January 1894.—Laguna Dulce; three cabrestos with Spanish fowlers, and two amateurs with big breech-loaders (a broadside of 5 barrels):—
198 teal (including about a dozen wigeon).
A shot made in January 1894 seems worth recording merely in respect of the numbers killed by only some seven ounces of lead. An islet actually carpeted with teal was our target, and two 12-bores, aided by an ancient Spanish muzzle-loader (about 10-bore), realised fifty head, to wit, forty-nine teal and one mallard-drake.
Geese will rarely admit of approach to the close quarters necessary for effective work; yet just on those rare exceptional occasions we have secured (using heavy shoulder-guns) from six to a dozen greylags in a day, once or twice more than this—five at a shot being the maximum.
The Stanchion-Gun in Spain
In contrast with the success of the cabresto system, the stancheon-gun proved a failure. So admirably adapted for punt-gunning appeared those great shallow marismas, that in 1888 we sent out the entire outfit and artillery for wildfowling afloat—a 22-foot double-handed gunning-punt and an 80-lb. gun to throw 16 oz. of shot.
The little craft reached the Guadalquivir in September, but unforeseen difficulties arose. The Spanish custom-house took alarm. True, the smart little gun-boat was an entire novelty—even in the Millwall docks she had created surprise; here she was incomprehensible. No such vessel had ever floated on Spanish waters, and the official mind needed time to consider. That oracle, after weeks of cogitation, ordered the removal of the suspicious craft from the obscure port of Bonanza to the fuller light that plays on the custom-house at Seville. There, after more weeks of delay, it was decided that the white-painted six-foot barrel was “an arm of war,” that “the combination of boat and gun savoured of the mechanism of war,” and, finally, that “the boat could not be permitted to pass the customs until it had been registered at the Admiralty.” Thus our Boadicea joined the Imperial Navy of Spain.
Seven months elapsed whilst these difficulties were in process of solution, and ere they were smoothed away (as difficulties in Spain, or elsewhere, do dissolve under prudent treatment), and the Boadicea set free to navigate the marismas, the season had passed and the migrant fowl had returned to the north.
The following autumn, however, it at once became apparent that the venture was a failure. No wildfowl would tolerate her presence within half-a-mile. No sooner had her low snake-like form crept clear of fringing covert than the broad lucio in front was in seething tumult, every duck within sight had sprung on wing. Naturally we tried every known plan, but all in vain. A system that is effective on the harassed and hard-shot estuaries of England utterly broke down on the desolate marismas of Spain. The apparent explanation is that whereas fowl at home are accustomed to see passing craft of many kinds, and perhaps mistake the low-lying gunboat for a larger vessel far away; here no craft of any sort navigate the marisma, or should the box-shape cajones of native gunners be so classed, they are at once recognised as wholly and solely hostile.[63]
One plan remained by which the big gun might be brought to bear upon the larger bodies of fowl: concealing the boat among sedges at some point where ducks had been observed to assemble within reach of such covert. That, however, to begin with, was most uncertain—the only certainty was that enormous drafts on patience would be required; and, after all, it forms no part of the system of wildfowling afloat and lacks the joys and glories of that pursuit.