CHAPTEE III 



THE GOTO DONANA: OUR HISTORIC 

 HUNTING-GROUND 



A Foreword by Sir Maurice de Bunsen, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Madrid. 



Among my recollections of Spain none will be more vivid and 

 deliiditful than those. of my visits to the Goto Donana. From 

 beo"inning to end, climate, scenery, sport, and hospitable enter- 

 tainment combine, in that happy region, to make the hours all 

 too short for the joys they bring. Equipped with Paradox-gun 

 or rifle, and some variety of ammunition, to suit the shifting 

 requirements of deer and boar, lynx, partridge, wild-geese and 

 ducks, snipe, rabbit and hare, nay, perhaps a chance shot at 

 flamingo, vulture, or eagle, the favoured visitor steps from the 

 Bonanza pier into the broad wherry waiting to carry him across 

 the Guadalquivir, a few miles only from its outflow into the 

 Atlantic. In its hold the first of many enticing hocadillos is 

 spread before him. Table utensils are superfluous luxuries, but, 

 armed with hunting blade and a formidable appetite, he plays 

 havoc with the red mullet, tortilla, and came de memhrillo, 

 washed down with a tumbler of sherry which has ripened 

 through many a year in a not far distant bodega. 



In half an hour he is in the saddle. Distances and sandy 

 soil prohiljit much walking in the Goto Donana. 



Marshalled by our host, the soul of the party, the cavalcade 

 canters lightly up the sandy beach of the river. Thence it strikes 

 to the left into the pine-coverts, leading in five hours more to 

 the friendly roof of the " Palacio." A picturesque group it is 

 with Vazquez, Garaballo, and other well-known figures in the van, 

 packhorses loaded with luggage and implements of the chase, and 

 lean, hungry 2^odencos hunting hither and thither for a stray 

 rabljit on the way. The views are not to be forgotten, the 



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