Unexplored Spain Part 30

The immense aggregations of flamingoes which, in wet seasons, throng the middle marismas can scarce be described. Our bird-islets lay so remote from the low-lying sh.o.r.es that no land whatever was in sight; but the desolate horizon that surrounded them was adorned by an almost unbroken line of pink and white that separated sea and sky over the greater part of the circle. On examining the different herds narrowly through binoculars, an obvious dissimilarity was discovered in the appearance of certain groups. One or two in particular seemed so much denser than the others; the narrow white line looked three times as thick, and in the centre gave the idea that the birds were literally piled upon each other. Felipe suggested that these flamingoes must be at their _pajerera_, or breeding-place, and after a long wet ride we found that this was the case. The water was very deep, the bottom clinging mud; at intervals the laboured plunging of the mule was exchanged for an easier, gliding motion--he was swimming. The change was a welcome relief to man and beast; but the labours undergone during these aquatic rides eventuated in the loss of one fine mule, a powerful beast worth 60.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAMINGOES AND THEIR NESTS]

On approach, the cause of the peculiar appearance of the flamingo city from a distance became clearly discernible. Hundreds of birds were sitting down on a low mud-island, hundreds more were standing erect thereon, while others stood in the water alongside. Thus the different elevations of their bodies formed what had appeared a triple or quadruple line.

On reaching the spot, we found a perfect ma.s.s of nests. The low, flat mud-plateau was crowded with them as thickly as its s.p.a.ce permitted. The nests had little or no height above the dead-level mud--some were raised an inch or two, a few might reach four or five inches in height, but the majority were merely circular bulwarks of mud barely raised above the general level, and bearing the impression of the bird's legs distinctly marked upon the periphery. The general aspect of the plateau might be likened to a large table covered with plates. In the centre was a deep hole full of muddy water, which, from the gouged appearance of its sides, had probably supplied the birds with building material.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Scattered round the main colony were many single nests, rising out of the water and evidently built up from the bottom. Here and there two or three of these were joined together--"semi-detached," so to speak. These isolated nests stood some eight inches above water-level, and as the depth exceeded a foot, their total height would be two feet or thereabouts, and their width across the hollowed top, some fifteen inches. None of the nests as yet contained eggs, and though we returned to the _pajerera_ on the latest day we were in its neighbourhood (May 11), they still remained empty. On both occasions many hundreds of flamingoes were sitting on the nests, and on the 11th we enjoyed excellent views at close quarters. Linked arm-in-arm with Felipe, and crouching low on the water to look as little human as possible, we had approached within seventy yards before the sentries first showed signs of alarm; and at that distance, with binoculars, observed the sitting flamingoes as distinctly as one need wish. The long red legs doubled under their bodies, the knees projecting slightly beyond the tail, and the graceful necks neatly curled away among their back feathers like a sitting swan, some heads resting on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s--all these points were unmistakable. Indeed, as regards the disposition of the legs in an incubating flamingo, no other att.i.tude was possible since, in the great majority of cases, the nests were barely raised above the level of the mud-plateau. To sit _astride_ on a _flat_ surface is out of the question.

Inexplicable it seems that the flamingo, a bird that spends its life half knee-deep in water, should so long delay the period of incubation.

For long ere eggs could be hatched, and young reared, the full summer heats of June and July would already have set in, water would have utterly disappeared, and the flamingoes be left stranded in a scorching desert of sun-baked mud.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Being unable ourselves to return to the marisma, we sent Felipe back on May 26, when he obtained eggs--long, white, and chalky, some specimens extremely rugged. Two is the number laid in each nest. In 1872 we had obtained six eggs taken on May 24, which may therefore, probably, be taken as the average date of laying. There remains, nevertheless, the bare possibility that eggs had been laid before our visit on May 9, but swept up meanwhile by egg-raiders.

The flamingo city "in being" above described was the first seen by ornithologists, and the observations we were enabled to make settled at last the position and mode of incubation of the flamingo.[49]

Science is impersonal, the impulsion of a naturalist springs from devotion to his subject, and from no extrinsic motive--such as personal kudos. Nevertheless, we make this categoric claim for ourselves simply because the credit, _quantum valeat_, has since been (not claimed straight away, but rather) insinuated on behalf of others who didn't earn it--a.n.a.logous with the case of Dr. Cook and the North Pole.

