386 WILD SPAIN. 



his desideratum, for he had to make a large bag for 

 little money, depending on others to realize his spoils in 

 the distant market, and, as usual, much of the hard- 

 earned coin stayed in the hands of middlemen. Thus 

 Vasquez, with other marsh-men, was tempted by our offer 

 of a fixed wage, and has for years been keeper on the 

 marisma, where his reed-thatched choza is barely visible 

 amidst waving sedges and bulrushes hard by the most 

 favoured haunts of his aquatic charges. Vasquez cannot 

 tell you who is Prime Minister at Madrid, and cares not 

 whether England may wish to surrender Gibraltar to 

 Spain ; but he can tell you whither that pack of duck, 

 like a small cloud on the horizon, is hurrying to alight ; 

 he can point out to you the birds fresh come from the 

 north, as distinguished from earlier arrivals, as he can 

 also tell you when ducks, which, to the uninitiated, appear 

 quite happy and content, are packing up, and will be gone 

 with the morning's light. He will take you where the 

 snipe are in hundreds when you have searched their 

 favourite haunts in vain ; and will place you at dusk, if 

 you have faith in him and wait till sunset, where the 

 greylags will pass within ten yards. So Vasquez is a 

 useful man, though he knows nothing of the great world 

 outside of the Eetuerta. We felt, nevertheless, that we 

 were a week too late, and had perhaps lost the best chance 

 of a century. 



The plan of campaign was to line the northern end of 

 the marsh for some five or six miles, placing a gun in 

 each one of certain selected spots. For this purpose, large 

 casks are sunk at intervals, some well hidden among 

 rushes, others in open pools; but in these latter cases the 

 tubs were cunningly concealed by cut tamarisks and other 

 water-plants. 



To place the guns in their respective tubs, extending 

 over six miles of bog, and the nearest tub almost the 

 same distance from our quarters, is a lengthy operation, 

 necessitating a very early start. Long before dawn we 

 were in the saddle. Dark and rough at first was the 

 ride just preceding that impressive change — the lifting of 



