Unexplored Spain Part 9

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 gra.s.s-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-sh.e.l.ls, 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 Donana--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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 _canos_, 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-gra.s.s (_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 cla.s.s 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:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: GUNNING-PUNT IN THE MARISMA.

(NOTE THE HALF-SUBMERGED SAMPHIRE-BUSHES.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.p.a.ce; 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 _canos_, 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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-gra.s.s with their powerful bills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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, pa.s.s 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 (_nucles_) 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ident.i.ty, 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 sh.o.r.es, with every creek and channel, were darkened by ma.s.ses 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-gra.s.s (_castanuela_) from sun-baked mud.