows. Not a dog dared close, and the brave feline had to be finished
with the lance.
MANCHA DEL MILAGRO, _February 4, 1908_.--The covert, we knew by spoor,
held a first-rate boar, and his most probable _salida_ (break-out) was
at the foot of a perpendicular sand-wall, within fifty yards of which
the writer held guard. Within brief minutes the music of the pack
corroborated what had been foretold by spoor. Twice the boar with
crashing course encircled the _mancha_ within, passing close inside my
post. Each moment I watched for his appearance at the expected point on
the right. Then, without notice or sound of broken bough, suddenly he
stood outside on the left--almost beneath the gun's muzzle--not eight
feet away. Luckily (as he stood within my firing-lines) the boar
steadfastly gazed in the opposite direction, nor did I seek by slightest
movement to attract attention to my presence. For some seconds we both
remained thus, rigid. Then with sudden decision the boar bounded off,
flying the gentle slope in front, and ere he had passed a yard clear of
the firing-line, fell dead with a bullet placed in the precise spot.
Weight, 164 lbs. clean, and grey as a donkey.
* * * * *
A wounded boar should always be approached with caution. Remember he is
a powerful brute, very resolute, and furnished with quite formidable
armament, which, while life remains, he will use. One of the biggest,
after receiving a bullet slightly below and behind the heart, went
slowly on some fifty yards, when he subsided, back up, among some green
iris. Half an hour later the writer silently approached from directly
behind. At ten yards the heaving flanks showed that plenty of life
remained, and beautiful scimitar-like tushes were conspicuous enough on
either side. I therefore quietly withdrew. On a keeper presently riding
up, the boar at once dashed on a dog, flung him aside (laying open half
his ribs), and charged the horse. The latter was smartly handled and
cleared, when the boar instantly turned on me. The dash of that onset
was splendid to watch. Luckily he had a yard or two of soft bog to get
through, but it was necessary to stop him with another bullet.
Impressive is the mental sensation aroused when any savage
wild-beast--normally the object of pursuit--suddenly turns the tables
and becomes the aggressor. The actual incident is necessarily but
momentary, yet its effect remains graven on the tablets of memory. Pity
'tis so rare.
Again we conclude with an independent impression by J. C. C.:--
Never a visit to the Coto Doñana but brings some separate
experience--possibly more pleasurable in retrospect than reality! I
will instance my first interview with wild-boars. Now, of course, I
know more about them and can almost regard them with serenity; but
at that time, believe me, it was not so. That first encounter at
really close quarters occurred at the close of a long day's work.
My post was behind a twelve-inch pine on an otherwise bare hill,
the reverse slope of which dipped down to dense bamboo-thickets
just out of my sight, though close by. Within a few minutes
commenced and continued the hullabaloo of hounds. Close glued to my
pine-trunk I listened in tense excitement. Suddenly, ere I had
quite realised such possibility, there rushed into view on the
ridge, not twenty paces distant, a great shaggy grey boar. He had
dashed up the steep bank beyond and was now making direct for my
legs. This is not the confession of a nervous man, but it did occur
to me that truer safety lay in the _fork_ of my tree! but B. was
the next gun, only sixty or seventy yards away, and keenly
interested. In a moment I was myself again; but the interval had
been, to say the least, painfully enthralling. I had, of course, to
wait till the great "Havato" had crossed my "firing-lines." He
certainly saw _something_, for he paused momentarily, took rapid
counsel, and bolted past. Nerves were steady now, and once across
the line the boar had my right in the ribs, left in flank. I
actually saw blood spurt--hair fly--at each shot, yet the boar
followed on his course unmoved. Pachydermatous pig! I pondered
while reloading. Ten seconds later on my boar's sleuth follows
_Boca-Negra_, a veritable Beth Gelert. Utterly ignoring me, he
passes away into gloom and silence; but shortly I see him coming
back, blood-stained and satiated, and my self-respect returns. Ten
minutes later, a second tusker gallops along the hollow behind. Him
also my right caught fair in the ribs--only a few inches left of
the heart, yet again without visible result. The second bullet,
however, broke his spine as he ascended the sand-bank beyond, and
he fell stone dead. When the beat was over we followed No. 1. He
also lay still, 200 yards away--a pair of first-rate tuskers.