Where do these thousands of Spanish flamingoes breed, and how do they maintain their numbers, when Spain, three years out of five, is _too dry_ for nesting purposes? The only obvious answer is, Africa. And, though incapable yet of direct proof, that answer is clearly correct.

For flamingoes are essentially denizens of the tropic zone. The few that ever overlap into southern Europe are but a fraction of their swarming millions farther south. During our own expeditions into British East Africa, we found flamingoes in vast abundance on all the equatorial lakes we visited--Baringo, Nakuru, Elmenteita, Naivasha, and, especially, Lake Hannington, where, during past ages, they have so polluted the foresh.o.r.es as to preclude human occupation. These were the same flamingoes, a few of which "slop over" into Europe; we shot two specimens with the rifle in Nakuru to prove that.[50]

Flamingoes are not migratory in an ordinary sense--birds born on the equator seldom are. Their movements have no seasonal character, but depend on the rainfall and the varying condition of the lagoons at different points within their range. Here, in Spain, we see them coming and going, to and fro, at all seasons according to the state of the marisma--and a striking colour-study they present when pink battalions contrast with dark-green pine beneath and set off by deepest azure above.

In 1907 flamingoes attempted to establish a nesting-colony at a spot called Las Albacias in the marisma of Hinojos. A ma.s.s of nests was already half built, then suddenly abandoned. "If the shadow of a cloud pa.s.ses over them, they forsake," say the herdsmen of the wilderness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAMINGOES ON THEIR NESTS.]

Quant.i.ties of drift gra.s.s and weed are always found floating where a herd has been feeding, which at first led us to suppose that their food consisted of water-plants (as with geese), but that is not the case.

The floating gra.s.ses are only incidentally uprooted by the birds while delving in the mud. The Spanish marshmen say flamingoes "live on mud,"

and truly an examination of their crops appears to confirm this. But the mud is only taken in because of the ma.s.ses of minute creatures (_animalculae_) which it contains, and which form the food of the flamingo. What precisely these living atoms are would require both a microscopical examination and a knowledge of zoophites to determine. The tongue of a flamingo is a thick, fleshy organ filling the whole cavity of the mandibles, and furnished with a series of flexible bony spikes, or hooks, nearly half an inch long and curving inwards. Flamingoes'

tongues are said to have formed, an epicurean dish in Roman days.

However that may be, we found them, on trial, quite uneatable--tough as india-rubber; even our dogs refused the "delicacy." This bird's flesh is dark-red and rank, quite uneatable.

In the New World the mystery of the nesting habits of the flamingo (_Phoenicopterus ruber_) was solved just three years later, and in a precisely similar sense.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAD OF FLAMINGO

Showing the spikes on tongue and lamellae on mandibles.

[The beak had to be forced open.]]

We will close this chapter with a reference to a recent and most complete demonstration of our subject--that of our namesake, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, of the American Museum, New York, in his _Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist_. Therein is set forth, in Chapter IV., the last word on this topic. In America, as in Spain, the final solution of the problem was only attained after years of patient effort and many disappointments. With the thoroughness of thought and honesty of purpose that marks our transatlantic progeny while treating of natural phenomena, this book sets forth the life-history and domestic economy of the flamingo, from egg to maturity, ill.u.s.trated by a series of photographs that are absolutely unique.[51] We conclude by quoting our bird-friend's opening sentence: "There are larger birds than the flamingo, and birds with more brilliant plumage, but no other large bird is so brightly coloured, and no other brightly coloured bird is so large. In brief, size and beauty of plume united reach their maximum development in this remarkable bird, while the open nature of its haunts and its gregarious habit seem specially designed to display its marked characteristics of form and colour to the most striking advantage. When to these superficial attractions is added the fact that little or nothing has. .h.i.therto been known of its nesting habits, one may realise the intense longing of a naturalist, not only to behold a flamingo city--itself the most remarkable sight in the bird-world--but to lift the veil through which the flamingo's home-life has been but dimly seen."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXVII

WILD CAMELS

It was during these aquatic rides in search of the nesting-places of the flamingo that we first fell in with wild camels.

