CHAPTEE IV 



THE GOTO DONANA 



NOTES ON ITS PHYSICAL FORMATION, FAUNA, AND RED DEER 



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The great river Guadalquivir, divid- 

 ;_ ing in its oblique course seawards 

 >■; into double channels and finally 

 swerving, as though reluctant to lose 

 all identity in the infinite Atlantic, 

 practically cuts off' from the Spanish 

 mainland a triangular region, some 

 forty miles of waste and wilderness, 

 an isolated desert, singular as it is 

 beautiful, which we now endeavour 

 to describe. This, from our having for many years held the 

 rights of chase, we can at least undertake with knowledge and 

 affection. 



Its precise geological formation 'twere beyond our power, 

 unskilled in that science, to diagnose. But even to untaught 

 eye, the existence of the whole area is obviously due to an age- 

 long conflict waged between two Powers — the great river from 

 within, the greater ocean without. The Guadalquivir, draining 

 the distant mountains of Morena and full 200 miles of interveniuor 



o 



plain, rolls down a tawny flood charged with yellow mud till its 

 colour resembles cafe au lait. Thus proceeds a ceaseless deposit 

 of sediment upon the sea-bed ; but the external Power forcibly 

 opposes such infringement of its area. Here the elemental battle 

 is joined. The river has so far prevailed as to have grabbed 

 from the sea many hundred square miles of alluvial plain, that 

 known as the marisma ; but at this precise epoch, the Sea- 

 Power appears to have called checkmate by interposing a vast 

 barrier of sand along the whole battle -front. The net result 



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