The line of least resistance represents twentieth-century ideals--maximum results for the minimum of labour or technical skill. In the field of sport, wherever available, universal "driving" supersedes the arts of earlier venery--the pride of past generations.
In Spain, more leisurely while no less dignified, there survive in sport, as in other matters, practices more consonant with the dash and chivalry popularly ascribed to her national character. Such, for example, is the attack, single-handed, on bear or boar with cold steel--_á arma blanca_, in Castilian phrase. Here we purpose describing the system of "Still-hunting" (_Rastreando_) as practised in Andalucia with a skill that equals the best of the American "Red Indian," and is only surpassed, within our experience, by Somalis and Wandorobo savages in East Africa.
Before day-dawn we are away with our two trackers. Maybe it is a lucky morning, and as the first streaks of light illumine the wastes, they reveal to our gaze a first-rate stag. In that case the venture is vastly simplified. It is merely necessary to allow time for the stag to reach his lie-up, and the spoor can be followed at once. But barring such exceptional fortune, it is necessary to find, or rather to select from amidst infinity of tracks crossing and recrossing hither and thither in bewildering profusion the trail of such a master-beast as clearly is worthy the labour of a long day's pursuit. Twice and again we follow a spoor for 100 yards or more over difficult ground before finally deciding that its owner is not up to our standard of quality, and the interrupted search is resumed. Once found, there is rarely room for mistake with a really big spoor. The breadth of heel, the length and deep-cut prints of the cloven toes attest both weight and quality. The ground is open, soft, and easy. The big new track, with its spurts of forward-projected sand, are visible yards ahead. We follow almost at a run--how simple it seems! But not for long. Soon comes check No. 1. A dozen other deer have followed on the same line, and the original trail is obliterated. The troop leads on into a region of boundless bush, shoulder-high, where the ground is harder and the trackers spread out to right and left, backing each other with silent signals. Their skill and patience fascinate; but it is to me, in the centre, that after a long hour's scrutiny, falls the satisfaction of rediscovering that big track where it diverges alone on the left. Half a mile beyond, our erratic friend has passed through water. For a space a broken reed here or displaced lilies there help us forward; then the deepening water, all open, bears no trace. The opposite shore, moreover, is fringed by a 200-yard belt of bulrush and ten-foot canes, and beyond all that lies heavy jungle.