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 _montería_ 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 _MONTERÍA_ AT MEZQUITILLAS (PROVINCE OF CÓRDOBA) A glorious ride amid splendid mountain scenery all lit up with southern sunshine--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 "passes" 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 (_cañada_) 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. [Illustration]