EXPERIENCES WITH EAGLES AND VULTURES. 213 



the communists. Two days before we had returned from 

 a fortnight's expedition to the westward, and when riding 

 towards Jerez were stopped by a mihtary cordon who 

 invested the town and demanded our credentials. These 

 being satisfactory, the ofiicer in command informed us that 

 street-fighting was taking phice, and detained us till evening, 

 when he kindly furnished us with an escort. We found 

 that two days previously the city had been seized by an 

 armed mob, thousands strong, who by a sudden coup had 

 gained possession of the public buildings and barricaded 

 the streets. On the arrival of a troop of cavalry from 

 Seville the mutineers incontinently fled, save a mere 

 handful of the bolder spirits, who stood to their impro- 

 vised defences to the last, and were finally shot down within 

 the church of San Juan, wherein they had sought refuge. 

 This revolution thus crumbled to nothing, though at one 

 time it threatened to exceed in violence that of three years 

 before (1869), when the barricades were taken at the i)oint 

 of the bayonet, and hundreds of insurgents were shot down 

 in the streets of Jerez. 



For the moment danger was past, and the city, within the 

 armed cordon, restored to normal condition, though outside 

 the state of the adjacent country was not certain. Keen- 

 ness to kill the Roj^al Eagle of the sierras was paramount, 

 and at midnight Jose and I set out from La Compaiiia, the 

 old Jesuit convent which was then our home, and tra- 

 versing the dark streets and narrow, sandy lanes beyond, 

 we were soon clear of the town, and by daylight had 

 reached the ford of the Alamillo, where we crossed the 

 Guadalete, and were breakfasting at 6.30 in the hill- village 

 of Paterna — five leagues. Early in the afternoon w^e com- 

 pleted the twelve leagues and reached the little cortijo of 

 Jautor, the abode of Jose's two brothers, who agreed to take 

 us to the eagle's nest that evening. Jautor is surrounded 

 by towering sierras, and we proceeded on foot up a rough 

 goat-track, choked with strong brushwood, and leading up 

 the steep southern acclivity. After climbing and «'alking 

 about two hours, we reached the nest, a huge pile of sticks 

 surmounting an oak-tree which hung over a deep (jarijanta 



