THE MARISMAS OF GUADALQUIVÍR
THE DELTA
From Seville to the Atlantic the great river Guadalquivír pursues its
course through seventy miles of alluvial mud-flats entirely of its own
construction. The whole of this viewless waste (in winter largely
submerged) is technically termed the marisma; but its upper regions,
slightly higher-lying, have proved amenable to a limited dominion of
man, and nowadays comprise (besides some rich corn-lands) broad
pasturages devoted to grazing, and which yield _Toros bravos_, that is,
fighting-bulls of breeds celebrated throughout Spain, as providing the
popular champions of the Plaza.
[Illustration: AVOCET]
It is not of these developed regions that we treat, but of the Lower
Delta, which still remains a wilderness, and must for centuries remain
so--a vast area of semi-tidal saline ooze and marsh, extending over some
forty or fifty miles in length, and spreading out laterally to untold
leagues on either side of the river.
This Lower Delta, the marisma proper, while it varies here and there by
a few inches in elevation, is practically a uniform dead-level of
alluvial mud, only broken by _vetas_, or low grass-grown ridges seldom
rising more than a foot or two above the flat, and which vary in extent
from a few yards to hundreds of acres. The precise geological cause of
these _vetas_ we know not; but the calcareous matter of which they are
composed--the debris of myriad disintegrated sea-shells, mostly
bivalves--proves that the ocean at an earlier period held sway, till
gradually driven backwards by the torrents of alluvial matter carried
down by the river, and finally forced behind the vast sand-barrier now
known as the Coto Doñana--the buffer called into being whilst age-long
struggles raged between these two opposing forces. The fact is further
evidenced by the salt crust which yearly forms on the surface of the
lower marisma when the summer sun has evaporated its waters.
In summer the marisma is practically a sun-scorched mud-flat; in winter
a shallow inland sea, with the _vetas_ standing out like islands.
There are, as already stated, slight local variations in elevation.
Naturally the lower-lying areas are the first to retain moisture so soon
as the long torrid summer has passed away and autumn rains begin.
Speedily these become shallow lagoons, termed _lucios_--similar, we
imagine, to the _jheels_ of India--and a welcome haven they afford to
the advance-guard of immigrant wildfowl from the north.
Plant-life in the marismas is regulated by the relative saltness of the
soil. In the deeper _lucios_ no vegetation can subsist; but where the
level rises, though but a few inches, and the ground is less saline, the
hardy samphire (in Spanish, _armajo_) appears, covering with its small
isolated bushes vast stretches of the lower marisma.
The _armajo_, which is formed of a congeries of fleshy twigs, leafless,
and jointed more like the marine _algae_ than a land-plant, belongs to
three species as follows:--
(2) _Arthraenimum fruticosum_}
} in Spanish, _Armajo_.
(3) _Suaeda fruticosa_ }
All three belong to the natural order _Chenopodiaceae_ (or "Goose-foot"
family).
The _armajo_ is the typical plant of the marisma, flourishing even where
there is a considerable percentage of salt in the soil. This aquatic
shrub increases most in dry seasons, a series of wet winters having a
disastrous effect on its growth. The _Sapina_, above mentioned, has a
curious effect when eaten by mares (which is often the case when other
food is scarce) of inducing a form of intoxication from which many die.
Indeed, the deaths from _Ensapinadas_ represent a serious loss to
horse-breeders whose mares are sent to graze in the marismas. Cattle are
not affected.
[Illustration: SAMPHIRE]
Formerly the _Sapina_ possessed a commercial value, being used (owing to
its alkaline qualities) in the manufacture of soap. Nowadays it is
replaced by other chemicals.
Here and there, owing to some imperceptible gradient, the marisma is
traversed by broad channels called _caños_, where, by reason of the
water having a definite flow, the soil has become less saline. The
_armajo_ at such spots becomes scarce or disappears altogether, its
place being taken by quite different plants, namely: Spear-grass
(_Cyperus_), _Candilejo_, _Bayunco_, the English names of which we do
not know.
