For some time their numbers have been decreasing, and we no longer see great troops of them as we used to do eighteen years ago. The cause of their diminution is certainly the bitter war waged against them by poachers. The parts of the marisma frequented by the wild camels lie between the Coto del Rey on the north, the Coto Doñana on the west, and the Guadalquivir on the south-east. The long deep channels of La Madre, however, interfere with their reaching the Coto Doñana, and they chiefly graze in the marismas of Hinojos and Almonte. The plan pursued by the poachers is as follows:--Coming down from some of the little villages, they cross the river in small flat-bottomed boats in which they can creep along the shores to points where they have seen either the spoor or the animals themselves during the day. Then drawing near to the camels, under cover of the waning light, they are able to kill one or sometimes two, which they skin and disembowel on the spot. The flesh is cut up into pieces, sewn up in the skin, and, on returning to the riverbank, secreted beneath the flat bottom-boards of the boat, thereby evading detection by Civil Guards and douaniers. The men then sail down the river and sell the meat at San Lucar as venison. When in the marisma in 1892 I met one day a troop of forty animals--some old males, their huge bodies covered with thick hair like blankets; there were also females followed by their young--fantastic of appearance, owing to the disproportionate length of their legs, but galloping and frisking around their mothers as they had done since birth. Next day my companion and I took lassoes; we encountered a huge old male, singly, which trotted and galloped round our horses, terrifying the poor beasts to such an extent that we could not come near the camel. At length after a fifty-minutes' chase, in crossing a part where the mud was soft and the surface much broken up by cattle coming to drink, we overtook him. Thanks to my horse having less fear than the other, I was presently able to throw a lasso around the camel, my companion hauling taut the rope to hold the prisoner fast. The great brute proved very active, defending himself with his immense flat feet, which he used as clubs, and, moreover, he bit, and the bite of a camel is venomous. Ultimately I succeeded in getting a second rope around him and dragging him to the ground, where he lay like the domestic camel. The photographs illustrate this episode.