WILD CAMELS IN EUROPE. 95 



writer at the apparition of the long-legged, long-necked, 

 hump-backed pair ; but there was no room for mistake, 

 for a camel is like nothing else in creation. 



The camels appeared to have no great pace, and for 

 some distance I pursued them, but it was hopeless. Be- 

 tween us lay an arroyo, one of those wide stagnant 

 channels that in sprmg intersect the dry parts of the 

 marisma in all directions ; and before getting clear of this, 

 splashing through some hundred yards of mud and water, 

 the bactrians were far away, scudding across a dead- 

 level plain that extended to the horizon. 



I had heard on my first visit to this wilderness (in 

 1872) of the existence of camels therein, and that the}' 

 had lived there wild for forty years or more, but was as 

 incredulous as perhaps some of our present readers may 

 be, and as some certainly were when I first mentioned the 

 fact in the Ilns, in January, 1884, though then corroborated 

 by Mr. Howard Saunders, one of the joint-editors, in the 

 following foot-note : — " I saw a small herd of these feral 

 camels in the Goto de Douana, on the 3rd of Ma}', 1868 ; 

 but, finding that my statement as to the breeding of the 

 crane in that neighbourhood was received with much 

 incredulity, I kept the apparition of the camels to mj'self. 

 I possessed the eggs of the crane to convince the sceptics, 

 but I could not have produced a camel." Shortly after- 

 wards the statement was somewhat contemptuously criti- 

 cized by an anonymous writer in Tlie Field, who claimed 

 to be himself acquainted with the marismas, and ridiculed 

 the idea of camels existing there in a wild state. " The 

 startling statement," wrote Iiilil/cati, " as to the existence 

 of wild camels in the neighbourhood of Seville or Lebrija 

 has taken me and my friends who know that country well 

 by utter surprise ; and that camels should have been roam- 

 ing about there and breeding, so to speak, as perfectly wild 

 animals in a state of nature, seems to us utterly in- 

 credible. 



" The marismas in the summer time are covered with 

 cattle, and of course they are accompanied everywhere by 

 their herdsmen ; and, so to speak, every foot of open ground 



