Wild Spain Part 15

The beautiful crags of Zurita and the Agredera impending our historic Guadalete, and lying about a dozen miles from Jerez, are a favourite spring ride. In April their lower slopes are resplendent with acres of rhododendrons just bursting into bloom, crimson peonies peep from arid nooks, and the riverside is fringed with laurestinus and myrtle, oleanders, sallows and palmetto, all resonant with the melody of nightingales. To these crags the Neophron, or Egyptian Vulture, yearly resorts, and six or eight nests may be found in a day's ramble, all placed in holes or fissures of the cliff, which, from its rottenness and overhung form, is far from easy to scale. Nor is a Neophron's eyry a very delectable spot when reached; for, handsome as he looks on wing, this vulture is one of the foulest of feeders. The stench at his abode is overpowering; all around lies carrion in every stage of corruption, while swarms of loathsome flies rise and buzz heavily around the intruder. The nest itself is made of rags and wool--no sticks--and the two eggs, often as richly coloured as a Peregrine's, are laid early in April. Though the food of the Neophron is mostly bones, _ordure_, and garbage, yet it will, exceptionally, take living creatures; a male, shot on April 19th, when returning to his nest, carried in his beak the yet writhing remains of a small snake. In a rather low part of this range of crags (its highest point, the Agredera peak, is 1,000 feet plumb) a pair of Golden Eagles had their nest, or rather two nests, which they used alternately. The birds did not appear, but we saw the nests, immense ma.s.ses of sticks conspicuously protruding from crevices in the crag, about forty yards apart. These cliffs are also tenanted by a colony of Genets.

In Andalucia, as in Eastern Europe, the Neophron occasionally nests upon trees. In the lovely, park-like country half a day's ride eastward of Jerez, several pairs breed yearly on high _encinas_, or ilex. Here, in spring, we have seen the old vultures on the nest, and in July have observed big young--dark brown fellows--perched on adjoining branches.

For instance:--

_April 10th, 1891._--Examined to-day three Neophrons' nests on ilex-trees at the Encinar del Visco--broad, solid structures, twice as large as those of the Kites, and warmly lined with cows'-hair, wool, &c.

Owing to the backward season, there were no eggs, though in 1883 we took two clutches (each two eggs) on same date.[44]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXV.

"WHERE THE CARCASE IS."

Page 213.]

One afternoon in the early part of July, 1872--a period when Andalucia was seething with revolution and communistic ideas--a young Golden Eagle was brought in by Jose Larrios, a man we often employed in sport and country campaigns--the same Jose whose dare-devil escapade with a bull we have already related (see p. 10). This eaglet he had brought from the Sierra de Alcala de los Gazules, nearly forty miles distant, where his brothers held a small mountain-farm; and there remained, he said, another fledgeling in the eyrie. The writer, in those early days, had not succeeded in shooting the Royal Eagle, and the ambition to do so was intense, despite the difficulty of the communists. Two days before we had returned from a fortnight's expedition to the westward, and when riding towards Jerez were stopped by a military cordon who invested the town and demanded our credentials. These being satisfactory, the officer in command informed us that street-fighting was taking place, and detained us till evening, when he kindly furnished us with an escort. We found that two days previously the city had been seized by an armed mob, thousands strong, who by a sudden _coup_ had gained possession of the public buildings and barricaded the streets. On the arrival of a troop of cavalry from Seville the mutineers incontinently fled, save a mere handful of the bolder spirits, who stood to their improvised defences to the last, and were finally shot down within the church of San Juan, wherein they had sought refuge. This revolution thus crumbled to nothing, though at one time it threatened to exceed in violence that of three years before (1869), when the barricades were taken at the point of the bayonet, and hundreds of insurgents were shot down in the streets of Jerez.

For the moment danger was past, and the city, within the armed cordon, restored to normal condition, though outside the state of the adjacent country was not certain. Keenness to kill the Royal Eagle of the sierras was paramount, and at midnight Jose and I set out from La Compania, the old Jesuit convent which was then our home, and traversing the dark streets and narrow, sandy lanes beyond, we were soon clear of the town, and by daylight had reached the ford of the Alamillo, where we crossed the Guadalete, and were breakfasting at 6.30 in the hill-village of Paterna--five leagues. Early in the afternoon we completed the twelve leagues and reached the little _cortijo_ of Jautor, the abode of Jose's two brothers, who agreed to take us to the eagle's nest that evening.

