98 



Unexplored Spain 



" Ye.s," replies Vasquez, " in one hour the geese will be streaming 

 in clouds up the Algaidilla and Cafio Juncero, Come ! there's 

 no time to lose." AVithin an hour we had reached the spot. 

 The water was four inches deep, with low cover of rushes. The 

 revolving stool stood too high, so I knelt in the shallow, and 

 within three minutes the first squad of geese came in quite 

 straight. One I took kneeling, but had to jump for the second. 

 Just as No. 2 collapsed. No. 1 caught me full amidships, knock- 

 ing me sidelong and, rebounding, upset the stool and the bag of 

 cartridges thereon ! A nice mess, occurring at the very outset of 



WILD GEESE ALIGHTING AT FIFTEEN YARDS 



(Take the upper pair right-and-left, leaving the nearer geese for second gun. ) 



one of those ambrosial half- hours seldom realised outside of 

 dreams. Quickly I dried the cartridges as well as circumstances 

 would admit, for pack after pack of geese hurled themselves 

 gaggling and honking right in my face, and during the few brief 

 minutes of the southern twilight, I reckoned I had twenty-three 

 down — seven right-and-lefts — though in the darkness only seven- 

 teen could be gathered, the winged all necessarily escaping. 



Within thirty-six hours we had secured sixty-two geese and 

 over two hundred ducks. For four guns, under favouring con- 

 ditions, this would have been no very special result ; but to-day the 

 fowl were all alert and restless at the prospect of a coming change. 

 The keynote had already been sounded that first day, when the 

 tormenta burst, and when the long drought ended on the very 



