yS Unexplored Spain 



me. The dash of that ouset was splendid to watch. Luckily 

 he had a yard or two of soft bog to get through, but it was 

 necessary to stop him with another liullet. 



Impressive is the mental sensation aroused when any savage 

 wild-beast — normally the object of pursuit — suddenly turns the 

 tables and becomes the aggressor. The actual incident is 

 necessarily but momentary, yet its effect remains graven on tlie 

 tablets of memory. Pity 'tis so rare. 



Again we conclude with an independent impression by 

 J. C. C. :— 



Never a visit to the Goto Dofiana but brings some separate experi- 

 ence — possibly more pleasurable in retrospect than reality ! I will 

 instance my first interview with wild-boars. Now, of course, I know more 

 about them and can almost regard them with serenity ; but at that time, 

 believe me, it was not so. That first encounter at really close quarters 

 occurred at the close of a long day's work. My post was behind a 

 twelve-inch pine on an otherwise bare hill, the reverse slope of which 

 dipped down to dense bamboo-thickets just out of my sight, though close 

 by. Within a few minutes commenced and continued the hullabaloo of 

 hounds. Close glued to my pine-trunk I listened in tense excitement. 

 Suddenly, ere I had quite realised such possibility, there rushed into 

 view on the ridge, not twenty paces distant, a great shaggy grey boar. 

 He had dashed up the steep bank beyond and was now making direct for 

 my legs. This is not the confession of a nervous man, but it did occur 

 to me that truer safety lay in the fork of my tree ! but B. was the next gun, 

 only sixty or seventy yards away, and keenly interested. In a moment I 

 was myself again ; but the interval had been, to say the least, painfully 

 enthralling. I had, of course, to wait till the great " Havato " had 

 crossed my " firing-lines." He certainly saw sometliing, for he paused 

 momentarily, took rapid counsel, and bolted past. Nerves were steady now, 

 and once across the line the boar had my right in the ribs, left in flank. 

 I actually saw blood spurt — hair fly — at each shot, yet the boar 

 followed on his course unmoved. Pachydermatous pig ! I pondered 

 while reloading. Ten seconds later on my boar's sleuth follows Boca- 

 Negra, a veritable Beth Gelert. Utterly ignoring me, he passes away into 

 gloom and silence ; but shortly I see him coming back, blood-stained and 

 satiated, and my self-respect returns. Ten minutes later, a second tusker 

 gallops along the hollow behind. Him also my right caught fair in 

 the ribs — only a few inches left of the heart, yet again without visible 

 result. The second bullet, however, broke his spine as he ascended the 

 sand-bank beyond, and he fell stone dead. When the beat was over we 

 followed No. 1. He also lay still, 200 yards away — a pair of first-rate 

 tuskers. 



