On the Southern Plains.

Though left to the last, the system of "rastreando," as it is called in Spanish—stalking or "still-hunting," as we have rendered it in English (though neither expression is perhaps a precise equivalent), affords some of the prettiest sport to be obtained with the rifle in the Peninsula. As an example of this sport, we have taken our latest and not least successful deer-stalking expedition, which took place in March, 1892—exactly twenty years after the campaign recorded in the first chapter (p. 23) of our book.

There only remained a few days before the season for deer-shooting would close. For more than a week we had been ready awaiting a change in the weather; but heavy rains day by day delayed a start. Never had there been known so wet a winter. From the Giralda tower at Seville, the whole country appeared a sea, and the great river, in the early days of March, was causing serious anxieties to the Sevillanos, having reached a higher level than local records had hitherto known. Already its angry waters dashed in foam over the key-stones of Triana bridge; the transpontine suburb was submerged to the second floors; from its flat roofs starving men and women cried for bread as boats passed by, navigating, Venetian-fashion, the flooded streets. The city itself was an island—only preserved from inundation by incessant labour at the embankments, over whose topmost stones the menacing waves already lapped, when a lull in the storm saved Seville. A breach in that embankment or a further rise, and the stately and historic city had been swept away—as Consuegra and many a small town or village was swept away in Southern Spain daring the terrible floods of 'ninety-two.

Such climatic conditions would not be wholly unfavourable for deer-stalking—reducing the area over which the game is scattered—provided there should now be some cessation of the down-pour. A lull had at length occurred, and the writer set out from Seville to spend the few remaining days of the season in a remote region of those brush-clad prairies which cover so vast an area in Southern Spain. My only companions were two Spanish cazadores, brothers, men of keen eye and of tried skill in woodcraft. The object was to endeavour by rastreando, or still-hunting, to secure a few of the old and wary stags which roamed over these barren down-lands; but which were far too cunning to lose their lives in the customary Spanish batidas, or drives. Was it possible, single-handed, and on such comparatively open ground, to out-manoeuvre these old forest-monarchs, which, on a former visit, we had seen make good their escape from six or eight rifles? This question we decided to solve, and to devote the remaining days to "still-hunting," abandoning every other form of attack.

The rains had left much of these rolling downs too wet for shelter, many of the thickets and patches of "scroggy" wood being breast-deep in water. The picaros tunantes, i.e., cunning old rogues, as Manuel termed our friends the big stags, were therefore reduced for dry-lying to the higher ridges and plateaux of the plains; and these, it chanced, lay at the greatest distance—a long two-days' ride.

The sun was low ere our horses' hoofs resounded on dry land, instead of the constant splash, splosh through flooded hollows or standing pools of rain-water. Here, too, the swelling prairie afforded rather more covert. We had now reached favourable ground, and from each rising point we examined the surrounding country with minute scrutiny, scanning each nook and corner with the binoculars. After a while we made out the head of a stag, apparently feeding beyond a belt of abolÁgas and jungle-grass. A direct stalk—which otherwise seemed fairly feasible—would, under existing conditions, have necessitated swimming a considerable part of the distance, and the lateness of the hour forbade our making a long detour, which also seemed to offer a chance of success. We therefore adopted a third course, and after quickly covering some two miles, mostly through prickly spear-grass or water, reached a ridge which my companion reckoned would command the course of the deer as he led forward. On peering through the bushes on the crest, the stag was nowhere to be seen—we had overshot the point, and he was now far to the right. Before us stretched a long tongue of marshy water, choked with grasses, and aquatic herbage floating on its surface. With a sardonic grin, M. assured me that that grass would prove the death of our stag. "He will feed along that pool," he whispered, "nibbling the water-plants and sprouting grass; but first the daylight must decline." Ten minutes later, the antlers showed, stealing from some distant covert; then the beast stepped into the open, advancing towards the water. But suspicion torments him—between each petulant snatch at the herbage, he stops and listens, raises his antlered head to gaze back towards the point whence we had first viewed him: he little thinks the enemy he fears behind is now close in his front. Presently suspicion seems allayed: he advances with stealthy strides along the grassy edge, and already approaches the limits of very long range. The express was ready cocked when the stag recommenced sniffing and gazing, now he turns and walks away: the wind is shifty, and to get it full in his nostrils he bears from us. Clearly he will not now pass our point near enough for a shot, so back to lower ground we "slither," and run forward at best speed to cut him out at another point. Still he is out of shot—800 yards off—and another race to the front is necessary, a lung-trying spin of a quarter-mile. Now, we must perforce rest, panting, for a few moments, ere we again crawl up the ascent and "speer" over the ridge. The stag is nowhere to be seen—yes, there he is! he has both heard and seen us now, and is bounding at top-speed over our very ridge, not seventy yards in advance. Ere the rifle can be levelled and a ball dispatched, the stag has dipped the crest: but the second barrel, after a flying run to the ridge, affords more deliberate aim at about 120 yards. "He has it," quietly remarks my companion, and as the galloping stag displays his extended flank, the blood-patch on his side is clearly marked, but too far back. Poor beast! though fatally struck, there is no chance to recover him to-night, for already the sun dips behind the distant pinales—it is too late to think of following him, and sadly we return to our horses. Ten miles to ride, and the evening spent discussing "muckle harts" and their haunts on the neighbouring wilds.

