Formerly the _Sapina_ possessed a commercial value, being used (owing to its alkaline qualities) in the manufacture of soap. Nowadays it is replaced by other chemicals.
Here and there, owing to some imperceptible gradient, the marisma is traversed by broad channels called _caños_, where, by reason of the water having a definite flow, the soil has become less saline. The _armajo_ at such spots becomes scarce or disappears altogether, its place being taken by quite different plants, namely: Spear-grass (_Cyperus_), _Candilejo_, _Bayunco_, the English names of which we do not know.
Efforts have been made from time to time to reclaim and utilise portions of the marisma by draining the water to the river; but failure has invariably resulted for the following reasons:
(2) That the marisma lies largely on a lower level than the river banks.
(3) The river being tidal, its water is salt or brackish.
There are vast areas of far better land in Spain which might be reclaimed with certainty and at infinitely less cost.
The only human inhabitants of the marisma are a few herdsmen whose reed-built huts are scattered on remote _vetas_. There are also the professional wildfowlers with their _cabresto_-ponies; but this class is disappearing as, bit by bit, the system of "preservation" extends over the wastes. Though the climate is healthy enough except for a period just preceding the autumn rains, yet our keepers and most of those who live here permanently are terrible sufferers from malaria. Quinine, they tell us, costs as much as bread in the family economy.
We quote the following impression from _Wild Spain_, p. 78:--
[Illustration: GUNNING-PUNT IN THE MARISMA.
(NOTE THE HALF-SUBMERGED SAMPHIRE-BUSHES.)]
[Illustration: WILD-GOOSE SHOOTING ON THE SANDHILLS.
(NOTE TIN DECOYS, ALSO SOME NATURAL GEESE.)]
The utter loneliness and desolation of the middle marismas call forth sensations one does not forget. Hour after hour one pushes forward across a flooded plain only to bring within view more and yet more vistas of watery waste and endless horizons of tawny water. On a low islet at farthest distance stand a herd of cattle--mere points in space; but these, too, partake of the general wildness and splash off at a gallop while yet a mile away. Even the wild-bred horses and ponies of the marisma revert to an aboriginal anthropophobia, and become as shy and timid as the _ferae naturae_ themselves. After long days in this monotony, wearied eyes at length rejoice at a vision of trees--a dark-green pine-grove casting grateful shade on scorching sands beneath. To that oasis we direct our course, but it proves a fraud, one of nature's cruel mockeries--a mirage. Not a tree grows on that spot, or within leagues of it, nor has done for ages--perhaps since time began.