I remember, during the gralloch, some dreadfully poor
charcoal-burners appearing on the scene to beg for food. This, of
course, was gladly conceded; but so famished were those poor
creatures that old women filled their aprons with reeking viscera,
while it was with difficulty that children could be prevented from
starting at once on raw flesh and liver. Truly it was a grievous
spectacle, and filled the homeward ride with sad reflections on the
awful hardships such poor folk are destined to endure.
[Illustration: BOLTED PAST]
In days of rapid change, when, in our own generation, sporting weapons
have been at least thrice utterly metamorphosed, it is unwise to be
dogmatic. Yet we may summarise our personal experience that the most
efficient weapon for all such purposes as here described is that known
as the "Paradox," or at least of the Paradox type. The old "Express
rifle" (the best in its day, less than a score of years ago, but now
mere "scrap") was also useful. But it always fell second to the Paradox,
as the latter (being really a shot-gun, equally available for small
game, snipe, duck, or geese) came up quicker to the eye for
snap-shooting with ball.
The invention of the Paradox type of gun has practically introduced a
third style of shooting where there previously existed only two, to
wit:--
(1) Gun-shooting with _shot_ where any "aim" or even an apology for an
aim is fatal to modern maximum success.
(2) Rifle-shooting proper, which must be mechanical and deliberate--the
more so, the more effective.
(3) Thirdly, we have this new system intermediate between the
two--"gun-shooting with ball."
Using the Paradox as a rifle, an alignment _must_ be taken; but it may
be taken as with a _gun_, and not necessarily the deliberate and
mechanical alignment essential with a rifle, properly so called.
In short, with a Paradox, always glance along the sights. You will
nearly always find that some "refinement" of aim is required. More words
are useless.
One word as to the "forward allowance" needed after the rough alignment
(as explained) has been effected. At short snapshot ranges none is
required. At a galloping stag at 50 yards, the sights should clear his
chest; at 100 yards, half-a-length ahead, and double that for 150 yards.
At these longer ranges one instinctively allows for "drop" by taking a
fuller sight. For standing shots, of course, the back-sights can be
used.
BOAR-HUNTING BY MOONLIGHT (ESTREMADURA)
"_Caceria á la Ronda._"
This picturesque and altogether break-neck style of hunting the boar--a
style perhaps more consonant than "driving" with popular notions of the
dash and chivalry of Spanish character--still survives in the wild
province of Estremadura. No species of sport in our experience will
compare with the _Ronda_ for danger and sheer recklessness unless it be
that of "riding lions" to a stand, as practised on British East African
plains.[16]
Years ago we described this system of the _Ronda_ in the "Big-Game"
volumes of the Badminton Library, and here write a new account,
correcting some slight errors which had crept into the earlier article.
This sport is practised by moonlight at that period of the autumn called
the _Montanera_, when acorns and chestnuts fall from the trees, and
when droves of domestic swine are turned loose into the woods to feed on
these wild fruits. At that date the wild-boars also are in the habit of
descending from the adjacent sierras, and wander far and wide over the
wooded plains in search of that favourite food.
When the acorns fall thus and ripe chestnuts strew the ground in these
magnificent Estremenian forests, the young bloods of the district
assemble to await the arrival of the boars upon the lower ground. Two
kinds of dog are employed: the ordinary _podencos_, which run free; and
the _alanos_, a breed of rough-haired "seizers," crossed between
bull-dog and mastiff--these latter being held in leash.
Sallying forth at midnight, so soon as the _podencos_ give tongue, the
_alanos_ are slipped in order to "hold-up" the flying boar till the
horsemen can reach the spot.
Then for a while hound-music frightens the darkness and shocks the
silence of the sleeping woods; there is crashing among dry forest-scrub,
a breakneck scurry of mounted men among the timber, until the furious
baying of the hounds and the noisy rush of the hunters converge towards
one dark point among the shadows, and in the half-light a great grisly
tusker dies beneath the cold steel, but not before he has written a
lasting record on the hide of some luckless hound.