All night wind and rain: at daybreak the clouds indicated better things, but after a few fitful gleams of sunlight, the deluge set in once more. This and the next day were very bad:—wasted. It was only possible to pass the time shooting a few rabbits for the use of the rancho—the partridges were all paired long ago; but a lucky shot at a nervous band of sand-grouse secured four, and in some rush-clad backwaters we picked up a few snipe and two or three couples of wild-duck.

Next morning, at dawn, we set out to look for deer, the pannier-ponies following at a distance, with instructions never to come up unless shots had been fired. Facing the gale, we struck out across far-extending heaths, where the scrub, as a rule, is of convenient height for shooting over, but where, in the hollows or dells, are found deep thickets, or manchas. These jungle-patches cover from one or two up to thirty acres in extent: here the growth of thorny shrub and pampas-grass is much higher, thicker, and more densely entwined, affording secure "lying" for deer and other animals.

No rain had fallen since the early hours of the morning: hence the light, sodden soil exhibited the traces of every beast which had traversed it to perfection. It was some time before we found tracks large enough to betoken one of our friends, the tunantes. The brothers had followed two or three rastros for short distances, but were not satisfied with their importance. Small stags, hinds, lynx, fox and boar had wandered hither and thither, and were now doubtless sleeping away the hours of daylight in some of the neighbouring thickets. Hours passed, but no rastro gordo (heavy track) was discovered, though every sign and impress on the light sandy soil was read as a book by the brothers, who quartered the ground to right and left like a brace of first-rate setters. M. was the first to find: suddenly he stopped and beckoned:—yes, those prints are undoubtedly of far larger hoofs than any we have yet seen: nor are they the spoor of one tunante, but of two. Here, says M., look where the two big beasts have stopped together to nibble the shoots of this escobon (genista)—there they have stripped a romero (rosemary) of its mauve-coloured blossoms—and here, along this hollow, they have taken their way at daybreak, direct towards some thicket-sanctuary. Now, we will not leave them, adds the wild man, till you have had a carambola Á boca de jarro! "a right-and-left at half-range." For three or four miles, we follow the line, the men hardly deigning to look on the ground, but making, as by instinct, for points at which we invariably picked up the trail. At first it was all plain sailing; but presently we came to places where to our eyes no trace of spoor existed—to swamps where the uninitiated would detect no sign in bruised water-flower or bent sedge-shoot; we passed beneath pine-coppices where the thick-lying needles told him no tale of nimble feet that had pressed them hours before. At such spots a check occasionally occurred, when the brothers, muttering maledictions on old stags in general, and still more scandalous reflections on the maternal ancestry of these two in particular, opened out till one or the other caught the thread. The discovery was signalled by holding up a hand, and on we file, all three pressing quickly forward along the fatal trail. A pretty sight to watch these men cast like sleuth-hounds, when the trace was apparently lost—though lost it never was.