Jautor is surrounded by towering sierras, and we proceeded on foot up a rough goat-track, choked with strong brushwood, and leading up the steep southern acclivity. After climbing and walking about two hours, we reached the nest, a huge pile of sticks surmounting an oak-tree which hung over a deep _garganta_ or mountain-ravine. What was my vexation to find, after eighteen hours' labour, that it was empty! On one side lay part of the leg of a kid, and about half a hare, both quite fresh, but the eaglet was gone; and though we waited till dusk on the chance of the old bird returning, we saw nothing, and had to retrace our weary steps, sticking and stumbling in the dark, to the shepherds' hut, deadbeat and disappointed.

The _choza_ was a mere hut built of long _canas_ or reeds, in the form of an extinguisher, the interior being circular, some 15ft. in diameter, occupied by many goats, poultry, and cats--not to mention minor inhabitants, and with a wood fire smouldering in the centre. I had hardly coiled myself in my rug and laid down to sleep on the low mud settee which ran round the back of the den, when a furious outburst of barking took place among the numerous dogs which lay sleeping round the fire. The goatherd opened the door, and there entered an old man, bronze-visaged and wiry, leading behind him a donkey. He was a smuggler, and his packs, crammed with contraband of infinite variety, were soon deposited on the floor, and the donkey hobbled and turned out to find bed and breakfast where it might. Then the _cerrones_ were unpacked, and their multifarious contents displayed on the mud floor--pins, needles and scissors, b.u.t.tons, and bobbins of thread, tobacco, tape, and sundry kinds of coloured cloth and bright ribbons. The latter at once "fetched"

the feminine portion of the community--alas! for the chances of sleep for the weary--female nature is everywhere the same, even in the _choza_ of a goatherd buried amidst these lonely sierras, and bargaining and chatter continued well-nigh throughout the livelong night.

The simple peasants, though unable to comprehend my object, were sincerely distressed at our failure; and next morning, while we were busy cooking our breakfast under the shade of a spreading laurestinus, came to say there was another eagle's nest on the opposite side of the valley. They had kindly sent a lad at daybreak to make inquiries at a neighbouring farm, four miles distant. Thither accordingly we set out, riding for several miles till the ascent became so abrupt, and intercepted with brushwood, that it was necessary to picket the horses, leaving them in charge of a lad, and to proceed on foot. We crossed the ridge of the sierra and entered an upland valley beyond, where, in a tall poplar, standing slightly apart, was a rather small nest containing a single eaglet. I must have fallen asleep at my post, for presently Jose, who had left me in ambush, aroused me to say that the eagle had returned, fed her young, and departed! While we were talking the female flew overhead, and instantly catching sight of us, with a scream dropped a rabbit she was carrying, and soared heavenwards. My shot dropped her stone-dead, and she fell within a few yards of her victim--a female of the Serpent-Eagle, a species well known on the wooded plains, but which we had hardly expected to find in the mountains. We have related this incident because there followed one of the most singular occurrences that have happened within our ornithological experiences. On being skinned, this eagle was found to contain the almost entire remains of a young eagle, which, from its feathered tarsi and general appearance, was certainly a nestling Golden Eagle--the counterpart, perhaps the brother, of the one Jose had already brought alive to Jerez! We can only state the bare fact, as above, and surmise that the youngster was yesterday the occupant of the eyrie we had travelled so far to despoil, and that the actual and would-be destroyers had thus accidentally come in collision.

About a league further the valley terminated in a fine amphitheatre of crags, showing remarkably bold and abrupt escarpments. The highest part was occupied by a colony of Griffons, and while resting for an hour or so in a niche of this mountain rampart, I shot four of the great birds.

Collectively they measured across the expanded wings some thirty-eight feet, and though we had no means of weighing them, estimated them at about forty pounds apiece. One of the vultures shot here, a fine bird with bushy white frill, the peasants a.s.serted to be between 300 and 400 years old, though how they could tell is a mystery. This bird was killed with ball on the wing. The smell of Griffon Vultures when shot is strong and most offensive: their claws and long feathers are always much abraded by attrition on the rocks, and their whole plumage has a worn and faded appearance, in harmony with the decay and death in which they rejoice.

The young vultures were at last (July 8th) on the wing, having spent some three months in the nests:[45] they are now of a clear, bright cinnamon colour, much handsomer than the adults, each feather being shaded; and one shot to-day measured between eight and nine feet in expanse of wing.

Our lofty perch commanded a grand mountain landscape--sierras extending range beyond range in swelling stony ma.s.ses or jagged sky-lines. Alpine Swifts dashed overhead; Blackchats and Blue Rock-Thrushes flitted among the crags, and, with the great vultures soaring above and below, afforded some interesting scenes. The mid-day heat was intense, and we had a rough tramp down to the horses through broken ground and thick young wood, where we disturbed a Roe and saw many traces of others. It was after dark when we reached a miserable wayside venta, where, alongside half a dozen snoring peasants and tormented by a million fleas, we pa.s.sed the night on the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BONELLI'S EAGLE. (Adult Female, shot July 10th, 1872.)]