A stiff neck and bold heart are essential to these dare-devil gallops,
where each horse and horseman vie in reckless rivalry, flying through
bush and brake, and under overhung boughs difficult to distinguish amid
moon-rays intercepted by foliage above. Accidents of course occur--an
odd collar-bone or two hardly count, but what does annoy is when by
mistake some wretched beast of domestic race is found held up by the
excited pack.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
"OUR LADY OF THE DEW"
THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL ROCÍO
Pilgrimages by the pious to distant shrines are a well-known phase in
the faith both of the Moslem and of the Romish Church, and require no
definition by us; but one that is yearly performed to a tiny and
isolated shrine not a dozen miles from our shooting-lodge of Doñana
deserves description.
First as to its origin. Twelve hundred years ago when Arab conquerors
overran Spain much treasure of the churches, with many sacred emblems,
relics, etc., were hurriedly concealed in places of safety. But not
unnaturally, since Moorish domination extended over 700 years, all trace
or record of such hiding-places had long been lost, and it was merely by
chance and one by one that, after the Reconquest, the hidden treasures
were rediscovered.
The story of the recovery of our Lady of the Dew is related to have
occurred in this wise. A shepherd tending his flocks in the
neighbourhood of Almonte was induced by the strangely excited barking of
his dog to force a way into the dense thickets known as La Rocina de la
Madre (a wooded swamp, famous as a breeding-place of the smaller herons,
egrets, and ibises), in the midst of which the dog led him to an ancient
hollowed tree. Here, half-hidden in the cavernous trunk, the shepherd
espied the figure of "a Virgin of rare beauty and of exquisite carving,"
clothed in a tunic of what had been white linen, but now stained dull
green through centuries of exposure to the weather and dew (_rocío_).
Overjoyed, the shepherd, bearing the Virgin on his shoulders, set out
for Almonte, distant three leagues; but being overcome by fatigue and
the weight of his burden, he lay down to rest by the way and fell
asleep. On awakening he found the Virgin had gone--she had returned to
her hollow tree. Having ascertained this, and being now filled with
fear, he proceeded alone to Almonte, where he reported his discovery. At
once the Alcalde and clergy accompanied him to the spot, and finding the
image as related, a vow was then and there solemnised that a shrine,
dedicated to N. S. del Rocío, should be erected at the very spot.
On its being discovered that this Virgin was able to perform miracles
and to grant petitions, her fame soon spread afar, and religious fervour
waxed strong. Thus during the plague of 1649-50, the Virgin having been
removed to Almonte as a safeguard, the inhabitants of that place were
immune from the pestilence, though every other hamlet was decimated. A
second miracle was attributed to the Virgin. Hard by the shrine at Rocío
was a spring of water, but of such poor supply that ordinarily a single
man could empty it within two hours: yet during the three days of the
pilgrimage thousands of men and their horses could all assuage their
thirst.
Owing to these manifestations devout persons endowed the Virgin of Rocío
with considerable sums of money, with which a larger shrine was built,
while sumptuous garments, laces, and embroidery, with jewelry and
precious stones, were provided for her adornment. In addition to this,
Replicas of the original effigy were made and distributed around the
villages of the neighbourhood, particularly the following:--
Kilos.
Palma, distant 32
Moguer " 30
Umbrete " 45
Huelva " 65
Triana " 76
Rota " 55
San Lucar " 45
Villamanrique " 18
Pilas " 23
Almonte " 17
Coria " 44
At each of these and other places, "Brotherhoods" (_Hermandades_),
affiliated to the original at Rocío, were established to guard these
effigies; and it is from these points that every Whitsuntide the various
pilgrim-fraternities journey forth across the wastes towards Rocío, each
Brotherhood bringing its own carved replica to pay its annual homage to
its carved prototype.
