Sierra Moréna 159 
hounds’ will follow or recognise. The huntsmen (though not the 
beaters) are mounted, and each carries a musket and a caracéla, 
or hunting-horn formed of a big sea-shell. The forelegs of the 
horses, where necessary—especially in Estremadura—are enveloped 
in leather sheaths (fundas de cuero) to protect them from the 
terrible thorns and the spikes of burnt cistus which pierce and 
cut like knives. The best dogs are yodencos of the bigger breeds, 
also crosses between podencos and mastifis, and between mastiffs 
and alanos, the latter a race of rough-haired bull-dogs largely 
used in Estremadura for ‘‘ holding-up” the boar. 
The huntsmen with their packs, and the beaters, usually start 
with the dawn, sometimes long before, dependent on the distance 
to be traversed to their points, which may be ten or twelve miles. 
Till reaching the cast-off, hounds are coupled up in pairs: a collar 
fitted with a bell (cencerro) is then substituted, and the align- 
ment being completed—each pack at its appointed spot—at a 
given hour the beat begins. 
On every occasion when a game-beast is raised a blank shot 
is fired to encourage the hounds, and the who-hoops of the 
huntsmen behind resound for miles around. Should the animal 
hold a forward course (as desired), the hounds are shortly 
recalled by the caracdlas, or hunting-horns aforesaid, and the 
beat is then reformed and resumed. 
Meanwhile—far away at remote posts prearranged—the 
firing-line (armdda) has already occupied its allotted positions ; 
the guns most often disposed along the crests of some command- 
ing ridge, sometimes defiled in a narrow pass of the valley far 
below. 
Should the number of guns be insufficient to command the 
whole front, the expedient of placing a second firing-line (termed 
the travérsa), projected into the beat, and at a right angle from 
the centre of the first line, is sometimes effective. 
It may occur to those accustomed to deal with mountain-game 
on a large scale that the chance of moving animals with any sort 
of accuracy towards a scant line of guns scattered over vast 
areas must be remote. True, the number of guns—even ten or 
twelve—is necessarily insufficient, but here local knowledge and 
the skill of Spanish mountaineers (by nature among the best 
1 We here use the term hound or dog indiscriminately as, in the altering circumstances, 
each is equally applicable and correct. 