Efforts have been made from time to time to reclaim and utilise portions
of the marisma by draining the water to the river; but failure has
invariably resulted for the following reasons:
(1) The intense saltness of the soil.
(2) That the marisma lies largely on a lower level than the river banks.
(3) The river being tidal, its water is salt or brackish.
There are vast areas of far better land in Spain which might be
reclaimed with certainty and at infinitely less cost.
The only human inhabitants of the marisma are a few herdsmen whose
reed-built huts are scattered on remote _vetas_. There are also the
professional wildfowlers with their _cabresto_-ponies; but this class is
disappearing as, bit by bit, the system of "preservation" extends over
the wastes. Though the climate is healthy enough except for a period
just preceding the autumn rains, yet our keepers and most of those who
live here permanently are terrible sufferers from malaria. Quinine, they
tell us, costs as much as bread in the family economy.
We quote the following impression from _Wild Spain_, p. 78:--
[Illustration: GUNNING-PUNT IN THE MARISMA.
(NOTE THE HALF-SUBMERGED SAMPHIRE-BUSHES.)]
[Illustration: WILD-GOOSE SHOOTING ON THE SANDHILLS.
(NOTE TIN DECOYS, ALSO SOME NATURAL GEESE.)]
The utter loneliness and desolation of the middle marismas call
forth sensations one does not forget. Hour after hour one pushes
forward across a flooded plain only to bring within view more
and yet more vistas of watery waste and endless horizons of tawny
water. On a low islet at farthest distance stand a herd of
cattle--mere points in space; but these, too, partake of the
general wildness and splash off at a gallop while yet a mile away.
Even the wild-bred horses and ponies of the marisma revert to an
aboriginal anthropophobia, and become as shy and timid as the
_ferae naturae_ themselves. After long days in this monotony,
wearied eyes at length rejoice at a vision of trees--a dark-green
pine-grove casting grateful shade on scorching sands beneath. To
that oasis we direct our course, but it proves a fraud, one of
nature's cruel mockeries--a mirage. Not a tree grows on that spot,
or within leagues of it, nor has done for ages--perhaps since time
began.
Such is the physical character of the marisma, so far as we can describe
it. The general landscape in winter is decidedly dreary and somewhat
deceptive, since the vast areas of brown _armajos_ lend an appearance of
dry land where none exists, since those plants are growing in, say, a
foot or two of water--"a floating forest paints the wave." The monotony
is broken at intervals by the reed-fringed _caños_, or sluggish
channels, and by the _lucios_, big and little--the latter partially
sprinkled with _armajo_-growth, the bigger sheets open water, save that,
as a rule, their surface is carpeted with wildfowl.
Should our attempted description read vague, we may plead that there is
nothing tangible to describe in a wilderness devoid of salient feature.
Nor can we liken it with any other spot, for nowhere on earth have we
met with a region like this--nominally dry all summer and inundated all
winter, yet subject to such infinite variation according to varying
seasons. It is not, however, the marisma itself that during all these
years has absorbed our interest and energies--no, that dreary zone would
offer but little attraction were it not for its feathered inhabitants.
These, the winter wildfowl, challenge the world to afford such display
of winged and web-footed folk, and it is these we now endeavour to
describe.
By mid-September, as a rule, the first signs of the approaching invasion
of north-bred wildfowl become apparent. But if, as often happens, the
long summer drought yet remains unbroken, these earlier arrivals,
finding the marisma untenable, are constrained to take to the river, or
to pass on into Africa.
Should the dry weather extend into October, the only ducks to remain
permanently in any great numbers are the teal, the few big ducks then
shot being either immature or in poor condition, from which it may be
inferred that the main bodies of all species have passed on to more
congenial regions.