Returning homewards next morning, while we were pa.s.sing through the outlying spurs or foothills of the sierra, a pair of large dark eagles were observed hunting a scrub-covered ridge. The larger of the two presently swept down upon an unlucky rabbit and forthwith commenced to devour it, the male perching on a stump hard by. They were favourably situate for a stalk, and by riding round in a wide circuit I gained the reverse of the ridge. On creeping forward to my marks, however, I could at first see nothing--only a few palmetto bushes some distance down the slope. Having crawled to these, I perceived the eagle busily tearing up her prey in a slight hollow of the ground. She was only forty yards away, yet the sitting shot (broadside on) produced no effect. A "green wire-cartridge, No. 1" from the left, broke a wing as she rose, and, after some little trouble, she was secured. She proved to be a Bonelli's Eagle (_Aquila bonellii_), a perfect adult specimen, dark brown above, with white breast boldly streaked and splashed with black: the bushy "stockings" and warm reddish-brown _tarsi_ contrasting with the long white "ap.r.o.n" which overlapped them. (_See photo._)

Thus occurred--over twenty years ago--our first introduction to Bonelli's Eagle: since then we have met with them frequently in the southern sierras, in the Castiles, and once in the Biscayan Provinces.

It is, in fact, the commonest mountain-breeding eagle in Spain, and is easily recognizable by its short, dappled wings, and by the peculiar feature that the _middle_ of the back is white--thus, if seen from above, the bird appears to have a large white spot between the wings.

In former days, the hill-peasants a.s.sert that it bred in quite low rocks, and several such abandoned eyries have been pointed out to us: but we have only seen its nest in the most stupendous rock-walls--places that make one's flesh creep to survey. The two eggs, usually white, but occasionally splashed or spotted, are laid in the early days of February--we have watched these eagles repairing their nest at Christmas. The young in first plumage, like those of the Imperial Eagle, are of a chestnut-tawny hue. The claws of Bonelli's Eagle are remarkably long and powerful, and its chief prey consists of hares, rabbits, and other game. Hares it appears unable to carry up _whole_ to its eyry on the heights, tearing them into halves, and birds found in its nest are usually headless.

The Golden Eagle also breeds in all the mountain-regions of Spain, both in high rocks and occasionally (as above mentioned) on trees. Its nest is often an enormous structure--quite a cartload of sticks.

The Golden and Bonelli's Eagles are strictly denizens of the mountains: but in autumn both species descend to the plains and marismas in search of prey. On more than one occasion, while shooting on the lowlands in winter, we have secured a Golden Eagle as he flew to roost in the pine-woods: and on Nov. 29th, some years ago, while flight-shooting, a Bonelli's Eagle was so intent on the capture of a winged Ruddy Sheldrake (_Tadorna rutila_) which had fallen to a neighbouring gun, as almost to fly into the writer's _puesto_. This eagle was in the act of lifting the heavy duck off the water when a charge of big shot cut him down.

Our old _cazador_, Felipe, who has since become keeper on a rabbit and partridge preserve fully twenty miles from the nearest point of the sierra, told us that so many eagles come down to prey on his rabbits during the months of November and December that during the preceding season he had killed over thirty. Felipe added that they were mostly Golden and Bonelli's Eagles (_Aguila perdicera_ he called the latter), with a few Serpent-Eagles earlier in the autumn. At the time of our visit (January) most of the eagles had retired to the sierras to breed: but a few days afterwards Felipe rode in with a cargo which sorely puzzled the officials of the _consumos_ (octroi), for under either arm he bore an eagle, and in a sack on his back were two immense wild-cats!

The eagles were _A. chrysaetus_, and an immature, tawny-breasted Bonelli.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XVIII.

ON SPANISH AGRICULTURE.

I.--CEREALS, GREEN CROPS, ETC.

Around Spanish agriculture, as around other Iberian industries, hangs a cloud of almost Oriental apathy. A land which might be one of the granaries of Europe is so neglected that, even with an import duty on corn, it is barely self-supporting--indeed, during 1889, Spain had to pay upwards of one million sterling for imported wheat.

Since the fall of Moorish dominion, the population of Andalucia has fallen to less than half; large areas which in Moorish days were smiling corn-lands, to-day lie barren and unproductive, choked with brushwood--the great southern _despoblados_, or deserts.

