CHAPTER III 
THE COTO DONANA: OUR HISTORIC 
HUNTING-GROUND 
A Foreword by Sin Maurice DE Bunsen, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Madrid. 
Amone my recollections of Spain none will be more vivid and 
delightful than those of my visits to the Coto Dofiana. From. 
beginning to end, climate, scenery, sport, and hospitable enter-: 
tainment combine, in that happy region, to make the hours all 
too short for the joys they bring. Equipped with Paradox-gun 
or rifle, and some variety of ammunition, to suit the shifting 
requirements of deer and boar, lynx, partridge, wild-geese and 
ducks, snipe, rabbit and hare, nay, perhaps a chance shot “at 
flamingo, vulture, or eagle, the favoured visitor steps from the 
Bonanza pier into the broad wherry waiting to carry him across 
the Guadalquivir, a few miles only from its outflow into the 
Atlantic. In its hold the first of many enticing bocadillos is 
spread before him. ‘Table utensils are superfluous luxuries, but, 
armed with hunting blade and a formidable appetite, he plays 
havoc with the red mullet, tortilla, and carne de membrillo, 
washed down with a tumbler of sherry which has ripened 
through many a year in a not far distant bodega. 
In half an hour he is in the saddle. Distances and sandy 
soil prohibit much walking in the Coto Dofiana. 
Marshalled by our host, the soul of the party, the cavalcade 
canters lightly up the sandy beach of the river. Thence it strikes 
to the left into the pine-coverts, leading in five hours more to 
the friendly roof of the “ Palacio.” A picturesque group it is 
with Vazquez, Caraballo, and other well-known figures in the van, 
packhorses loaded with luggage and implements of the chase, and 
lean, hungry podencos hunting hither and thither for a stray 
rabbit on the way. The views are not to be forgotten, the 
30 
