CHAPTER XXXII 
VALENCIA 
TWO NOTABLE WILDFOWL RESORTS 
(1) Tue ALBUFERA 
For centuries this marine lagoon—the largest sheet of water in 
Spain—has, along with the forests and wastes that formerly 
adjoined it, been a stronghold of wild animal-life. As early as 
the thirteenth century King James I., after wresting the Kingdom 
of Valencia from the Moors, and dividing its castles and estates 
among his nobles and generals, selected, with shrewd appreciation, 
the Albufera for his personal share of the spoils of war. For 
not only did the great lake with its wild appanages form a truly 
regal hunting-domain, but the broad lands intervening between 
the Grao of Valencia, Cullera, and the lake-shores possessed a 
fabled fertility. 
For six centuries the lands and waters of Albufera belonged 
to the Spanish Crown. Though by edict in a.p. 1250 James I. 
granted free public rights of fishing (reserving, however, one- 
fifth of the catch for royal use), yet both he and succeeding 
monarchs ever continued to extend and improve the amenities of 
the Crown Patrimony. 
In State-papers of James I.’s time, where reference is made to 
the game, there are expressly specified: “ Deer, wild-boar, ibex, 
francolins, partridges, hares, rabbits, otters, and wildfowl, besides 
the wealth of fish” in the lake itself. Again, more than four 
centuries later, an edict of October 31, 1671, expressly specified 
among resident game, “deer, boar, ibex, and francolin.” Now 
the francolin, although to-day extinct in Spain, is known to 
have existed on the Mediterranean till quite within modern 
times, and the other animals named might well have abounded 
in the wild forests of those days. But the specific mention of 
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