While lunching, our goat-herd guide was pointing out rock-crannies where wolves, from lack of brushwood, used to lie up by day, and complaining that he could not keep poultry by reason of the marten-cats. Suddenly he broke out in shrill and altered tones: "Tell me, Caballero," he exclaimed, "tell me _why_ you come here from lands afar to suffer discomfort and hardship and to undergo all these labours--why do you do this?" We endeavoured to explain. "You see, Gregorio, that God created all manner of animals different one from another. So also He created mankind in many different races--all brothers, yet differing as brothers do. You Spanish belong to the Latin race. You have many fine qualities, some of which we lack. But you rather concern yourselves with material things and disregard platonic study. We of British race are imbued with desire to learn all that can be traced of Nature and her ways. Some examine the earth itself, its formations and transformations; others the birds or the beasts. There are those who devote their lives to studying the beetles and ants, even the mosquitoes. Now in Spain you find none who are interested in such matters." Gregorio sat silent and seemed impressed; but Caraballo interjected: "Why waste time? These people are not concerned (_entrometidos_) in such matters." True; but Gregorio had appeared interested and intelligent? "Si! but when folk spent lonely lives among the mountains and never see but a petty hill-village once or twice a year, then intelligence goes to sleep (_se pone dormido_)." Certainly five minutes later they were both hammering away again at the customary small-talk of the by-ways. [Illustration: TYPES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE SPANISH SPARROW (_Passer hispaniolensis_ [_sic_], Temm.) A bird of the wild woods, never seen in towns; builds in foundations of kites' and eagles' nests. Note that Temminck's Latin seems a bit "rocky." The specific name might be _hispanicus_, or perhaps _hispaniensis_, but _hispaniolensis_ never. That adjective must date from a newer era and from a world then unknown.] CHAPTER XXXII VALENCIA TWO NOTABLE WILDFOWL RESORTS (1) THE ALBUFERA For centuries this marine lagoon--the largest sheet of water in Spain--has, along with the forests and wastes that formerly adjoined it, been a stronghold of wild animal-life. As early as the thirteenth century King James I., after wresting the Kingdom of Valencia from the Moors, and dividing its castles and estates among his nobles and generals, selected, with shrewd appreciation, the Albufera for his personal share of the spoils of war. For not only did the great lake with its wild appanages form a truly regal hunting-domain, but the broad lands intervening between the Grao of Valencia, Cullera, and the lake-shores possessed a fabled fertility.