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 _caños_, 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 pass 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 passed 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-grass with their powerful bills.