Rain had set in at dusk and was now falling fast. Rocío is but a tiny hamlet—say two score of humble cots—yet to-night 6000 people occupied it, the womenfolk sleeping inside their canvas-tilted ox-waggons, the men lying promiscuously on the ground beneath.

Sunday is occupied with religious ceremonies, beginning with High Mass. These we will not attempt to describe—nor could we if we would. The Spanish friend who at our request jotted down some notes on the Fiesta uses the following expressions:—

On the Monday morning, after joint attendance of all the Brotherhoods at Mass, followed by a sermon, the image of the Virgin is formally replaced upon the altar (the feet resting upon the same hollow trunk in which the figure was first found), then the processions are reformed and the long homeward journey to their respective destinations begins.

The Virgin of the Rocío, it appears, specialises in accidents, and many votive pictures hung within the shrine illustrate the nature of her miracles. One man is depicted falling headlong from a fifth-storey window, another from a lofty pine, a third drowning in a torrential flood; a lady is thrown by a mule, another run over by a cart, a lad caught by an infuriated bull; a beatific-looking person stands harmless amidst fiery forked lightning—apparently enjoying it. From all these and other appalling forms of death, the survivors, having been saved by the Virgin’s miraculous interposition, have piously contributed pictorial evidence of the various occurrences.

A somewhat gruesome relic records the incident that a mother having vowed that should her daughter be restored to life, she should walk to Rocío in her grave-clothes—and there the said clothes lie as evidence of that miracle.

The festival above described is celebrated each spring at Pentecost. There is, however, a second yearly pilgrimage into Rocío which originated in this wise.

In 1810 when the French occupied this country, the village of Almonte was held by two troops of cavalry who were engaged in impressing recruits from among the neighbouring peasantry. These naturally objected to serve the enemy, but many were terrorised into obedience. Bolder spirits there were, however, and these, to the number of thirty-six, resolved to strike a blow for freedom. Having assembled in the thick woods outside Almonte, at two o’clock one afternoon they fell upon the unsuspecting French and, ere these could defend themselves, many were killed and others made prisoners. Finally the French commander was shot dead on his own doorstep. “The villagers of Almonte were horrified at what had occurred, for, although they had had no hand in the matter, they felt sure they would have to bear the blame”—so runs a Spanish account.

Already the detachment of French soldiers detailed to carry out the executions had reached Pilas, a village within six leagues of Almonte, when, by mere coincidence, a handful of Spanish troops flung themselves against the French positions at Seville. The French, thinking that their assailants must be the forerunners of a larger army, hurriedly recalled all their outposts, including those commissioned to destroy Almonte!

Thus the wretched Alcalde and his fellow-prisoners were saved; for, their innocence of the “crime” being presently established, the town was let off with a fine. Since then, in accordance with the promise made 100 years ago, the whole of Almonte repairs every 7th of August to the shrine of Nuestra Señora del Rocío.

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.

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:—

All three belong to the natural order Chenopodiaceae (or “Goose-foot” family).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The essence of success lies in ascertaining precisely the exact areas where fowl in quantity are “strongly haunted,” by day and night, together with their regular lines of flight thence and thereto. Obviously such exact knowledge in these vast marismas, devoid of landmarks, demands careful observation, and it must be remembered that these things change with every change of weather and water. Having located such well-frequented resorts or flight-lines, the degree of success will yet depend on the strength of the “haunt.” It may happen (despite all care) that the partiality of the fowl for that special spot or route is merely superficial and evanescent. A dozen shots and they have cleared out, or altered their course. In the reverse case, so strong may be their “haunt” that no amount of disturbance entirely drives them away, and even those that have already been scared by the sound of shooting will yet return again and again.

By night ducks feed in the slobby shallows and oozes, but concealed by the samphire-growth which flourishes in such places. Hence the use of the stancheon-gun is not here available as in the case of bare, plant-free, tidal flats at home and elsewhere.