About the 25th September the first greylag geese appear. These are not
affected by the scarcity of water in any such degree as ducks, since
they only need to drink twice a day, morning and evening, and make shift
to subsist by digging up the bulb-like roots of the spear-grass with
their powerful bills.
[Illustration: GREYLAG GEESE]
But so soon as autumn rains have fallen, and the whole marisma has
become supplied with "new water," it at once fills up with
wildfowl--ducks and geese--in such variety and prodigious quantities as
we endeavour to describe in the following sketches.
WILDFOWL--'TWIXT CUP AND LIP
Wildfowl beyond all the rest of animated nature lend themselves to
spectacular display. For their enormous aggregations (due as much to
concentration within restricted haunts, as to gregarious instinct, and
to both these causes combined) are always openly visible and conspicuous
inasmuch as those haunts are, in all lands, confined to shallow water
and level marsh devoid of cover or concealment.
Thus, wherever they congregate in their thousands and tens of thousands,
wildfowl are always in view--that is, to those who seek them out in
their solitudes. This last, however, is an important proviso. For the
haunts aforesaid are precisely those areas of the earth's surface which
are the most repugnant to man, and least suited to his existence.
In crowded England there survive but few of those dreary estuaries
where miles of oozy mud-flats separate sea and land, treacherous of
foot-hold, exposed to tide-ways and to every gale that blows. Such only
are the haunts of British wildfowl, though how many men in a million
have ever seen them? To wilder Spain, with its 50 per cent of waste, and
its vast irreclaimed marismas, come the web-footed race in quantities
undreamt at home.
We have before attempted to describe such scenes, though a fear that we
might be discredited oft half paralysed the pen. An American critic of
our former book remarked that it "left the gaping reader with a feeling
that he had not been told half." That lurking fear could not be better
explained. A dread of Munchausenism verily gives pause in writing even
of what one has seen again and again, raising doubts of one's own
eyesight and of the pencilled notes that, year after year, we had
scrupulously written down on the spot.
The Baetican marisma has afforded many of those scenes of wild-life
that, for the reason stated, were before but half-described. With fuller
experience we return to the subject, though daring not entirely to
satisfy our trans-Atlantic friend.
The winter of 1896 provided such an occasion. It was on the 26th of
November that, under summer conditions, we rode out, where in other
years we have sailed, across what should have been water, but was now a
calcined plain.
November was nearly past; autumn had given place to winter, yet not a
drop of rain had fallen. Since the scorching days of July the fountains
of heaven had been stayed, and now the winter wildfowl from the north
had poured in only to find the marisma as hard and arid as the deserts
of Arabia Petraea. Instinct was at fault. True, each to their appointed
seasons, had come, the dark clouds of pintail, teal, and wigeon, the
long skeins of grey geese. Where in other years they had revelled in
shallows rich in aquatic vegetation, now the travellers find instead
nought but torrid plains devoid of all that is attractive to the tastes
of their tribe. For the parched soil, whose life-blood has been drained
by the heats of the summer solstice, whose plant-life is burnt up, has
remained panting all the autumn through for that precious moisture that
still comes not. The carcases of horses and cattle, that have died from
thirst and lack of pasturage, strew the plains; the winter-sown wheat is
dead ere germination is complete.
In such years of drought many of the newly arrived wildfowl, especially
pintails, pass on southwards (into Africa), not to return till February.
The remainder crowd into the few places where the precious
element--water--still exists. Such are the rare pools that are fed from
quicksands (_nuclés_) or permanent land-springs (_ojos_) and a few of
the larger and deeper _lucios_ of the marisma.
Riding through stretches of shrivelled samphire we frequently spring
deer, driven out here, miles from their forest-haunts, by the eager
search for water.
[Illustration: WHITE-EYED POCHARD (_Fuligula nyroca_)]
Approaching the first of the great _lucios_, or permanent pools, a
wondrous sight lay before our eyes. This water might extend for three or
four miles, but was literally concealed by the crowds of flamingoes that
covered its surface. For a moment it was difficult to believe that those
pink and white leagues would really be all composed of living creatures.
