The Goto Donana 



51 



We may conclude this chapter with an independent impression. 



Lying hidden in one of these lonely puestos — writes J. C. C. — ever 

 induces in me a powerful and sedative sense of contemplation and 

 reflection, though fully alert all the time. While thus waiting and 

 watching, I can't hut marvel, first at nature's wondrous plan of waste — 

 a scheme here without apparent object or promise of fulfilment. Where 

 I lie the prospect comprises nothing but melancholy and unutterably 

 silent solitudes of sand, droughty wastes with but at rare intervals some 

 starveling patch of scant weird shrub destined either to shrivel in summer's 

 sun or shiver in winter's winds. But, lying in that environment, one 

 marvels yet more at the extreme caution displayed by wild animals ; one 



^ 4''/ 



ALTABACA (Scrn/idaria) 

 The starvelinsr shrub that otows in saml. 



TOMILLO DE ARENA 



Another sand-plant (in spring has a 

 lovely jtink bloom like sea-tliritti. 



has exceptional opportunity of admiring the exquisitive gifts bestowed by 

 nature upon her feme. Here is a young stag coming straight along, 

 down-wind, ere yet the beat lias begun, and in a desolate spot which to 

 human sense could Ijetray absolutely no feature or taint of danger. 

 Suddenly he becomes rigid, arrested in mid-career — snifhng at a pure 

 untainted air, yet conscious somehow of something wrong somewhere ! 

 It is a miraculous gift, though one cannot but feel grateful that we 

 humans are devoid of senses that ever keep nerves in highest tension. 

 Here is a sketch of a non-shootable stag thus suddenly statuetted thirty 

 yards from me snugly hidden well down-wind, and so intensely interested 

 that something else (a very old pal) well-nigh escaped notice. 



That something was our good friend Eeynard — Zorro they style him 

 out here — whose proverbial cunning exceeds all other cunnings. He lias 