Now, after four miles or more, the trail gave certain indications that were interpreted to mean a desire on the part of the deer to seek shelter for the day—not a change in their course but its import was calculated by the hunters. As the spoor approached each small jungle, the writer went forward in advance, leaving the men to follow the rastro. Several thickets had been tried in this way, but each time the beasts had passed through and gone on. Now there stretched away before us a long narrow belt of covert, and approaching this the indications of the spoor showed that the two deer, as the men put it, van de recojida, i.e., had entered the jungle wearily, and would now be couched within it. The covert was too long to risk putting the gun at the end, as the game might break on either side; so we decided to walk through it in line. Unluckily the growth was dense and high—in most places we could not see two yards in front, a tantalizing situation when one knew that each step might now bring one to the promised right-and-left! We had barely progressed 200 yards when the startled deer arose.[78] I heard the rush and the crash of the undergrowth, but could see nothing; my ear told me they had gone to the right, and pushing through the jungle in that direction, a slight clearing in the long grass showed a glimpse of the two heads appearing now and again above the scrub as the deer bounded away. I fired both barrels of the express, directing one at each animal. After the shots nothing could be seen; but one hart was down, a beast of twelve points. The other barrel appeared to have been a miss—the larger tunante of the two had escaped, Caramba! Not for long did such doubts torment us, for, on cutting off the spoor outside the covert, the tell-tale blood was seen on the cistus-twigs and on the sandy soil. We followed the wounded beast for four hours through possible and even impossible places. His pace never slackened—he seemed to be bound for Portugal. I suggested slipping a couple of dogs; but the idea was overruled. "The tunante is struck in the haunch," said they, "and before dogs, would run for hours: he would reach the big pinales, six leagues away. Our chance consists in his keeping the more open ground and smaller thickets. Before sundown we will overtake him; but then, you must put your bullet in a better place." These bloodhounds never doubted—on we went, patiently following the now easier trail, and before sundown we did overtake him. Then, as he rushed from a clump of big bulrushes in a shallow lagoon, where the fevered beast had lain down in the water, the express bullet lodged in el mismissimo corazon=in his very heart: and the panniers were balanced with two of the heaviest old stags that ever roamed on Andalucian plain.

The next day, a downpour of rain just at the critical moment—when game and other wild beasts are returning to their lairs—obliterated every rastro, and a fresh stratagem had to be employed. This was to find and rouse the stag, and then to follow the trail—necessarily a longer and more delicate operation than that last described, since the suspicions of the animal are thoroughly aroused; he is alarmed, and traverses great distances ere again he goes to cover. He is, moreover, apt to go away very wild on the second approach. The half-inundated condition of the country, however, was in our favour; and late in the afternoon, having traced a stag for many weary leagues, I had the satisfaction of pulling down a beast of "royal" rank by a very long shot.

The next day—and the last of the season—might have been one of those contributory to the Noachian deluge. Again, despite wind and weather, a venado of eleven points rewarded our efforts. This stag gave us much trouble: put up early in the morning, it was night ere he was secured. My first shot, a long one, struck him heavily, but he ran for hours before the dogs. We took to our horses in pursuit, but thrice he foiled us—both scent and spoor being obliterated by the rain. Twice, by wide "casts" of a mile or more in circuit, we recovered the lost thread, but the third time not a trace could we discover, and had almost given him up for lost, when he jumped up, a long way ahead, before the dogs. At top-speed we ran him to the deep waters of Martinazo, and when at last we overhauled him, he was making his last gallant fight with the two hounds, which held him at bay, breast-deep, in the moonlight.

During the long homeward ride on the morrow, we came on the big round "pugs" of a lynx, and after following them a couple of miles to his lair, he, too—a big and handsome male—was added to the bag by a single shot from the express. By nightfall we again reached the outposts of civilization, well content with the results of the campaign—four good stags and a lynx—and the wind-up of the sporting season of 1891-92.