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, pass 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 (_nuclés_) 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.
[Illustration: 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 identity, 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.