Their identity, however, became clear enough when, within 600 yards, we
could distinguish the scattered outposts gradually concentrating upon
the solid ranks beyond. Disbelieve it if you will, but four fairly sane
Englishmen estimated that crowd, when a rifle-shot set them on wing, to
exceed ten thousand units--by how much, we decline to guess.
The nearer shores, with every creek and channel, were darkened by
masses of ducks, huddled together like dusky islets; while further away
several army-corps of geese were striving, with sonorous gabble, to tear
up tuberous roots of spear-grass (_castañuela_) from sun-baked mud.
It was a rifle-shot at these last that finally set the whole host on
wing--an indescribable spectacle, hurrying hordes everywhere outflanked
by the glinting black and pink glamour of flamingoes. Then the
noise--the reverberating roar of wings, blending with a babel of croaks
and gabblings, whistles and querulous pipes, punctuated by shriller
bi-tones, ... we give that up.
[Illustration: "FLAMINGOES OVER"]
A long ride in prospect precluded serious operations to-night, but
towards dusk we lined out our four guns, and in half an hour loaded up
the panniers of the carrier-ponies with nearly three score ducks and
geese.
An hour before the morning's dawn we were in position to await the
earliest geese. Experience had taught the chief flight-lines, and these,
over many miles of marsh, were commanded by lines of sunken tubs. These,
however, the exceptional conditions had rendered temporarily useless.
Our tubs lay miles from water; hence each man had to hide as best he
could, prostrate behind rush-tuft or twelve-inch samphire.
This morning, however, the greylags flew wide and scattered, in strange
contrast with their customary regularity. We noticed the change, but
knew not the cause. The geese did. The barometer during the night
(unnoticed by us at 4 A.M.) had gone down half an inch, and already, as
we assembled for breakfast at ten o'clock, rain was beginning to
fall--the first rain since the spring! The wind, which for weeks had
remained "nailed to the North--_norte clavado_," in Spanish phrase--flew
to all airts, and a change was at hand. By eleven there burst what the
Spanish well name a _tormenta_; lightning flashed from a darkened sky,
while thunder rolled overhead, and rain drove horizontal on a living
hurricane. An hour later the heavens cleared, and the sun was shining as
before. That short and sudden storm, however, had marked an epoch. The
whole conditions of bird-life in the marisma had been revolutionised
within a couple of hours.
[Illustration: POCHARD (_Fuligula ferina_)]
In other years, under such conditions as this morning had promised, we
have records of sixty and eighty greylags brought to bag, and it was
with such anticipation that we had set out to-day. The result totalled
but a quarter of such numbers.
Ducks came next in our programme, and the writer, being the last gun by
lot, had several miles to ride to his remote post at El Hondón. The
scenes in bird-life through which we rode amazed even accustomed eyes.
At intervals as we advanced across mud-flats clad in low growth of rush
and samphire, rose for a mile across our front such crowds of wigeon and
teal that the landscape ahead appeared a quivering horizon of wings that
shimmered like a heat-haze.
Crouching behind a low breastwork, before me lay a five-acre pool which
no amount of firing ever kept quite clear of swimming forms, so fast did
thirsty duck, teal, and geese keep dropping in, since behind for twenty
leagues stretched waterless plain.
Merely to make a bag under such conditions means taking every chance,
firing away till barrels grow too hot to hold. Here, however, that
nature-love that overrides even a fowler's keenness stepped in. With
half the wildfowl of Europe flashing, wheeling, and alighting within
view--many, one fondly imagined, likely to be of supreme interest--the
writer cannot personally go on taking single mallards, teal, or wigeon,
one after another in superb but almost monotonous rapidity. For the
moment, in fact, the naturalist supplants the gunner. True, this may be
sacrificing the mutton to the shadow, and this afternoon no special
prize rewarded self-denial in letting pass many a tempting chance.
