74 Unexplored Spain 



are quite formidable adversaries. We have many such in our 

 Goto Donana — boars that, having once overmastered our hounds, 

 practically defy us. Each of these old solitary tuskers occupies 

 some densely briared stronghold — it may be but an isolated patch 

 of jungle, scarce half an acre in extent, or alternatively, a little 

 sequence of similar thickets, each connected by intervals of lighter 

 bush. Such spots abound by the hundred, but once the lair of 

 our bristled friend is found, then there is work cut out for man, 

 horse, and hound. For lono--dra\vn-out minutes the silence of 

 the wilderness re-echoes with doubly concentrated fury — frantic 

 hound-music mingled with lower accompaniment of sullen, savage 

 snorts and grunts and the champing of tusks ; then a sharp 

 crunch of breaking boughs . . . and the death-yell of a pocJenco 

 tells that that blow has got home. But the seat of war remains 

 unchanged — the same rush and the same fatal result are repeated. 

 Presently some venturous hound may discover an entry from 

 behind. The enemy's flank is turned, and with a crash that 

 seems to shake the very earth, our boar retreats to a second 

 stronghold only twenty yards away. All this is occurring 

 within arm's length ; one hears, can almost feel, the stress 

 of mortal combat, but one sees nothing inside the mural foliage, 

 nor knows what moment the enemy may sally forth. Such 

 moments may even excite what are termed in Spanish phrase 

 " emotions." 



In his second " Plevna " our boar is secure, and he knows it. 

 With rear and flanks protected by a revetement of gnarled roots 

 and a labyrinth of stems, he fears nothing behind, while the 

 furiously baying hounds on his front he now utterly despises. 

 Blank shots fired in the air alarm him not, nor will Pepe Espinal 

 — in a service of danger — succeed in dislodging him with a 

 garrocha, after a perilous climb along the briar-matted roof. 

 That boar is victor — master of a stricken field. 



One human resource remains, to go in d arma hlanca — with 

 the cold steel. There are dashing spirits who will do this — in 

 Spain we have seen such. But to crawl thus, prostrate, into the 

 dark and gloomy tunnels that form a wild-boar's fortress, inter- 

 cepted and obstructed on every side, there to attack in single 

 combat a savage beast, still unhurt and in the flush of victory, 

 pachydermatous, and whose fighting weight far exceeds your 

 own — well, that we place in the category of pure recklessness. 



