loo Unexplored Spain 



tliereby, togetlier witli courtesy and tair-dealiiig, the erstwliile 

 insuroents iu brief time ])ecame the best of frieuds. 



o 



For the moment, however, we found ourselves hutless, and 

 constrained to encamp two leagues away on the distant terra 

 firma, this involving an extra couple of hours' work in the small 

 dark hours. 



As before 4 a.m. we rode, beneath a pouring rain, " path- 

 finding,"* in blind darkness across slimy ooze and shallow — not to 

 mention deeper channels that reached to the girths, — a nightjar 

 circled round our cavalcade — true, a very small event, but 

 recorded because it is quite against the rules for a nightjar to be 

 here in December. Only three guns braved this adventure, and 

 by 5.45 we occupied each his allotted post. These could not be 

 called comfortable, since the positions in which we had to spend 

 the next six or eight hours were quite six inches deep in water, 

 and the only covert a circle of samphire-bush barely a foot above 

 w^ater-level — that being the utmost height allowed by the keen 

 sight of tlio-htino- fowl. Each man had an armful of cut brush- 

 wood to kneel on, besides another bundle on which cartridge- 

 bags might be supported clear of the water.' 



Rain descended in sheets. Before it was fully light — -indeed 

 the average human being of diurnal habit w^ould probably swear 

 it was still quite dark — the swish of wdngs overhead foretold 

 the coming day. Then with a roar the whole marisma bursts 

 into life as though by clock-work. Thrice-a-minute, and oftener, 

 sped bunches of duck right in one's face, at times a hurricane of 

 wings. Not seeing them till quite close in, but one barrel can 

 be emptied each time, yet soon a score of beautiful pintail and 

 wigeon formed the basis of a pile. 



Behind, in the o-loom to westward, a sense of movement has 

 developed. At first it might have been but the drift of night-clouds, 

 but as light broadens, form and colour evolve and the phenomenon 

 shapes itself into vast bodies of flamingoes, sprawling, as it were, on 

 the face of heaven in writhing, scintillating confusion. After infinite 

 evolutions, the amorphous mass resolves itself into order ; files 

 and marshalled phalanxes serry the sky — those \veird wildfowl, 

 each with some six foot of rigid extension, advancing direct upon 

 our posts. Their armies have spent the night on the broad 



' This was in earlier days. Later on we developed a flotilla of flat-bottomed canoes 

 expressly adapted to this service. A photo of one of these is annexed. 



