280 Unexplored Spain 
towards them, and when at 500 or 600 yards, they turned and 
fled, he put on full speed (sixty miles an hour), and within some ten 
minutes had all three camels completely beaten, tongues hanging 
out, unable to go another yard ! 
This will be the first occasion when wild camels have been run 
down, in an open desert, by a motor-car ! 
February 9, 1903.—This morning, shortly after daybreak, a 
big single bull camel passed my “hide” in the Lucio de las Nuevas 
within easy ball-shot. He was splashing through water about 
two feet deep overgrown with samphire bushes, and “ roared” at 
intervals—a curious sort of ventriloquial “ gurgle,” followed by a 
bellow which I could still distinguish when he had passed quite two 
miles away. With the binoculars I distinguished at vast distance 
five other camels in the direction the single bull was taking. 
Here we insert a note received from the co-author’s brother, 
J. Crawhall Chapman :— 
Oh, yes! I remember that camel-day—it’s never likely to die out of 
my memory, for never did I endure a worse experience nor a harder in 
all my sporting life. It promised to be a great duck-shoot on the famous 
“Laguna Grande”; but for me, at any rate, it began, continued, and 
ended in misery! At 3.30 aM, on opening my eyes, I saw Bertie 
already silently astir—probably seeking quinine or other febrifuge, for we 
were “housed” (save the mark) in Clarita’s choza, a lethal mud- and 
reed-thatched hut many a mile out in the marisma. Nothing whatever 
lies within sight—nothing bar desolation of mud and stagnant waters, 
reeds, samphire, and BIRDS, relieved at intervals by the occasional and 
far-away view of a steamer’s funnel, navigating the Guadalquivir 
Sevillewards. 
Well, we arose, looked at what was intended for breakfast, and 
groped for our steeds. I was to ride an old polo-pony named Bufalo, 
an evil-tempered veteran with a long-spoilt “mouth” that ever resented 
the Spanish curb. Cold and empty we rode for two long hours in the 
dark, always following the leader since otherwise inevitable loss must 
ensue—splosh, splosh, through deep mud and deeper water, never 
stopping, always stumbling, slipping, slithering onwards. I feared it 
would never end; and, in fact, it never did—that is, the bog. For 
when I was finally told Abajo” (which I understood to mean “ get 
down ”), and to squat in a miry place so much like the rest of the swamp 
that it didn’t seem to matter much where it really was—vwell, it was 
then only 6 a.m. and horribly cold and desolate. 
An hour later the sun began to rise. I had not fired a shot—nor 
