384 WILD SPAIN. 



CHAPTEK XXXIV. 

 WILDFOWLING IN THE WILDERNESS. 



II. — A Dry Season (Flight- Shooting), 



For days the report had reached us of the myriads of 

 aquatic birds that had settled in the marisma. The 

 keepers at the distant Eetuerta had passed the word along 

 to those nearer the boundary, and from these the news 

 was transmitted by boatmen to our factotum at San Lucar. 

 Every day the exhortation to come became more and more 

 urgent — "come at once, or in a few days the geese will 

 have devoured every blade of aquatic weed, every green 

 thing that remains, and will perforce be obliged to shift 

 to other quarters." But come we could not. The 29th 

 November was the day previously fixed for opening the 

 campaign, and to cross the Guadalquivir before that date 

 was not possible. Some of our party were coming out 

 by P. and 0. to Gibraltar, others by the quicker route of 

 the Slid express. With that malignant perversity of fate 

 that ever seems to snatch from us the realization of one's 

 ideal, we had, this year, fixed the day a week too late. 



Mid-November was already past ; autumn had given 

 place to winter, yet not a drop of rain had fallen. Since 

 the scorching days of summer the fountains of heaven had 

 been stayed, and now the winter wildfowl from the north 

 were pouring in only to find the marisma as hard and 

 arid as the deserts of Arabia Petr?ea. They found not 

 what they sought — instinct was at fault. True to their 

 appointed season came the dark clouds of pintail, teal, and 

 wigeon, the long skeins of grey geese ; but where in other 

 years they had revelled in shallows rich in aquatic vegeta- 



