672 MISS M. L. BUXTON ON A TRIP TO SPAIN. 
Camels, and as a pair of the latter had by great good 
luck been seen within reach of the “Palacio;'’ the 
next day, Tuesday, we decided to try and find them. 
I do not suppose many people have heard of wild Camels 
in Europe, in fact, there are few in Spain itself who 
know about them. About the beginning of last century 
a Spaniard imported some — I think about 200 — hoping to be 
able to work them, but owing to the horses’ dislike of them 
and various other reasons he had to give them up, and turned 
them out somewhere near Cadiz. They wandered away to 
this lonely tract of land, where they became entirely wild. 
Occasionally one gets shot by a shepherd or charcoal burner, 
but they are rarely seen at all. The}' live right away in the 
wildest parts of the Marismas, the extraordinary thing being 
that half the year they spend a great deal of their time wander- 
ing about up to their knees in water. They breed every year, 
but there are only about eighty of them left now. 
As I have said the Marismas are still under water at this 
time of year, so the keepers took us in punts, one of them 
on his Horse pulling us. We went thus for some two hours, 
but could nowhere see any signs of the Camels, only great herds 
of Horses and Bulls standing about in the water, and living 
on a very scanty and coarse kind of rush ; though how they 
live at all is a complete mystery. We had a wonderful sight of 
birds as we moved slowly along. There were Black-winged 
Stilts everywhere, looking very odd with their long legs when 
they flew, and nearly as numerous were the Pratincoles 
looking like enormous Swallows. There were, too, a good 
many Redshanks and Green Plovers. On one of the small, 
muddy islands of which there are a good many in parts, we 
found Avocets just beginning to lay, and almost the prettiest 
of all were the Whiskered and Black Terns. They, with the 
Gull-billed Terns were in large numbers everywhere. Pre- 
sently the keeper who was riding stopped and pointed, and 
away in the distance was a long line of great pink-looking 
birds. They were Flamingos. They settled after a bit, and 
we managed to get fairly close to them. Most of them were 
feeding with their heads right under water, only they walked 