In the dusk the ducks have arrived at these feeding-grounds in quite small trips or bunches. But as the stars pale towards the dawn, they depart in larger detachments, often numbering hundreds in a pack. Still, such are their enormous numbers that, even so, their shifting armies form an almost continuous stream in the direction whither they take their course. But where is that? That is the problem on the solution of which the fowler’s success depends. We will presume that you have so solved it. In that case, you will have witnessed, between an hour before sun-up and half-an-hour thereafter, as marvellous a procession as the scheme of bird-life can afford.

The gunner lies expectant on the cut rushes which strew the bottom-boards of his cajon—a box-shaped punt some 7 feet long by 2½ broad, which is concealed by being thrust bodily in the midst of the biggest samphire bush available. The craft nevertheless is still afloat and, though flat-bottomed, is yet terribly crank, and any sudden movement to port or starboard threatens to capsize the entire outfit.

To allay the tense suspicion of flighting wildfowl, several of the adjacent bushes for fifty yards around have been heightened by the addition of a cut bough or two—the idea being to induce a theory among passing ducks merely that this particular spot seems peculiarly favourable to samphire-growth—that and nothing more.

In setting up decoys, while many are posed in lifelike attitudes, it is advisable to hang a few (especially white-plumaged species, such as pintail, shoveler, and wigeon-drakes) in almost vertical positions, in order to induce a belief among hungry incomers that these birds are “turning-up” to feast on abundant subaquatic plants beneath.

This intermittent flight is naturally irregular, hunger affecting greater or less numbers on different days; but when it comes off in force affords the cream of wildfowling from before noon till the sun droops in the west. During the last hour before he dips not a wing moves.

Duck-shooting thus resolves itself into two main systems: (1) intercepting the fowl on flight at dawn, and later (2) awaiting their incoming at expected points.

A good shoot may sometimes be engineered by cutting a broad “ride” through the samphire along some flight-line, thereby forming an open channel between two lucios. Ducks which have hitherto flown sky-high in order to cross the danger-zone will now pass quite low along the new waterway, and even prefer it to crossing the cover at hazard, however high.

A weird feeling it is squatting thus at water-level and watching the wavelets dance by or dash over our two-inch free-board. We make but three miles an hour, yet seem to fly past half-seen water-plants. A myriad stars are reflected on the still surface ahead, and it is by a single great Lucero (planet) that our pilot is now steering his course.

Batata presently remarks that we have “arrived.” One takes his word for this. Still that verb does conditionally imply some place or spot of arrival. Here there was none—none, at least, that could be differentiated from any other point or spot in many circumambient leagues. But this was not an hour for philological disquisition, so we mentally decide that we have reached “nowhere.” A few hours later when daylight discovers our environment, that negation appears sufficiently proved. There are visible certain objects on the distant horizon. One—that behind us—proves to be the roof of the choza wherein we had spent the night—“hull-down” to the eastward. The others a lengthened scrutiny with prism-binoculars shows to be a trio of wild camels feeding knee-deep in water. Now where you see such signs you may conclude you are nowhere.

Such is the speed of flighting fowl, such their keenness of vision and instant perception of danger, that but a momentary point of time—say the eighth of a second—is available fully to exploit each chance. Should the gunner rise too quick, the ducks are beyond the most effective range; yet within a space not to be measured by figures or words, they will have detected the fraud, and in a flash have scattered, shooting vertically upwards like a bunch of sky-rockets.

Two features in the life-history of the duck-kind become apparent. The first points to the probability that adults pair for life, and that the mated couples keep together all winter even when forming component units in a crowd. For when an adult female is shot from the midst of a pack, the male will almost invariably accompany her in her fall to the very surface of the water, and will afterwards circle around, piping disconsolately, and even return again and again in search of his lost partner. This applies chiefly to wigeon, but we have frequently observed the same trait in pintail and occasionally in other species. It is only the drakes that display this constancy; a bereaved female continues her flight unheeding.

