122 Unexplored Spain 
sight. Though apparently unhurt, one of their company may 
turn over, stone-dead, in the distance. 
“ FLIGHTING “—-AN INCIDENT oF A Dry SEASON 
The day above described was selected, not only because it 
affords a typical illustration of our theme, but also because there 
had occurred during its course an extraneous incident which 
serves to amplify this exposition of the pursuit of the greylag 
goose. 
Riding across the marisma, certain signs at once filled 
both our minds with fresh ideas. All around the ground was 
littered with cast feathers and other evidence proclaiming that 
this special spot was a regular resort of geese. We were crossing 
one of those slightly raised ridges of sand and grit which here and 
there intersect, the otherwise universal dead-level of alluvial mud, 
and which ridges are known locally as vetas—tongues. 
Now the nutritive economy of wild-geese, as already explained, 
requires a frequently replenished store of sand or grit. In wet 
seasons (the marisma being then submerged) the geese resort to: 
the adjoining sand-dunes of Dofiana to secure these supplies. 
But in dry winters they are enabled to obtain the necessary 
sand from these vetas; and it was to this particular spot that, 
to the number of many hundreds, the geese were evidently resort- 
ing at this period. 
At once the measure of opportunity was gauged, and the 
arrangements necessary for its exploitation were made. Within 
three minutes a messenger was galloping homewards to summon 
a couple of men with spades and buckets to prepare a hole 
wherein one of us might lie concealed at daybreak. A pannier- 
mule to carry away the excavated material was also requisitioned, 
since the least visible change in the earth’s surface would instantly 
be recognised by the geese as a danger-signal. Within a few 
minutes we had resumed our course, to continue the day’s sport. 
Next morning half an hour before dawn the writer reached 
the spot. It was pitch-dark and a dense fog prevailed. By 
what mental process my guides directed an unerring course to 
that lonely hole in the midst of a pathless and practically bound- 
less waste passes understanding. Such piloting (without aid 
of compass or even of the heavenly bodies—the usual index on 