* * * * *
In the spring of 1910 the authors attended the _Fiesta_. Already, the
night before, premonitory symptoms--the tuning-up of fife and drum--had
been audible, and during the twelve-mile ride next morning fresh
contingents winding through the scrub-clad plain were constantly
sighted, all converging upon Rocío. It was not, however, till reaching
that hamlet that the full extent of the pilgrimage became apparent, and
a striking and characteristic spectacle it formed. From every point of
the compass were descried long files of white-tilted
ox-waggons--hundreds of them--slowly advancing across the flower-starred
plain; the waggons all bedecked in gala style, crammed to the last seat
with guitar-touching girls, with smiling duennas and attendant squires;
the ox-teams gaily caparisoned, and escorted by prancing cavaliers, many
with wife or daughter mounted pillion-wise behind, while younger
pilgrims challenged impromptu trials of speed--a series of minor
steeplechases. There were four-in-hand brakes, mule-teams and
donkey-carts, pious pedestrians--a motley parade enveloped in clouds of
dust and noise, but all in perfect order.
The following quaint description was written down for us by a Spanish
friend who accompanied us:--
It is at the entry of the various processions that the most
striking and picturesque effects are produced by the cavalcade.
Here one sees displayed the grace and ability of the Amazon--the
robust and comely Andalucian maiden, carried _á ancas_
(pillion-wise) at the back of his saddle by gallant cavalier proud
of his gentle companion, and exhibiting to advantage his skill in
horsemanship. The noble steed, conscious of its onerous part,
carries the double burden with care and spirit, being trained to
curvet and rear in all the bravery of mediæval and Saracenic age.
About 4 P.M., while the converging caravans were yet a mile or so
afield, all halted, each to organise its own procession, and each headed
by the waggon bearing its own Virgin bedecked in gorgeous apparels of
silk and silver braid. Then to the accompaniment of bands and
bell-ringing, hand-clapping and castanets, drum, tambourine, and guitar,
with flags flying and steeds curvetting, this singular combination of
religious rite with musical fantasia resumed its advance into the
village.
Despite the dust and crush not a unit but held its assigned position,
and thus--one long procession succeeding another--the whole concourse
filed into the village, crossed its narrow green, and sought the shrine
where, within the open doors, the Virgin of Rocío, removed from the
altar, was placed to receive the homage of the Brotherhoods. As each
Replica reached the spot, its bearers halted and knelt, while expert
drivers even made their ox-teams kneel down in submission before the
"Queen of Heaven and Earth." There was but a moment's delay, nor did
castanets and song cease for an instant. Later in the evening came the
processions of the Rosario, when each of the visiting Brotherhoods make
a ceremonious call upon the Senior Brother--that is, the Hermit of
Rocío--after which each confraternity, with less ceremony but more
joviality, visited the camps of the others. This last was accompanied by
bands, massed choirs, and _fireworks_. Then the festival resolved
itself, so far as we could judge, into a purely secular
affair--feasting, merry-making, dancing, till far on in the night.
Rain had set in at dusk and was now falling fast. Rocío is but a tiny
hamlet--say two score of humble cots--yet to-night 6000 people occupied
it, the womenfolk sleeping inside their canvas-tilted ox-waggons, the
men lying promiscuously on the ground beneath.
Sunday is occupied with religious ceremonies, beginning with High Mass.
These we will not attempt to describe--nor could we if we would. The
Spanish friend who at our request jotted down some notes on the _Fiesta_
uses the following expressions:--
The days of the Rocío are days of expansion, merry-making,
animation. Never, throughout the festival, ceases the laughter of
joyous voices, the clang of the castanets, the melody of guitar and
tambourine. Dances, song, and music, with jovial intercourse and
good fellowship, all unite to preserve unflagging the rejoicing
which is cultivated at that beautiful spot. At this festival many
traders assist with different installations, including jewellers in
the porch of the church, vendors of medallions, photographs,
coloured ribbons, and other articles dedicated to the patroness of
a festival which is well worthy a visit for its originality and
bewitchment.
On the Monday morning, after joint attendance of all the Brotherhoods at
Mass, followed by a sermon, the image of the Virgin is formally replaced
upon the altar (the feet resting upon the same hollow trunk in which the
figure was first found), then the processions are reformed and the long
homeward journey to their respective destinations begins.
