46 AVILD SPAIN. 



CHAPTER IV. 



BIG DAYS WITH BUSTARD. 



I. — Jedilla. 



The two following examples of fortunate days will serve 

 to illustrate the system of bustard-shooting as practised on 

 the corn-lands of Southern Spain, and convey some idea 

 of the haunts and habits of this noble game-bird, in a 

 region where they still remain abundant. 



The rendezvous was at the Cortijo de Jedilla, a farm 

 lying some twelve miles away, and the hour fixed was nine 

 o'clock on an April morning. This, along a road that 

 resembled the remains of an earthquake, necessitated an 

 early start. For near three hours we rattled and jolted 

 along in the roomy brake, that lurched at times like a 

 cross-channel steamer, to the merry -jingling bells of a 

 four-in-hand mule-team. 



At the hour appointed our ponies and people stood 

 around the broad-arched entrance of the cortijo, all under 

 the direction of old Bias, the keen-eyed mountaineer, 

 equally at home on rugged sierra, or bestriding bare-backed 

 his restive colt, and intimately acquainted with every inch 

 of the wide country around. Bias had left home long 

 l)efore daybreak on that lovely spring morning, and after 

 covering the four leagues across the plains at a hand- 

 gallop, had already — like swift Camilla — scoured all the 

 cultivated lands around the cortijo, in search of the big 

 birds while yet they were busy seeking their matutinal 

 feed. He received us with the gratifying intelligence that 

 he had marked trcs haiidadas — three packs of bustard. In 

 a few minutes we were mounted, the guns slung in the 

 fioidciH, and away. 