[Illustration]
For gratifying indeed to fowler's pride it is to pull down in falling
heap the smart pintails and brilliant shovelers, to bring off a
right-and-left at geese, though, it may be, one had first to let a cloud
of wigeon pass the silent muzzle. Such is individual taste, nor will the
memory of that afternoon ever fade, although my score, when at 3.30 P.M.
I was recalled, only totalled up to seventy-four ducks and four greylag
geese.
The recall was imperative, and I obeyed, though not without hesitation
and doubt. Could earth provide a better place? "Yes," replies Vasquez,
"in one hour the geese will be streaming in clouds up the Algaidilla and
Caño Juncero. Come! there's no time to lose." Within an hour we had
reached the spot. The water was four inches deep, with low cover of
rushes. The revolving stool stood too high, so I knelt in the shallow,
and within three minutes the first squad of geese came in quite
straight. One I took kneeling, but had to jump for the second. Just as
No. 2 collapsed, No. 1 caught me full amidships, knocking me sidelong
and, rebounding, upset the stool and the bag of cartridges thereon! A
nice mess, occurring at the very outset of one of those ambrosial
half-hours seldom realised outside of dreams. Quickly I dried the
cartridges as well as circumstances would admit, for pack after pack of
geese hurled themselves gaggling and honking right in my face, and
during the few brief minutes of the southern twilight, I reckoned I had
twenty-three down--seven right-and-lefts--though in the darkness only
seventeen could be gathered, the winged all necessarily escaping.
[Illustration: WILD GEESE ALIGHTING AT FIFTEEN YARDS
(Take the upper pair right-and-left, leaving the nearer geese for second
gun.)]
Within thirty-six hours we had secured sixty-two geese and over two
hundred ducks. For four guns, under favouring conditions, this would
have been no very special result; but to-day the fowl were all alert and
restless at the prospect of a coming change. The keynote had already
been sounded that first day, when the _tormenta_ burst, and when the
long drought ended on the very morning we had selected to commence our
operations. Had the weather held for a single week ... but why dwell on
it? The point must be clear enough. No more geese were got that year.
Let us conclude with a few ornithological observations made during
succeeding days. On November 30, after three days of stormy weather,
with tremendous bursts of rainfall, there commenced one of the most
remarkable bird-migrations we have witnessed. From early morn till night
(and all the following day) cloud upon cloud of ducks kept streaming
overhead from the westward. Frequently a score of packs would be in view
at once--never were the heavens clear; and all coming from precisely the
same direction and travelling in parallel lines to the east. Their
course seemed to indicate that these migrants (avoiding the overland
route across Spain which would involve passing over her great
cordilleras, say 10,000 feet) had travelled south by the coast-line as
far as the latitude of Cape St. Vincent. Thence they "hauled their wind"
and bore up on an easterly course which brought them direct into the
great marismas of the Guadalquivir.[17]
LAS NUEVAS
We had acquired this waste of marsh and mud-flat and were keen to "go
and possess it." Initial difficulties arose to confront us. Though the
whole region now belonged to us (_i.e._ the rights of chase, and it
boasts but little other value) yet our possession was to be met by some
opposition.
It was all very natural, delightfully human, and despite the annoyance,
captivated our sympathy. Local fowlers, accustomed from immemorial times
to earn a scant living by shooting for market the wildfowl of the
wilderness, resented this acquisition of exclusive rights. Our scattered
guards were overawed, our reed-built huts were burned, and threats
reached us--not to mention a casual bullet or two ricochetting in wild
bounds across the watery waste. That one quality, however, above
mentioned--sympathy--is the passport to Spanish hearts, and thereby,
together with courtesy and fair-dealing, the erstwhile insurgents in
brief time became the best of friends.