Vague yarns, more or less circ.u.mstantial, that such animals wandered over the farther marismas, we remember as early as 1872. The thing, however, had appeared too incredible for consideration--at any rate, we gave it none. But in that spring of 1883 we one day found ourselves face to face with two unmistakable camels. They stood gazing intently about half a mile away--a huge, s.h.a.ggy, hump-backed beast, accompanied by a second not half its size. The pair wheeled and made off ere we had approached within 400 yards, and something "game-like" in their style prompted our first and last attempt at pursuit. The camels simply ran away from us, splashing through slippery mud and water, two feet deep, at double our horses' speed, and raising in their flight a tearing trail of foam as of twin torpedo-boats.

Since then we have fallen in with camels on very many occasions, singly, in twos and threes, or in herds of a dozen to twenty and upwards, old and young together. It is, in fact, only necessary to ride far enough into the marisma to make sure of seeing some of these extraordinary monsters startling the desolate horizon, and silhouetted in incongruous juxtaposition with ranks of rosy flamingoes and flotillas of swimming waterfowl.

The whole story of these wild camels and their origin has been narrated in _Wild Spain_. Briefly summarised, the animals were introduced to Spain in 1829 by the Marquis de Villafranca (House of Medina-Sidonia) with the object of employing them in transport and agriculture, as they are so commonly used on the opposite sh.o.r.es of Africa. But local difficulties ensued--chiefly arising from the intense fear and repugnance of horses towards camels, which resulted in numerous accidents--and eventually the bactrians were set free in the marisma, wherein they have since lived at large and bred under wholly wild conditions for well-nigh a century.

We admit that a statement of the existence of wild camels in these watery wildernesses of Spain--flooded during great part of the year--is difficult to accept. The camel is inseparably a.s.sociated with the most arid deserts of earth, with sun-scorched Sahara, Arabia Petraea, and waterless tropical regions. Its physical economy is expressly adapted for such habitats--the huge padded feet and seven-chambered stomach that will sustain it for days without drinking. Yet the reader was asked to believe that this specialised desert-dweller had calmly accepted a condition of life diametrically reversed, and not only lives, but breeds and flourishes amidst knee-deep swamp.

At the period of which we write the camel was not known to exist on earth in a wild state, and physical disabilities were alleged which would have precluded such a possibility. During historic times it had never been described save only as a beast of burden, the slave of man--and a savage, intractable slave at that. A little later, however, the Russian explorer, Prejevalsky, met with wild camels roaming over the k.u.mtagh deserts of Turkestan, and in Tibet Sven Hedin has since shown the two-humped camel to be one of the normal wild beasts of the Central Asian table-lands.

Wild camels in Europe represented a considerable draft upon the credulity of readers; and a chorus of ridicule was poured upon the statement. Men who had "lived in Spain for years"--a foreign consul at Seville, engineers employed in reclaiming marismas (somewhere else)--all rushed into print to attest the absurdity of the idea. Limited experience was mistaken for complete knowledge! Similar treatment was accorded to our observation of pelicans in Denmark. Ornithologists of Copenhagen insinuated we did not know pelicans from seagulls; yet the Danish pelicans are as well known to the Jutlander fisher-folk as are the Spanish camels to the herdsmen and fowlers of the marisma. Knowledge is no monopoly of high places.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD CAMELS.]

The Spanish camels spend their lives exclusively in the open marisma, pasturing on the _vetas_, or higher-lying areas, and pa.s.sing from islet to islet, though the intervening water be three feet deep. We have watched them grazing on subaquatic herbage in the midst of what appeared miles of open water; and, in fact, during wet winters there is no dry land to be seen. Yet they never approach the adjacent dunes of Donana, though these would appear so tempting. By night, however, the camels sometimes pa.s.s so near to our shooting-lodge that their scent, when borne down-wind, has created panic among the horses, though the stables are situate within an enclosed courtyard.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Antonio Trujillo, formerly head-keeper of the Coto Donana, some years ago chanced on a camel that was "bogged" in a quicksand (_nucle_). These places are dangerous, and it was not till six days later that he was enabled, by bringing planks and ropes, to drag the poor beast to firm land. All round the spot where the camel had laid he found every root, and even the very earth, eaten away. Yet the animal when set free appeared none the worse, for it strolled away quite unconcerned, and shortly commenced to browse while still close by.

