Wild Spain Part 12

Although in going to our _puestos_ during the day the snow was generally soft--the sun being very hot--yet in returning after dark we found the way most dangerous, traversing a sloping, slippery ice-surface like a huge glacier, where a slip or false step would send one down half a mile with nothing to clutch at or to save oneself. Such a slide meant death, for it could only terminate in an awful precipice or in one of those horrible holes with a raging torrent to receive one in its dark abyss, and convey the fragments beneath the snow--where to appear next? Each step had to be cut with a hatchet, or hollowed--the b.u.t.t of a rifle is not intended for such work, but has had to perform it.

Every day here we saw goats on or about the snow-fields and towering rocks above our cave. They were of a light fawn colour, very s.h.a.ggy in appearance, some males carrying magnificent long horns. One old ram seemed to be always on the watch, kneeling down on the very verge of a crag 500 or 600 yards above us, and which commanded a view for miles--_miles_, did we say? paltry words! From where that goat was, he could survey half-a-dozen provinces.

These ibex were quite inaccessible, and though daily seen, nearly a week had pa.s.sed away ere a wild-goat gave us a chance. One night shortly after quitting my post, little better than a human icicle, and not without fear of the dangers of scrambling cave-wards, in absolute darkness along the ice-slope, a little herd of goats pa.s.sed--mere shadows--within easy shot of where, five minutes before, I had been lying in wait. On another morning at dawn the tracks of a big male showed that he, too, must have pa.s.sed at some hour of the night within five-and-twenty yards of the snow-screen.

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But it was not till a whole week had elapsed that we had the ibex really in our power. Just as day broke a herd of eight--two males and six females--stood not forty yards from our cave-dwelling. The fact was ascertained by one Esteban, a Spanish sportsman whom we had taken with us. Silently he stole back into the cave, and without a word, or disturbing the dreams of his still sleeping employers, picked up an "express" and went forth. Then the loud double report at our very doors--that is, had there been a door--aroused us, only to find ... the spoor of that enormous ram, the spot where he had halted, listening, close above the cave, and the splash of the lead on the rock beyond--_eighteen inches_ too low! an impossible miss for any one used to the "express." Oh, Esteban, Esteban! what were our feelings towards you on that fateful morn!

Life in a mountain-cave high above the level of perpetual snow--six men huddled together in the narrow s.p.a.ce, two English and four Spaniards--has its weird and picturesque, but it has also its harder side. Yet those days and nights, pa.s.sed amidst majestic scenes and strange wild beasts, have left nothing but pleasant memories, nor have their hardships deterred one of us from repeating the experiment.

Probably both these campaigns were too early in the season (March and April).

The only birds seen in the high sierra were choughs and ravens: ring-ouzels a little lower down. There were plenty of trout, though small, in the hill-burns. On one occasion we witnessed an extraordinary circular rainbow across a deep gorge, with our own figures perfectly reflected in the centre on pa.s.sing a given point.

The ice-going abilities of the mountaineers were something marvellous--incredible save to an eye-witness. Across even a north drift, hard and "slape" as steel, and hundreds of yards in extent, these men would steer a sliding, slithering course at top speed, directed towards some single projecting rock. To miss that refuge might mean death: but they did not miss it, ever, in their perilous course, making good a certain amount of forward movement. At that rock they would settle in their minds the next point to be reached, quietly smoking a cigarette meanwhile before making a fresh start. How such performances diminish one's own self-esteem! How weak are our efforts! Even on the softer southern drifts, what balancing, what scrambling and crawling on hands and knees one finds necessary, and what a "cropper" one would have come but for the friendly arm of Enrique, who, as he arrests one's perilous slide, merely mutters "Ave Maria purissima!"

Now we have left the ice and snow and the ibex to wander in peace over their lonely domains. To-night we have dined at a _table_: there is a cheery fire in the rude little _posada_ and merry voices, contrasting with the silence of our cave, where no one spoke above a whisper, and where no fire was permissible save once a day to heat the _olla_. Now all we need is a song from the Murillo-faced little girl who is fanning the charcoal-embers. "Sing us a couplet, Dolores, to welcome us back from the snows of Alpujarras!"