For the moment, however, we found ourselves hutless, and constrained to
encamp two leagues away on the distant _terra firma_, this involving an
extra couple of hours' work in the small dark hours.
As before 4 A.M. we rode, beneath a pouring rain, "path-finding," in
blind darkness across slimy ooze and shallow--not to mention deeper
channels that reached to the girths,--a nightjar circled round our
cavalcade--true, a very small event, but recorded because it is quite
against the rules for a nightjar to be here in December. Only three guns
braved this adventure, and by 5.45 we occupied each his allotted post.
These could not be called comfortable, since the positions in which we
had to spend the next six or eight hours were quite six inches deep in
water, and the only covert a circle of samphire-bush barely a foot above
water-level--that being the utmost height allowed by the keen sight of
flighting fowl. Each man had an armful of cut brushwood to kneel on,
besides another bundle on which cartridge-bags might be supported clear
of the water.[18]
Rain descended in sheets. Before it was fully light--indeed the average
human being of diurnal habit would probably swear it was still quite
dark--the swish of wings overhead foretold the coming day. Then with a
roar the whole marisma bursts into life as though by clock-work.
Thrice-a-minute, and oftener, sped bunches of duck right in one's face,
at times a hurricane of wings. Not seeing them till quite close in, but
one barrel can be emptied each time, yet soon a score of beautiful
pintail and wigeon formed the basis of a pile.
Behind, in the gloom to westward, a sense of movement has developed. At
first it might have been but the drift of night-clouds, but as light
broadens, form and colour evolve and the phenomenon shapes itself into
vast bodies of flamingoes, sprawling, as it were, on the face of heaven
in writhing, scintillating confusion. After infinite evolutions, the
amorphous mass resolves itself into order; files and marshalled
phalanxes serry the sky--those weird wildfowl, each with some six foot
of rigid extension, advancing direct upon our posts. Their armies have
spent the night on the broad _lucios_ of El Desierto, and now head away
towards feeding-grounds outside. Arrayed line beyond line in echelon,
ten thousand pinions beat, in unison--beat in short, sharp strokes from
the elbow. The fantasy of form amazes; the flash of contrasted colour as
the first sun-rays strike on black, white, and vermilion. One may have
witnessed this spectacle a score of times, yet never does it pall or
leave one without a sense that here nature has treated us to one of her
wildest creations. No rude sketch of ours--possibly not the best that
art can produce--will ever convey the effect of these quaint forms in
vast moving agglomeration. Long after they have vanished in space, one
remains entranced with the glamour of the scene.
[Illustration: WILDFOWL IN THE MARISMA]
The flamingoes have passed away, but the lightening skies are still
streaked and serried. Most numerous are the wigeon, millions of them in
hurrying phalanxes, white specks flanged with dark wings, too well known
to describe; pintails (this wet winter hardly less numerous), readily
distinguishable by their longer build and stately grace of flight; the
dark heads and snowy necks of the drakes conspicuous afar. The
arrow-like course of the shoveler, along with his vibrant wing-beats and
incessant call, "zook, zook, tsook, tsook," identify that species; while
gadwall, more sombre in tone than the mallards, "talk" in distinctive
style; and mob-like masses of teal and marbled ducks sweep along the
open channels. Then there are the diving-ducks with harsh corvine
croaks, pochards, ferruginous, and tufts, just as swift as the rest,
though of apparently more laboured flight; occasionally a string of
shelducks, conspicuous by size and contrasted colouring, and among them
all, swing along with leisurely wing-beats but equal speed, wedge-like
skeins of great grey-geese. A single morning's bag may include seven or
eight different species, sometimes a dozen.
Now the rim of the sun shows over the distant sierra, and one begins to
see one's environment and to realise what Las Nuevas is like. Of Mother
Earth as one normally conceives it not a particle is in sight, beyond
such low reeds and miles of samphire-tops as break the watery surface,
and a vista of this extends to the horizon.