Although many thousands of people yearly attend this festival, all
entirely uncontrolled by any authority, yet quarrels and disturbance are
unknown. The mere cry of "viva la Virgen" suffices at once to appease
incipient angers, should such arise. Thousands of horses and donkeys,
moreover, are allowed to roam about untended and unguarded, as there is
no danger of their being stolen.
* * * * *
The Virgin of the Rocío, it appears, specialises in accidents, and many
votive pictures hung within the shrine illustrate the nature of her
miracles. One man is depicted falling headlong from a fifth-storey
window, another from a lofty pine, a third drowning in a torrential
flood; a lady is thrown by a mule, another run over by a cart, a lad
caught by an infuriated bull; a beatific-looking person stands harmless
amidst fiery forked lightning--apparently enjoying it. From all these
and other appalling forms of death, the survivors, having been saved by
the Virgin's miraculous interposition, have piously contributed
pictorial evidence of the various occurrences.
A somewhat gruesome relic records the incident that a mother having
vowed that should her daughter be restored to life, she should walk to
Rocío in her grave-clothes--and there the said clothes lie as evidence
of that miracle.
The festival above described is celebrated each spring at Pentecost.
There is, however, a second yearly pilgrimage into Rocío which
originated in this wise.
In 1810 when the French occupied this country, the village of Almonte
was held by two troops of cavalry who were engaged in impressing
recruits from among the neighbouring peasantry. These naturally objected
to serve the enemy, but many were terrorised into obedience. Bolder
spirits there were, however, and these, to the number of thirty-six,
resolved to strike a blow for freedom. Having assembled in the thick
woods outside Almonte, at two o'clock one afternoon they fell upon the
unsuspecting French and, ere these could defend themselves, many were
killed and others made prisoners. Finally the French commander was shot
dead on his own doorstep. "The villagers of Almonte were horrified at
what had occurred, for, although they had had no hand in the matter,
they felt sure they would have to bear the blame"--so runs a Spanish
account.
The few French troopers who had escaped fled to Seville, reported the
affair, and (wrongly) incriminated the villagers of Almonte--precisely
as those worthies had foreseen. The General commanding at Seville
ordered that Almonte should be razed to the ground and its inhabitants
beheaded--that being the penalty decreed by Murat for any shedding of
French blood. A detachment of dragoons, despatched to Almonte, had
already taken prisoner the mayor, the priests, and all the chief
inhabitants preparatory to their execution. In this grave situation they
bethought themselves to pray to the Virgin of Rocío, promising that if
she would rescue them from their deadly peril, they would institute a
new pilgrimage to her shrine for thanksgiving.
Already the detachment of French soldiers detailed to carry out the
executions had reached Pilas, a village within six leagues of Almonte,
when, by mere coincidence, a handful of Spanish troops flung themselves
against the French positions at Seville. The French, thinking that their
assailants must be the forerunners of a larger army, hurriedly recalled
all their outposts, including those commissioned to destroy Almonte!
Thus the wretched Alcalde and his fellow-prisoners were saved; for,
their innocence of the "crime" being presently established, the town was
let off with a fine. Since then, in accordance with the promise made 100
years ago, the whole of Almonte repairs every 7th of August to the
shrine of Nuestra Señora del Rocío.
[Illustration: PRAYING MANTIS (_Mantis religiosa_)]
CHAPTER VIII
THE MARISMAS OF GUADALQUIVÍR
THE DELTA
From Seville to the Atlantic the great river Guadalquivír pursues its
course through seventy miles of alluvial mud-flats entirely of its own
construction. The whole of this viewless waste (in winter largely
submerged) is technically termed the marisma; but its upper regions,
slightly higher-lying, have proved amenable to a limited dominion of
man, and nowadays comprise (besides some rich corn-lands) broad
pasturages devoted to grazing, and which yield _Toros bravos_, that is,
fighting-bulls of breeds celebrated throughout Spain, as providing the
popular champions of the Plaza.
[Illustration: AVOCET]
It is not of these developed regions that we treat, but of the Lower
Delta, which still remains a wilderness, and must for centuries remain
so--a vast area of semi-tidal saline ooze and marsh, extending over some
forty or fifty miles in length, and spreading out laterally to untold
leagues on either side of the river.