_Dolores_: With the greatest pleasure, _Caballero_, if Jose will play the guitar. No one plays like Jose, but he is tired, having travelled all day with his mules from Lanjaron.

_Jose_: No, senor, not tired, but I have no soul to-night to play. This morning they asked me to bring medicine from the town for Carmen: but when I reached the house she was dead. I find myself very sad.

_Dolores_: "Pero, si ya tiene su palma y su corona?" ...but as she already has her palm and her crown?

_Jose_: That is true! Bring the guitar and I will see if it will quit me of this _tristeza_!

Next morning the snow prevented our leaving: and the day after, while riding away, we met some of the villagers carrying poor Carmen to the burial-ground on the mountain-side. The body, plainly robed in white, was borne on an open bier, the hands crossed and head supported on pillows, thus allowing the long unfettered hair to hang down loose below. It was an impressive and a picturesque scene; and as I rode on, the rejoinder of Dolores came to my mind--"Ya tiene su palma y su corona."

CHAPTER XIV.

TROUT AND TROUTING IN SPAIN.

A land without Trout labours, in our eyes, under grave physical disadvantages; its currency is, metaphorically, below par, its stocks at a discount. The absence of many modern luxuries in Spain--say, manhood suffrage, school-boards, and the like--we can survive; the absence of trout, never. Not even the presence on mountain, moor, or marsh, of such n.o.ble denizens as Spain can boast--the ibex, bustard, and boar, the lynx and lammergeyer--can wholly, from an angler's point of view, fill the void, or atone for the absence of sparkling streams and that gamest of fresh-water game, the trout. The reproach, however, does not apply; for, to her many sporting treasures, Spain can claim, in addition, this gem of the subaqueous world. No one, however, it should be added, who has other lands open to him, should ever go to Spain expressly for trout-fishing.

Subject to the provisoes that follow (fairly extensive ones, too), trout may be said to exist sporadically all over the Iberian Peninsula; but, in the south, they are limited to the alpine streams of the sierras, and seldom descend below the 2,000 feet level. Troutlets abound in the mountain-torrents of the loftiest southern sierras (Nevada, Morena, Ronda, and all their infinite ramifications), the larger fish seeking rather lower levels and deeper pools. Three-pounders grace the cla.s.sic streams of Genil and Darro, and deserve attention from angling visitors to the famed Moorish fortress of Boabdil and his dark-eyed houris. The Guadiarro, also, and some others of the Mediterranean rivers, afford shelter, in their middle and upper waters, to _Salmo fario_.

In the sluggish, mud-charged rivers of the corn-plains, and of the upland plateaux, the trout, of course, finds no place. The finned inhabitants of these regions, so far as our limited knowledge goes, are the shad (_sabalo_) and coa.r.s.e fish, such as dace (_lisa_) and his congeners, with monster eels, crayfish, and the like. But as the rock-ramparts of the Castiles and Northern Estremadura are approached, our speckled friend again appears. Beneath the towering sierras of Gredos and Avila we have landed him while resting from the severer labours of ibex-hunting on the heights above.

These upland streams of Castile run crystal-clear, with alternate pools and rapids in charming sequence. Many closely resemble our moorland burns of Northumbria--even the familiar sandpiper, the white-chested dipper, and the carol of the sky-lark (a note unheard in Southern Spain), are there to heighten the similitude; but here, heather and bracken are replaced by _bresos_ and _piornales_--shrubs whose English names (if they have any) we know not. The trout run smaller in inverse ratio of the alt.i.tude; in a stream at 8,000 feet the best averaged four to the pound; in another, barely below snow-level, six or eight would be required to complete that weight--small enough, but welcome as a change, both of sport and fare. Who, but an angler, though, can appreciate the heaven-sent joys of casting one's lines on "fresh streams and waters new"?