Young camels are born early in the year, about February, though whether that is the exclusive period we have no means of knowing.

A curious incident occurred one winter day when we had ridden out into the marisma expressly in search of camels. It was an intensely cold and dry season, almost unprecedented for the severity of the frost. When several leagues from anywhere, a keen eye detected in the far distance a roving fox. All dismounted, and letting the horses graze, hid behind them and awaited his approach. Then with only a single _podenco_, or hunting-dog, _Frascuelo_ by name, after a straight-away run of five or six miles over the sun-dried plain, we fairly rode bold Reynard down and killed him.

Six months after the publication of _Wild Spain_ we received the following letter from H.R.H. the late Phillippe, Comte de Paris, the owner of the adjoining Coto del Rey:--

_June 17, 1893._

Having read with the greatest pleasure and interest your description of the wild camels, it struck me that you may appreciate a photograph taken from nature of one of these independent inhabitants of the sh.o.r.es of Guadalquivir. I found that one could only look at them from a distance, and therefore the enclosed photographs may be of interest. They were taken three months ago by my nephew, Prince Henry of Orleans. My keepers had in the early morning separated this single animal from the herd, but it escaped from them about Marilopez at noon, and when we met with him near the Laguna de la Madre, and about a mile from the Coto del Rey, we had only to give him a last gallop to catch him. These camels spend great part of the year on ground of which I am either the owner or the tenant, and I do my best to protect them from the terrible poachers coming from Trebujena. In order to be able to do this more effectually, I bought yesterday from the heirs of the landowners who turned them out some seventy years ago, I think, all the claims they can have on these animals.

We have recently been favoured by the present Comte de Paris with the latest details respecting the camels. In a note dated August 1910, H.R.H. writes:--

For some time their numbers have been decreasing, and we no longer see great troops of them as we used to do eighteen years ago. The cause of their diminution is certainly the bitter war waged against them by poachers. The parts of the marisma frequented by the wild camels lie between the Coto del Rey on the north, the Coto Donana on the west, and the Guadalquivir on the south-east. The long deep channels of La Madre, however, interfere with their reaching the Coto Donana, and they chiefly graze in the marismas of Hinojos and Almonte. The plan pursued by the poachers is as follows:--Coming down from some of the little villages, they cross the river in small flat-bottomed boats in which they can creep along the sh.o.r.es to points where they have seen either the spoor or the animals themselves during the day. Then drawing near to the camels, under cover of the waning light, they are able to kill one or sometimes two, which they skin and disembowel on the spot. The flesh is cut up into pieces, sewn up in the skin, and, on returning to the riverbank, secreted beneath the flat bottom-boards of the boat, thereby evading detection by Civil Guards and douaniers. The men then sail down the river and sell the meat at San Lucar as venison.

When in the marisma in 1892 I met one day a troop of forty animals--some old males, their huge bodies covered with thick hair like blankets; there were also females followed by their young--fantastic of appearance, owing to the disproportionate length of their legs, but galloping and frisking around their mothers as they had done since birth.

Next day my companion and I took la.s.soes; we encountered a huge old male, singly, which trotted and galloped round our horses, terrifying the poor beasts to such an extent that we could not come near the camel. At length after a fifty-minutes' chase, in crossing a part where the mud was soft and the surface much broken up by cattle coming to drink, we overtook him. Thanks to my horse having less fear than the other, I was presently able to throw a la.s.so around the camel, my companion hauling taut the rope to hold the prisoner fast. The great brute proved very active, defending himself with his immense flat feet, which he used as clubs, and, moreover, he bit, and the bite of a camel is venomous. Ultimately I succeeded in getting a second rope around him and dragging him to the ground, where he lay like the domestic camel. The photographs ill.u.s.trate this episode.

Old males frequently have the hair very ragged and scant, especially on hind-quarters, and on their knees are great callosities. The truly wild camels of the marisma are fast disappearing. A friend has furnished me with the approximate number now remaining absolutely wild, viz. fifteen or sixteen near La Macha fronting the Palace of Tisana, besides five enclosed in the Cerrado de Matas Gordas, near the Palacio del Rey, and belonging to Madame La Condesa de Paris.