166 Unexplored Spain 
cautiously shifted my post to the banks of a mountain-burnlet 
that, embowered in oleanders,’ gurgled hard by. In those 
glancing streams, while I sat motionless, a pair of water-shrews 
were also busied with their lunch—dipping and diving, turning 
over pebbles, and searching each nook and cranny of the crystal 
pool. Lovely little creatures they were—velvety black with 
GRIFFON VULTURE 
snow-white undersides, which showed conspicuously on either 
flank; but the curious feature was the silver sheen caused by 
infinite air-bubbles that still adhered to the fur while they swam 
beneath the surface. They recalled a similar scene in an elk- 
forest of distant Norway; but never in Spanish sierras have 
' The oleander is poisonous to horses and other domestic animals, and is instinctively 
avoided by both game and cattle. During the Peninsular War it is recorded that several 
British soldiers came by their deaths through this cause. A foraging party cut aud peeled 
some oleander branches to use as skewers in roasting meat over the camp-fires. Of twelve 
men who ate the meat, seven died. 
