304 Unexplored Spain 
shooting being then limited, I reflected that if such were Spanish 
marksmanship, I might be left behind! On assembling for lunch, 
however, some vultures were wheeling high overhead, and it 
occurred to me to try my luck. By precisely a similar fluke, one 
huge griffon collapsed to the shot, and swirling round and round 
like a parachute, occupied (it seemed) five minutes in reaching 
the ground—1000 feet below us. 
That afternoon the antics of two strange beasties attracted 
my attention and again my ball went straight. The victim was 
a mongoose, and with some pride I had the specimen carefully 
stowed in the mule-panniers—never to see it more! The mongoose, 
we now know, owing to its habit of eating snakes, has acquired 
a personal aroma surpassing in pungency that of any other beast 
of the field, and our men, so soon as my back was turned, had 
discreetly thrown out the malodorous trophy. 
A boar-shooting trip to the Sierra de Jerez formed the first 
sporting venture in which the authors were jointly engaged ; for 
which reason (though the memory dates back to March 1872) 
we may be forgiven for extracting a brief summary from Weld 
Spain :— 
Our quarters were a little white rancho perched amid deep bush and 
oak-woods on the slope of the Sierra del Valle. A mile farther up the 
valley was closed by the dark transverse mass of the Sierra de las Cabras, 
the two ranges being separated by an abrupt chasm called the Boca de la 
Foz, which was to be the scene of this day’s operations. 
A pitiable episode occurred. While preparing to mount, there 
resounded from behind a peal of strange inhuman laughter, followed by 
incoherent words ; and through an iron-barred window we discerned the 
emaciated figure of a man, wild and unkempt, whose eagle-like claws 
grasped the barriers of his cell—a poor lunatic. No connected replies 
could we get, nothing beyond vacuous laughter and gibbering chatter. 
Now he was at the theatre and quoted magic jargon; anon supplicating 
the mercy of a judge; then singing a stanza of some old song, to break 
off abruptly into fierce denunciation of one of us as the cause of his 
troubles. Poor wretch! he had once been a successful advocate; but 
signs of madness having developed, which increased with years, the once 
popular lawyer was reduced to the durance of this iron-girt cell, his only 
share and view of God’s earth just so much of sombre everlasting sierra 
as the narrow opening allowed. We were warned that any effort to 
ameliorate his lot was hopeless, his case being desperate. What hidden 
wrongs may exist in a land where no judicial intervention is obligatory 
