Unexplored Spain Part 18

CHAPTER XV

SIERRA MOReNA (_Continued_)

RED DEER AND BOAR

The mountain deer of the Sierra Morena are the grandest of their kind in Spain, and will compare favourably with any truly wild deer in Europe.[27] The drawings, photographs, and measurements given in this chapter prove so much, but no mere numerals convey an adequate conception of these magnificent harts, as seen in the full glory of life bounding in unequal leaps over some rocky pa.s.s, or picking more deliberate course up a stone stairway.

Ma.s.sive as they are in body (weighing, say, 300 lbs. clean), yet even so the giant antlers appear almost disproportionate in length and superstructure.

The whole Sierra Morena being clad with brushwood and jungle, thicker in places, but nowhere clear, shooting is practically confined to "driving"

on that extensive scale termed, in Spanish phrase, _monteria_.

Before describing two or three typical experiences of our own in this sierra, we attempt a sketch of the system of the _monteria_ as practised throughout Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLF SHOT SIERRA MOReNA.

March, 1909--weight 93 lb.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUNTSMAN WITH CARACOLA, SIERRA MOReNA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PACK OF PODENCOS, SIERRA MOReNA. (COUPLED IN PAIRS.)]

The area of operations being immense and clad with almost continuous thicket, it is customary to employ two or three separate packs (termed _rehales_, or _recobas_), counting in all as many as seventy or eighty hounds. The extra packs--beyond that belonging to the host--are brought by shooting guests, and each pack has its own huntsman (_perrero_), whom alone his own hounds[28] will follow or recognise. The huntsmen (though not the beaters) are mounted, and each carries a musket and a _caracola_, or hunting-horn formed of a big sea-sh.e.l.l. The forelegs of the horses, where necessary--especially in Estremadura--are enveloped in leather sheaths (_fundas de cuero_) to protect them from the terrible thorns and the spikes of burnt cistus which pierce and cut like knives.

The best dogs are _podencos_ of the bigger breeds, also crosses between _podencos_ and mastiffs, and between mastiffs and _alanos_, the latter a race of rough-haired bull-dogs largely used in Estremadura for "holding-up" the boar.

The huntsmen with their packs, and the beaters, usually start with the dawn, sometimes long before, dependent on the distance to be traversed to their points, which may be ten or twelve miles. Till reaching the cast-off, hounds are coupled up in pairs: a collar fitted with a bell (_cencerro_) is then subst.i.tuted, and the alignment being completed--each pack at its appointed spot--at a given hour the beat begins.

On every occasion when a game-beast is raised a blank shot is fired to encourage the hounds, and the who-hoops of the huntsmen behind resound for miles around. Should the animal hold a forward course (as desired), the hounds are shortly recalled by the _caracolas_, or hunting-horns aforesaid, and the beat is then reformed and resumed.

Meanwhile--far away at remote posts prearranged--the firing-line (_armada_) has already occupied its allotted positions; the guns most often disposed along the crests of some commanding ridge, sometimes defiled in a narrow pa.s.s of the valley far below.

Should the number of guns be insufficient to command the whole front, the expedient of placing a second firing-line (termed the _traversa_), projected into the beat, and at a right angle from the centre of the first line, is sometimes effective.

It may occur to those accustomed to deal with mountain-game on a large scale that the chance of moving animals with any sort of accuracy towards a scant line of guns scattered over vast areas must be remote.

True, the number of guns--even ten or twelve--is necessarily insufficient, but here local knowledge and the skill of Spanish mountaineers (by nature among the best _guerrilleros_ on earth) comes effectively into play. In practice it is seldom that the best "pa.s.ses"

are not commanded.

In the higher ranges skylines are frequently pierced by nicks or "pa.s.ses" (termed _portillas_) sufficiently marked as to suggest, even to a stranger possessed of an eye for such things, the probable lines of retreat for moving game. But "pa.s.ses" are not always conspicuous, nor are all skylines of broken contour. On the contrary, there frequently present themselves long summits that to casual glance appear wholly uniform. Here comes to aid that local intuition referred to, nor will it be found lacking. Many a long hill-ridge apparently featureless may (and often does) include several well-frequented pa.s.ses. Some slight sense of disappointment may easily lurk in one's breast in surveying one's allotted post to perceive not a single sign of "advantage" within its radius--or "jurisdiction," as Spanish keepers quaintly put it. Yet it may be after all--and probably is--the apex of a congeries of converging watercourses, glens, or other accustomed _salidas_ (outlets), all of which are invisible in the unseen depths on one's front; but which salient points in cynegetic geography are perfectly appreciated by our guide.