This watershed marks the southern limit at which (within our observation) the art of fly-fishing is practised by Spanish anglers--of their more usual modes of taking the trout, we treat anon. Fly-fishing, did we say? Fishing with fly would be a more accurate definition; the moment a trout seizes the rudely-tied feathers, he is jerked out, regardless of size or sport--the tackle used, it goes without saying, is of the strongest and coa.r.s.est. To play and land a trout _secundum artem_ was, we were a.s.sured, impossible, by reason of the _malesas_--weeds, snags, and rocks, which stud the arcana of the depths. But it fell to our lot to demonstrate to our worthy friends that this theory was untenable. With a light twelve-foot bamboo, and on gut finer far than ever entered a Spanish angler's dream (though it all comes from Catalonia), we had the satisfaction of raising, playing, and landing sundry creels-full of shapely fish that exceeded, both as to numbers and weight, the best local performances in manifold proportion. Do not, kind reader, attribute egotistic motives for this statement. No great measure of skill was required to treble or quadruple the natives' takes; and any angler will say at once that such was just the result that might have been expected. While we write, comes a letter from that out-of-the-world spot, asking for a supply of our English gut and flies.

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In Portugal also--save on the monotonous levels of the Alemtejo and Algarve--the trout exists in nearly all suitable localities--that is, they are confined to the streams of the hill-country of the north. Years ago, on the virgin rivers of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho, our friend Mr. J.

L. Teage enjoyed good sport with trout and gillaroo. It was indeed, to some extent, the success of his _mosca encantada_ that helped to arouse the slumbering utilitarian greed of the simple Lusitanian peasant, who, seeing, or thinking that he saw, an undreamed source of wealth in his rivers, borrowed of his Basque and Galician neighbours their deadly systems of poison and dynamite, and proceeded forthwith to kill the goose that laid this golden egg. As a natural result, at the present day many of the waters of Northern Portugal are all but depopulated--hardly a sizeable fish can now be taken where four or five-pounders swam of yore.

It is, however, the northern provinces of Spain, the Asturias and Cantabrian highlands, and the rivers that run into Biscay, that form the true home of Iberian _Salmonidae_. Here, in a land of towering mountains, pine-clad and mist-enshrouded, and of rushing, rapid streams, are found both the salmon, the sea-trout, and the yellow trout.[39]

Of the Salmon (_Salmo salar_) in Spain, we have had no experience, and will say nothing more than that the southernmost limit of its range appears to be the river Minho, on the frontier of Portugal, and that the resistless energy of British sportsmen has succeeded (despite the local difficulties referred to later) in acquiring fishing rights of no small excellence. Nor have we fished specially for the sea-trout, which are killed with fly and other sporting lures, both in the upper streams and in the brackish waters of the tideways, all along the Biscayan coast, commencing to "run" in February. Some of their habits appear here to differ from what we observe at home; but, without more precise knowledge, we prefer to pa.s.s them by for the present.

No more lovely trouting waters can angling introspect conceive than some of those in Northern Spain. Now surging through some tortuous gorge in successive pools, dark, and foam-flecked, each of which look like "holds" for monsters; now opening out on a hill-girt plateau, where the current broadens into rippled shallows, with long-tailed runs and hollowed banks, the Cantabrian rivers offer promises all too fair. For the unfortunate trout has no fair play meted out to him in this hungry land. No count is taken of his n.o.ble qualities, nor of his economic necessities. Poor _Salmo fario_ is here simply a comestible, and nothing more. In season and out, throughout the twelvemonth, he is persecuted--done to death with nets, poison, and dynamite. We have elsewhere remarked on the paradoxical character of the Spanish _cazador_, and that of the _pescador_ is the same. Though observant of his quarry, apt, intelligent, and highly skilled in the arts of sport, yet he is not a sportsman in the truer sense of the term. His object is utilitarian, not sentimental--he cultivates knowledge and the practices of field-craft simply that he may fill the _puchero_.