The feature is most conspicuous when awaiting ducks at their feeding-grounds (comederos), but it also occurs when shooting on their flight-lines (correderos) between distant points.

Other species also form magañonas, but more rarely and never in so conspicuous a manner as the wigeon. The habit certainly springs from what we have elsewhere termed a “pseudo-erotic” instinct (see Bird-life of the Borders, 2nd ed., pp. 208, 234-5), and is probably the first pairing of birds which have just then reached full maturity.

From mid-February to the end of March ducks are constantly departing northwards whenever conditions favour, to wit, a south-west wind in the afternoon, which wind is a feature of the season. Their vacant places are at once filled by an equally constant succession of arrivals from the south (Africa), easily recognised by rusty stains on their lower plumage (denoting ferruginous water) which they lose here within a few days.

Ducks at this season can find food everywhere in the manzanilla, or camomile, which now grows up from the bottom and in places covers the shallows with its white, buttercup-like flowers. Having food everywhere there is less necessity to fly in search of it. It is, however, a curious feature of the season that, after the morning-flight (which is shorter than in mid-winter), ducks practically suspend all movement from, say, 8 A.M. till the daily sea-breeze (Viento de la mar) springs up about 1 P.M. During these five hours not a wing moves, but no sooner has the sea-breeze set in than constant streams of ducks fly in successive detachments from the large open lucios to the shallower feeding-grounds. Thus we have known a late February “bag,” which at 2 P.M. had numbered but a miserable half-score, mount up before dusk to little short of a hundred.

Wigeon arrive from the end of September onwards, the great influx occurring during the first fortnight of November. They commence leaving from mid-February, and by the end of March all (save a few belated stragglers) are gone.

The same remarks apply equally to pintail, shoveler, and teal, though, as before remarked, pintail often appear exceptionally early—in September,—and are again extremely conspicuous (after being scarce all winter) on their return journey—de vuelta paso, as it is called—in February.

Shoveler are so numerous that we have known over eighty bagged by one gun in a day.

Garganey chiefly occur in early autumn and again de vuelta paso in March. They winter in Africa.

Marbled duck breed here, and in September large bags may be made; but in mid-winter (when they have retired to Africa) it is rare to secure more than half-a-dozen or so in a day. They are very bad eating.

Shelduck only occur in dry seasons. They fall easy victims to any sort of “decoy” provided it is white. A local fowler told us he had killed many by substituting (in default of natural decoys) the dry bones and skulls of cattle! Ruddy shelduck do not frequent the marisma, preferring the sweeter waters and shallows adjoining Doñana.

Diving-ducks avoid the marisma except only in the wettest winters.

The fewer shots ducks hear, the better. Never disturb them unless you have every reasonable prospect of exacting a proportionate toll.

TO Spain, as to other lands that remain unaltered and “unimproved,” resort the greylag geese in thousands to pass the winter.

In our marismas of the Guadalquivir they appear during the last days of September, but it is a month later ere their full numbers are made up, and from that date until the end of February their defiant multitudes and the splendid difficulties of their pursuit afford a unique form and degree of wild sport perhaps unknown outside of Spain.

Ride through the marisma in November; it is mostly dry, and autumn rains have merely refreshed the sun-baked alluvia and formed sporadic shallows, or lucios as they are here termed. That lucio straight ahead is a mile across, yet it is literally tessellated with a sonorous crowd. With binoculars one distinguishes similar scenes beyond; the intervening space—and indeed the whole marisma—is crowded with geese as thickly as it is on our immediate front. To right and left rise fresh armies hitherto concealed among the armajo, till the very earth seems in process of upheaval, while the air resounds with a volume of voices—gabblings, croaks, and shrill bi-tones mingled with the rumble of beating wings.

Amid the islands of the Norwegian Skaargaard one can see geese in bulk, but there their numbers are distributed over a thousand miles of coast. Here we have them all—or a large proportion—concentrated in what is by comparison but a narrow space.