The brushwood of Morena consists over vast areas--many hundreds of square miles--of the gum-cistus, a sticky-leaved shrub that grows shoulder-high on the stoniest ground. Wherever a slightly more generous soil permits, the cistus is interspersed and thickened with rhododendron, brooms, myrtle, and a hundred cognate plants. On the richer slopes and dells there crowd together a matted jungle of lentisk and arbutus, white buck-thorn and holly, all intertwined with vicious prehensile briar and woodbine, together with heaths, genista, giant ferns, and gorse of a score of species. Watercourses are overarched by oleanders, and the chief trees are cork-oak and ilex, wild-olive, juniper, and alder, besides others of which we only know the Spanish names, quejigos, algarrobas, agracejis, etc.

Naturally, in such rugged broken ground as the sierras, where the guns are protected by intervening heights, shooting is permissible in any direction, whether in front or behind, and even sometimes along the line itself. A survival of savage days, when beaters didn't count, is suggested by a refrain of the sierra:--

Mas vale matar un Cristiano Que no dejar ir una res--

(Rather should a Christian die Than let a head of game pa.s.s by.)

A word here as to the game and its habits. The lairs of wild-boar are invariably in the densest jangle and on the shaded slope where no sun ever penetrates. There is always at hand, moreover, a ready _salida_, or exit, along some deep watercourse or by a rocky ravine or gully--rarely do these animals show up in the open, or even in ground of scanty covert. It is usually the strongest arbutus-thickets (_madronales_) that they select for their quarters.

It is seldom that wild-boar are "held-up" by the dogs during a beat--the old tuskers never.

Deer, on the contrary, avoid the denser jungle, lying-up in more open brushwood and invariably on the sunny slope. Though their "beds"

(_camas_) may be on the lower ground, they invariably seek the heights when disturbed, and then select a course through the lighter cistus-scrub or across open screes, knowing instinctively that thus they can travel fastest and best throw off the pursuing pack.

Owing to the wide areas of each beat, a _monteria_ in the sierras is confined to a single drive each day, the guns usually reaching their posts about eleven o'clock, and remaining therein till late in the afternoon. In the lowlands, as already described, four, five, and even six _batidas_ (drives) are sometimes possible during the day.

A _MONTERiA_ AT MEZQUITILLAS (PROVINCE OF CoRDOBA)

A glorious ride amid splendid mountain scenery all lit up with southern suns.h.i.+ne--the narrow bridle-track now forms a mere tunnel hewn out of impending foliage; anon it descends abrupt rock-faces, in zigzags like a corkscrew, apt to make nerves creep, when one false step would precipitate horse and rider into a half-seen torrent hundreds of feet below. Some eight miles of this, and by eleven o'clock we have reached our positions at Los Llanos del Peco.

These positions extend for over a league in length (there are twelve guns), occupying the crests and "pa.s.ses" of a lofty ridge whence one enjoys a bird's-eye view of a world of wild mountain-land.

My own post commanded a panorama of almost the whole day's operation, excepting only that on my immediate front there yawned a deep ravine (_canada_) into the full depth of which I could not see.

Already within a few minutes one had become aware, by a far-distant shot, and by the echoing note of the bugle faintly borne on a gentle northerly breeze, that the beat had begun. At dawn that morning the four huntsmen, each with his pack, had left the lodge, and are now encircling some seven or eight miles of covert on our front, two-thirds of which lay beneath my gaze.

