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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.

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).

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.

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.

“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.

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.

(1) SAHARAN SAND-DUNES.

(2) TRANSPORT.

(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.

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.

“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.

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.

ABNORMAL CAST ANTLER (Picked up in Doñana.)

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 manœuvres, 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.

April.

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]

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.