395 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



THE STANCHION-GUN IN SPAIN. 



During wet winters in Spain, when marismas and 

 sul)merged marshes form miniature seas, the customary 

 methods of wildfowhng are no longer of any avail. 

 Opportunities of employing the cahrcsto are few and far 

 between : while flight- shooting on an area indefinitely 

 extended is profitless and uncertain to the last degree. 

 But the marismas, with their myriads of winter wildfowl, 

 appeared to offer, during such seasons, an exceptional — 

 indeed an ideal field for the use of the gunning-punt, 

 and stanchion-gun. 



During the wet winter of 1887-8, when we were 

 constrained helplessly to contemplate floating flotillas, 

 all, in effect, inaccessible to our guns — these tantalizing 

 spectacles urged us to seek "some new thing." A gun- 

 ning-punt with its artillery appeared to be the one thing 

 needed, and with it, we felt confident that from fifty to 

 a hundred duck might often be secured at a shot. 

 Accordingly, in the autumn of that year (1888), we sent 

 out from England boat, gun, and gear — in short, the 

 complete equipment for " the wildfowler afloat." 



The little craft duly reached the Guadalquivir in 

 September ; but here an unexpected difficulty arose. 

 The Spanish custom-house took alarm. True, the little 

 vessel was an entire novelty and an innovation ; even in 

 the Millwall Docks she had created some surprise, and here, 

 she was incomprehensible. No such vessel had ever before 

 floated on Spanish waters, and the official mind took time 

 to consider. That oracle, after several weeks of cogitation, 

 ordered the removal of the tiny craft from the obscure port 



