Lying about seven miles south-east of Valencia, the lake has a water-area some fourteen miles long by six or seven wide, its circumference being over nine leagues. On the south, it is shut off from the Mediterranean by a strip of pine-clad dunes—the deep green foliage broken in pleasing contrast by intervals of bare sand, forming splashes of gold amidst dark verdure. On all other sides the limits of the lake are marked by yellow reeds which fringe its shores.
Its waters, dotted with the white sails of faluchos, present the appearance of a small sea, a resemblance which is accentuated in stormy weather by the height of the waves.
The lake connects by canals with various adjacent villages; while two canals (Perillo and Perillonet) communicate with the sea, though their mouths are blocked by locks. These locks are closed each year from November 1 till January 1—thereby retaining the whole of the river-waters from inland, in order to raise the interior water-level and so flood the surrounding rice-fields.
This artificial inundation—by disseminating alluvial matter brought down by autumnal rains over the adjacent lands—has greatly extended the area of rice-cultivation, and, of course, equally reduced the original water-surface. The result has been, nevertheless, immensely to augment the enormous numbers of wildfowl which had always made the Albufera their winter home; for no food is so attractive to ducks as rice, while, despite its reduction, the water-area is yet ample.
During the direct tenure of the Crown, all taking of fish or fowl was carried on subject to the regulations of successive kings and their administrators. Ancient methods of fowling, however quaint, do not concern us as natural historians; but two methods described in multitudinous records throw light on altered conditions and sharpened instincts. The first was to “push” the fowl by a line of boats towards sportsmen in concealed posts among reeds, the ducks either swimming complacently forward or breaking back over the encircling flotilla, when, in each case, large numbers were killed with crossbows. To celebrate the nuptials of Phillip III., no less than 300 boats were thus employed. The second plan involved persuading hosts of quietly paddling ducks to swim forward into reed-beds through which winding channels had been cut, and over which nets were spread.
Needless to add, neither method would nowadays serve to outwit twentieth-century wildfowl.
By the beginning of last century (about 1830), owing to the destruction of forests and reclamation of land for grazing or rice-cultivation, the bigger game had already disappeared; but the flights of winter wildfowl actually increased in proportion to the extended area of rice.
The Albufera continued to be the property of the Crown of Spain from 1250 till May 12, 1865, when the Cortes decreed, and Queen Isabella II. confirmed, its transference to the State.
At the present day the shooting on Albufera is conducted on purely commercial and up-to-date principles. The whole area is mapped out into sections like a chessboard, and each considerable gun-post (or replaza, as it is called) is sold by auction.
These specially selected replazas number thirty, and are sold for the entire season, the prices varying from £150 for No. 1 down to about £6 for No. 30.