[Illustration]
Behind our positions stretched a _lucio_ of open water. Upon this, a
mile away, stood an army of flamingoes, whose croaks and gabblings
filled the still air. During a quiescent interval I examined these with
binoculars. Thereupon I discovered that the whole _lucio_ around them
and stretching away, say a league in length, was carpeted with legions
of duck, which had not been noticed with the naked eye. The discovery
explained also a resonant reverberation that, at recurring intervals, I
had noticed all the morning, and which I had attributed to the gallant
Cervera's squadron at quick-firing gun-practice away in Cádiz Bay. Now I
saw the cause; it was due to the duck-hawks and birds-of-prey! Twice
within ten minutes a swooping marsh-harrier aroused that host on
wing--or, say, half-a-mile of them--to fly in terror; but only to settle
a few hundred yards farther away. The harrier's hope was clearly to
find a wounded bird among the crowd--the massed multitude none dared to
tackle.
It is nine o'clock, the pile of dead has mounted up, but the "flight" is
slackening. Already I see our mounted keepers (who have hitherto stood
grouped on an islet two miles away) separate and ride forth to set the
ducks once more in motion. At this precise moment one remembers two
things--both that wretched breakfast at 3 A.M., and the luxuries that
lie at hand, almost awash among the reeds. Ducks pass by unscathed for a
full half-hour, while such quiet reigns in "No. 1" that tawny
water-shrews climb confidingly up the reeds of my screen.
Meanwhile the efforts of our drivers were becoming apparent in a renewal
of flighting ducks; but we would here emphasise the fact that these
second and artificially-produced flights are never so effective from a
fowler's point of view as the earlier, natural movements of the game.
For the ducks thus disturbed come, as the Spanish keepers put it,
_obligados_ and not of their own free-will. Hence they all pass
high--many far above gunshot--and not even the attraction that our fleet
of "decoys" (for we have now stuck up the whole of the morning's spoils
to deceive their fellows) will induce more than a limited proportion,
and those only the smaller bands, to descend from their aërial altitude.
The "movement" of these masses nevertheless affords another of those
spectacular displays that we must at least try to describe. For though
none of their sky-high armies will pass within gunshot--or ten
gunshots--yet one cannot but be struck with amazement when the whole
vault of heaven above presents a quivering vision of wings--shaded,
seamed, streaked, and spotted from zenith to horizon. Then the
multiplied pulsation of wings is distinctly perceptible--a singular
sensation. One remembers it when, perhaps an hour later, you become
conscious of its recurrence. But now the heavens are clear! Not a single
flight crosses the sky--not one, that is, within sight. But up above,
beyond the limits of human vision, there pass unseen hosts, and _theirs_
is that pulsation you feel.
The passage of these sky-scrapers is actuated by no puny manoeuvre of
ours. They are travellers on through-routes. Perhaps the last land (or
water) they touched was Dutch or Danish; and they will next alight
(within an hour) in Africa. Already at their altitude they can see,
spread out, as it were, at their feet, the marshes and meres of Morocco.
Although nominally describing that first day in Las Nuevas (and, so far
as facts go, adhering rigidly thereto), yet we are endeavouring to
concentrate in fewest words the actual lessons of many subsequent years
of practical experience. Thus the pick-up on that day (though it may
have numbered a couple of hundred ducks) we refrain from recording in
this attempt to convey the concrete while avoiding detail.
Back again, splash, splosh, through mud and mire, two hours' ride to our
camp-fire--a picturesque scene with our marsh-bred friends gathered
round, their tawny faces lurid in the firelight as flames shoot upwards
and pine-cones crack like pistol-shots; and over the embers hang a score
of teal each impaled on a supple bough. Away beyond there loom like
spectres our horses tethered when silvery moonlight glances through
scattered pines. Things would have been pleasant indeed had the rain but
stopped occasionally. True we had our tents; but our men slept in the
open, each rolled in his cloak, beneath some sheltering bush.