A large proportion of the adult male population of each riverside hamlet in Northern Spain are _pescadores_--professional fishermen: and all day long one sees them grovelling among the stones of the river-bed fixing those hateful funnel-nets that, at night, entrap the luckless trout as they wander over the shallows. But if they confined their operations to these, and to the infinite variety of nets of other shapes and forms that festoon the village street, things might not be so bad, nor the case of the trout so hopeless and desperate. They have far more deadly devices for ma.s.sacre by wholesale. Into the throat of some lovely stream is tipped a barrow-load of quicklime: down goes the poisonous dose, dealing out death and destruction to every fish, great or small, in that stream: and, if that is not enough, or if the pool is long and sullen, he proceeds to blow up its uttermost depths with dynamite. And in the hot summer months, when the streams, at lowest summer-level, run almost dry, the heaviest trout are decimated by "tickling."

These methods prevail in every part of Spain and Portugal where trout or other edible fish exist. What chance have they to live?

There are, moreover, difficulties, either of law or of custom, that, in some parts of Spain, render the preservation of rivers troublesome, if not impossible. Hence the poor Spanish Salmonidae can hardly hope to receive that aegis of kindly protection that has been so advantageously (for them, and others) extended to their British and Scandinavian congeners.

Another drawback--which, though common to most lands, is specially p.r.o.nounced in metalliferous Spain--lies in the noxious effusions from mines, which are freely discharged, for private profit, into public waters. This evil was forcibly brought home by our first day's experience in Cantabria. Hour after hour we had plied most lovely water without success--fly, worm, and phantom alike failed to elicit a single response. On returning with empty creel to the _posada_, to us our host, "_Hombre_, have you been fishing the Tesarco? _Que disparate!_ there is a copper-mine two leagues further up: there have been no fish in that river for years." Considering that we had employed a local guide, furnished by the said host, the occasion appeared to justify a protest of not unmeasured wrath. But there is no use losing one's temper in Spain: no quality there so valuable as patience: and the reward of a modic.u.m of reasoned restraint was that the rough, but kind-hearted Asturian insisted next morning on accompanying us himself to another river, seven miles away, where we enjoyed, for Spain, excellent sport.

Under the adverse conditions above outlined, it would be irrational to look for any very great measure of success in Spanish trouting--though, were it possible (which it is not) to secure fair play for the Salmonidae, there is no physical or other reason why the Basque and Biscayan provinces might not rival either Scotch or Scandinavian waters.

The following brief records of a few experiences in Northern Spain will serve to ill.u.s.trate what may be expected, in a sporting sense, of the Cantabrian trout.

SANTANDeR (PROVINCIA).

The Province of Santander, hardly less wild and mountainous than the Asturias, presents somewhat similar conditions of water, fish, and sport. The Cantabrian range, extending from Pyrenees to Atlantic, the common southern boundary of all the Biscayan provinces, attains in Santander some of its greatest elevations, including the celebrated Picos de Europa (9,000 feet), the home of the Spanish bear and chamois.

The trend of the land dips gradually from these inland heights towards the sea: yet even on the coast the scenery is savage and grand, some of the alt.i.tudes being very great. The view looking across the magnificent harbour of Santander recalls in the "Sunny South" the scenery of Arctic Norway, with all the fantastic tracery of snow-mountains and jagged peaks vividly reflected in the unruffled breadths of the fjord.

The rivers, of course, reflect the characteristics of the land. Born of the mountain and the snow-field, they come leaping and surging seawards, dancing to their own wild music, as they crush through narrow gorges, by crag and hanging wood, hurrying ever northward towards the Biscayan sea.

The angler's path along their banks is no made road: often for miles, ay, leagues, he may be constrained to follow the goatherds' upland path--a _camino de perdices_ in native phrase--and only able to gaze down, like Tantalus, on tempting streams, perhaps close beneath, yet far beyond his reach.

Here, as elsewhere, success, we found, was not to be had for the wooing, nor at the first time of asking. Rivers that offered fair promise--beautiful waters, such as Besaya and Saja, embedded amidst ilex and chestnut, where moss-grown rocks impended darkly pools, whereon foam-flakes slowly revolved, or the more rapid streams of Reinosa, full of cataracts and tearing "races" that eat away their steep gravel-banks--all these _may_ prove blank, or a long day's work be only rewarded by a few insignificant troutlets or par.