This Lower Delta, the marisma proper, while it varies here and there by
a few inches in elevation, is practically a uniform dead-level of
alluvial mud, only broken by _vetas_, or low grass-grown ridges seldom
rising more than a foot or two above the flat, and which vary in extent
from a few yards to hundreds of acres. The precise geological cause of
these _vetas_ we know not; but the calcareous matter of which they are
composed--the debris of myriad disintegrated sea-shells, mostly
bivalves--proves that the ocean at an earlier period held sway, till
gradually driven backwards by the torrents of alluvial matter carried
down by the river, and finally forced behind the vast sand-barrier now
known as the Coto Doñana--the buffer called into being whilst age-long
struggles raged between these two opposing forces. The fact is further
evidenced by the salt crust which yearly forms on the surface of the
lower marisma when the summer sun has evaporated its waters.
In summer the marisma is practically a sun-scorched mud-flat; in winter
a shallow inland sea, with the _vetas_ standing out like islands.
There are, as already stated, slight local variations in elevation.
Naturally the lower-lying areas are the first to retain moisture so soon
as the long torrid summer has passed away and autumn rains begin.
Speedily these become shallow lagoons, termed _lucios_--similar, we
imagine, to the _jheels_ of India--and a welcome haven they afford to
the advance-guard of immigrant wildfowl from the north.
Plant-life in the marismas is regulated by the relative saltness of the
soil. In the deeper _lucios_ no vegetation can subsist; but where the
level rises, though but a few inches, and the ground is less saline, the
hardy samphire (in Spanish, _armajo_) appears, covering with its small
isolated bushes vast stretches of the lower marisma.
The _armajo_, which is formed of a congeries of fleshy twigs, leafless,
and jointed more like the marine _algae_ than a land-plant, belongs to
three species as follows:--
(2) _Arthraenimum fruticosum_}
} in Spanish, _Armajo_.
(3) _Suaeda fruticosa_ }
All three belong to the natural order _Chenopodiaceae_ (or "Goose-foot"
family).
The _armajo_ is the typical plant of the marisma, flourishing even where
there is a considerable percentage of salt in the soil. This aquatic
shrub increases most in dry seasons, a series of wet winters having a
disastrous effect on its growth. The _Sapina_, above mentioned, has a
curious effect when eaten by mares (which is often the case when other
food is scarce) of inducing a form of intoxication from which many die.
Indeed, the deaths from _Ensapinadas_ represent a serious loss to
horse-breeders whose mares are sent to graze in the marismas. Cattle are
not affected.
[Illustration: SAMPHIRE]
Formerly the _Sapina_ possessed a commercial value, being used (owing to
its alkaline qualities) in the manufacture of soap. Nowadays it is
replaced by other chemicals.
Here and there, owing to some imperceptible gradient, the marisma is
traversed by broad channels called _caños_, where, by reason of the
water having a definite flow, the soil has become less saline. The
_armajo_ at such spots becomes scarce or disappears altogether, its
place being taken by quite different plants, namely: Spear-grass
(_Cyperus_), _Candilejo_, _Bayunco_, the English names of which we do
not know.
Efforts have been made from time to time to reclaim and utilise portions
of the marisma by draining the water to the river; but failure has
invariably resulted for the following reasons:
(1) The intense saltness of the soil.
(2) That the marisma lies largely on a lower level than the river banks.
(3) The river being tidal, its water is salt or brackish.
There are vast areas of far better land in Spain which might be
reclaimed with certainty and at infinitely less cost.
The only human inhabitants of the marisma are a few herdsmen whose
reed-built huts are scattered on remote _vetas_. There are also the
professional wildfowlers with their _cabresto_-ponies; but this class is
disappearing as, bit by bit, the system of "preservation" extends over
the wastes. Though the climate is healthy enough except for a period
just preceding the autumn rains, yet our keepers and most of those who
live here permanently are terrible sufferers from malaria. Quinine, they
tell us, costs as much as bread in the family economy.
We quote the following impression from _Wild S
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