Wildfowl-shooting in the Marisma 109 
turn out and by the dim light of a lantern embark in a cajon 
(punt), serenaded by the croaks and gabbling of flamingoes 
somewhere out in the dark waters. My wild companion, Batata, 
kneeling in the bows and grasping a punt-pole in either hand, 
bends to his work, and away we glide—into the unknown. 
A weird feeling it is squatting thus at water-level and 
watching the wavelets dance by or dash over our two-inch 
free-board. We make but three miles an hour, yet seem to 
fly past half-seen water-plants. A myriad stars are reflected on 
the still surface ahead, and it is by a single great Lucero (planet) 
that our pilot is now steering his course. 
Batata presently remarks that we have “arrived.” One 
takes his word for this. Still that verb does conditionally imply 
some place or spot of arrival. Here there was none—none, 
at least, that could be differentiated from any other point or spot 
in many circumambient leagues. But this was not an hour 
for philological disquisition, so we mentally decide that we 
have reached “nowhere.” A few hours later when daylight 
discovers our environment, that negation appears sufticiently 
proved. There are visible certain objects on the distant horizon. 
One—that behind us—proves to be the roof of the choza 
wherein we had spent the night—‘“ hull-down” to the eastward. 
The others a lengthened scrutiny with prism-binoculars shows 
to be a trio of wild camels feeding knee-deep in water. Now 
where you see such signs you may conclude you are nowhere. 
We skip a few hours, since we have no intention of inflicting 
on the reader the details of a morning’s flight-shooting. Suffice 
that at 9 a.m. B. reappears poling up in his punt, the spoils 
are collected (forty-nine in all, mostly wigeon and teal, with a 
few pintail and shoveler and one couple of gadwall), and the 
plan for the day discussed. To remain where we were (as this 
lucio had yesterday attracted a fairly continuous flight of ducks) 
had been our original idea. But a shift of the wind had rendered 
a second lucio, distant two miles, a more favourable resort 
for to-day, and thither accordingly we set out. Here a new 
puesto is promptly prepared and the forty-nine decoys deftly set 
out, each supported by a supple wand stuck in the mud below. 
Hardly had these preparations been completed, than the inter- 
mittent (or secondary) flight had commenced, file after file of 
ducks heading up from distant space, wheeling over or dashing 