For five hours I occupied that _puesto_ sitting between convenient rocks, and hardly a measurable spell of the five hours but I was held alert, either by the actual sight of game afoot--far distant, it is true--or by the shots and bugle-calls of the hunters and the music of their packs--all signs of game on the move.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It is instructive, though rarely possible, watch wild game thus, when danger threatens, and to observe the wiles by which they seek escape--doubling back on their own tracks till nearly face to face with the baying _podencos_, and then, by a smart flank-movement, skirting round behind the pack, till actually between the latter and the following huntsmen; then lying flat, awaiting till perchance the latter has gone by! That is our stag's plan--bold and comprehensive--yet it fails when that huntsman, biding his time, perceives that his pack have overrun the scent and recalls them to make quite sure of that intervening bit of bush--poor staggie! Rarely indeed, even in mountain-lands, do such chances of watching the whole play (and bye-play) occur as those we enjoyed to-day on the Llanos del Peco. Shots are apt to be quite difficult, as all bushes and many trees are in full leaf (January) and the _rayas_, or rides cut out along the shooting-line, barely twenty yards broad. To-day, moreover, the wind s.h.i.+fting from north to east operated greatly to our disadvantage--practically, in effect, ruined the plan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD-BOAR--WEIGHT 200 LBS., CLEAN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RECORD HEAD--43 INCHES--LUGAR NUEVO, NOV. 14, 1909.

SIERRA MOReNA.]

The first stag that came my way had already touched the tainted breeze ere I saw him--being slightly deaf (the effects of quinine) I had not heard his approach. Instantly he crossed the _raya_, 100 yards away, in two enormous bounds. There was just time to see glorious antlers with many-forked tops ere he dived from sight, plunging into ten-foot scrub.

I had fired both barrels, necessarily with but an apology for an aim and the second purely "at a venture." Three minutes later resounded the tinkling _cencerros_ (bells) of the _podencos_, and when two of these hounds had followed the spoor ahead, all _mute_, then I knew that both bullets had spent their force on useless scrub.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE]

Fortune favoured. Half an hour afterwards, a second stag followed. This time a gentle rustle in the bush, and one clink of a hoof on rock had caught my faulty ear. Then coroneted antlers showed up from the depths below, and so soon as the great brown body came in view, a bullet on the shoulder at short range dropped him dead. This was an average stag, weighing 255 lbs. clean, but although "royal," carried a smaller head than that first seen. Later, two other big stags descended together into the unseen depths on my front, but whither they subsequently took their course--_quien sabe?_ I saw them no more.

The only other animal that crossed my line during the day was a mongoose, but objects of interest never lacked. Close behind my post, a huge stick-built nest filled a small ilex. This was the ancestral abode of a pair of griffons, and its owners were already busy renewing their home, though my presence sadly disconcerted them. Hereabouts these vultures breed regularly _on trees_, a most unusual habit, due presumably to the lack of suitable crags which elsewhere form their invariable nesting-site. Cushats and robins lent an air of familiarity to the scene, while azure-winged magpies--a species peculiarly Spanish--hopped and chattered hard by, curiosity overcoming fear. There were also pretty Sardinian warblers, with long tails and a white nuchal spot like a coal-t.i.t. Other birds seen in this sierra include merlin and kestrel, green woodp.e.c.k.e.r, jay, blackbird, thrush, redwing, woodlark, and chaffinch; and on off-days we shot a few red-legged partridges.

The two packs employed to-day numbered forty--twenty-four big and sixteen small _podencos_, all yellow and white, the larger having a cross of mastiff. That evening two of the best in the pack were missing--"Capitan," killed by a boar in the _mancha_; the other returned during the night, fearfully wounded, one foreleg almost severed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SARDINIAN WARBLER]

The head-keeper told us that these _podencos_ fear the he-wolf. They will run keenly on his scent, but never dare to close with him as they do with boar. Yet curiously they have been known to fraternise with the she-wolf, and in no case will they attack, but rather incline to caress her.

It was estimated by the drivers that eighty head of big-game (_reses_) were viewed to-day. Thirty-two shots were fired, but only my one stag was killed. Had the wind held steady, much better results were probable.[29] Included among the guests at Mezquitillas--and they represented rank and learning, arms, State, and Church--was a genial and imposing personality in the poet laureate of Spain, Sr. D. Antonio Cavestany, who celebrated this delightful if somewhat unlucky day in a series of graceful couplets. We are wholly unequal to translate, but copy two or three which readers who understand Spanish will appreciate:--