While fishing in the Reinosa district, we were told by our host that there lived some few leagues away _un Ingles muy aficionado_--a fishing enthusiast. Thither we moved our quarters: our new-made friend was one of those Anglo-Saxon Crusoes whom one meets with, self-buried, for one reason or another, in the recesses of wild lands, where sport or solitude may be enjoyed in degrees not possible at home. Retired from a public service through an infirmity begotten by the incidence of his duties, he was spending the prime of life in this remote spot, satisfied with an environment of Nature's purest scenes and with a modic.u.m of sport to reconcile him to exile. A type of the British sportsman abroad was X., keen almost to a fault, little apt to measure success solely by results, a hard day's work was not deemed ill-rewarded by a brace or two of red-legs, or half a dozen quail, while for the chance of a boar he would walk well-nigh half the night, to reach by dawn the point where the retreat of some old tusker, which was ravaging the peasants' crops, might perchance be cut off.

There were six or eight miles to walk on the morrow ere a line was wetted--at first along a highway, whence X. plunged _in medias res_, that is into a rough strath, horrid with shifting shingle and th.o.r.n.y scrub, where progress was painful enough: but our companion never slacked speed, and when he continued his wild career, unchecked, through a brawling torrent full of boulders and well-nigh waist-deep, with a current like a mill-race, doubts of his sanity began to arise: or was he only testing us? Soon afterwards, providentially, we reached the main stream: fair trouting water, with rather too much current, the runs being almost continuous, and leaving scant s.p.a.ce of "slack." Here we set up our rods: the first seething pool yielded a brace, besides false rises, and in half an h.o.a.r we had "creeled" several and began to hope for better things. But it was not to be.

The trout here were white, or silvery in colour, more like salmon-smolts--none of the deep greens, violets and gold of our home fish--and rose extremely shy, coming so short that hardly one in three gave a chance of getting fast. It was not that they rolled over the flies, or merely "flicked" at them--they simply came so short that, unless self-hooked, they were gone almost ere they had come. A dozen trout was the result of this day, yet our companion told us he had not, during two years, made a better basket. Oh, tantalizing streams and provoking troutlets of Biscaya!

Pleasant days, nevertheless, were those spent by this wild riverside.

The love of sport is strong in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but it is not the sole, or an all-potent factor therein. Other things are strong to charm, and here the scenery and accompaniments lacked nothing of beauty and interest--the grand hills, not high but severe in jagged skylines and escarpments that shone like marble in the sun. The air resounded with the music of leaping waters, with the merry carol of Sandpiper and gentler warble of Whinchat: and further off the soaring flight of Buzzard and Raven lent life to the silent hills.[40] From rock-crannies, splashed with the spray of trickling rivulets from above, peeped bouquets of gentian and maiden-hair: the stony "haughs" glowed with bloom of purple iris and asphodel, anemones and wild geraniums, orchids, heaths, ferns, and wild-flowers of a hundred kinds unknown to us.

The weather of the Cantabrian spring-time is strangely variable: every day we had spells of sunshine and shower, wind and calm, fog and fair alternately, often culminating in a sudden clap of thunder that rolled majestically along the deep ravines. Then, for an hour, came down the rain in torrents, and we sought the shelter of some village _venta_ where, for a _peseta_, we fared sumptuously on good white bread and the delicious cream-like cheese known as _queso de Burgos_, washed down with the rough red wine of Rioja, cheaper than "smallest beer," and most refreshing.

In every hamlet hung fishing-nets: every day we saw the "fishermen"

fixing them, and heard of two-pounders. Yet to us, striving with all the skill we possess, appeared none of these leviathans. Nothing we could do availed to cajole them--that is, a.s.suming their existence. A basket of one to two dozen trout daily, including sundry half-pounders, appeared to be the measure of the river's capacity, or of our skill.

Our best basket in this Province of Santander was twenty-eight trout, weighing eight and a half pounds, and the best fish a fine trout of just over the pound. Him we killed in a deep pool so embedded amidst crags and so difficult of access, that it may be doubted whether feathered fly had ever before flown over its virgin depths. Our friend rose boldly to a small "red palmer": and within a few minutes two more, of hardly inferior weight, had joined him in the basket.

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