Nearly one-half the entire land of Spain (to be exact, 458 per cent.) is without cultivation of any kind; and of the rest, the productive powers are but half utilized. The yield of the best land in a favourable season rarely reaches forty bushels per acre, and the average, taking one year with another, may be placed at twenty; while in Northumberland thirty bushels is an average, and fifty a not infrequent yield.

The three chief agricultural products of Spain are corn, oil, and wine--of the latter, we treat more particularly in another chapter. The corn-farms--each usually including a certain proportion of olive-wood--extend from four or five hundred acres up to large holdings of as many thousand; and, as a rule, are cultivated by their non-resident owners, through a steward.[46]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXVI.

PLOUGHING WITH OXEN.

Page 221.]

Even in the case of rented land, the farmer seldom himself lives on his holding, but entrusts the management to an agent, while he resides in his town house. Neither landowner nor farmer live in the country.

This deep-rooted antipathy to a country-life is one of the many causes of the decrepitude of Spanish agriculture, among which may be specified the following:--

1.--The custom of absenteeism.

2.--The antiquated system of tillage.

3.--The absence of woods and plantations, the beneficial effects of which on climate and atmosphere are specially necessary in this hot, dry country. The comparatively small forest-areas are, in many parts, as previously stated, being rapidly reduced by the hatchet of the charcoal-burner.

4.--The neglect of irrigation. In wet winters, the low-lying lands are flooded, and the whole country is water-logged; in summer the reverse is the case--moisture is non-existent, every green thing is burnt up, yet no attempt is made to direct and conserve the rain-supplies, albeit the remains of the aqueducts and irrigation-works of Roman and Moor are ever present to suggest the silent lesson of former foresight and prosperity.

Of a total area of some forty-four and a half million acres under cultivation, _less than two_ millions are irrigated (_regadio_), leaving forty-two and a half million acres of "dry lands" (_secano_).

The following table forms an interesting commentary--to those who can endure statistics--on the state of agriculture in Spain. It shows the exact proportion of irrigated and non-irrigated land under each crop, &c. The figures represent "_fanegas_" which are, roughly, equivalent to acres.

Crop or Condition. Irrigated. Dry Lands.

(_Regadio._) (_Secano._)

Garden produce, vegetables, &c. 245,798 -- Fruit-trees 58,095 384,642 Corn and seeds 1,139,964 18,983,410 Vines 66,859 2,121,070 Olive-woods 76,538 1,181,386 Meadow 291,240 842,319 Salt-pans 29,174 -- Pasturage -- 3,963,538 Groves and marshy dells (_alamedas y sotos_) -- 130,570 Brushwood (_monte, alto y bajo_) -- 7,279,346 Winter grazings (_eriales con pastos_) -- 5,193,331 Threshing-grounds, &c. (_eras y canteras_) -- 48,277 Non-productive -- 2,452,239 __________ __________ Total 1,907,168 42,580,148

Oriental customs survive in the hiring of labour, both for field and vineyard. Men are not employed permanently--only "taken on" as occasion requires. A hiring-place is the feature of Spanish rural towns--the Plaza, or public square, usually serving the purpose. Here, at all hours, but notably at early morn and sunset, stand groups of swarthy labourers, waiting for hire, and contentedly smoking their cigarettes till some _capataz_, or foreman, comes to terms with them.

Corn and wine are cultivated by distinct cla.s.ses of labourers--those for the vineyard, superior workmen, gaining thrice the pay of the others. In the vineyards the men receive the equivalent of three francs a day, with oil and vinegar--important items in a hot country--while the corn-farmer only pays one franc, with bread and oil.

The only permanent hands at a vineyard are the capataz and his a.s.sistant, the duties of the latter being to bring bread from the town on his pannier-mule, and water from the best or nearest well in those cool earthen pitchers called _cantaros_. Water is almost as important as food. Among the poor it is the national drink--the quality produced by each well is known and often discussed. Andalucians are critical judges of water, cla.s.sing it as _mala_, bad, unwholesome; _gorda_, turbid or flavoured; _regular_, pretty good, and _agua rica_, the best of bright sparkling water. In praising his native hamlet, the first point with a Spanish peasant will be "_the water there is good_." Water, however, be it _gorda_ or _rica_, they must have; and wherever on glowing plain or calcined hill-side one sees a gang of labourers gently scratching the earth with tiny hoe, there also are sure to be lying those porous, amphora-shaped _cantaros_ full of water, ice-cold, albeit a tropical sun has for hours impinged vertically on their porous sides. Oh, how delicious a draught can be enjoyed from those rude, old-world vessels surely none but thirst-stricken labourer under Spanish summer sun--be he peasant or bustard-shooter--can ever fully realize!