Concerning Animals and Other Matters
[Illustration: Portrait of "EHA."] CONCERNING ANIMALS AND OTHER MATTERS BY E.H. AITKEN ("EHA") AUTHOR OF "FIVE WINDOWS OF THE SOUL," "TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER," ETC. WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR BY SURGEON-GENERAL W.B. BANNERMAN I.M.S., C.S.I. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J A. SHEPHERD AND A PORTRAIT LONDON 1914
sign of duplicity.
Valdez took ship on an English vessel. For myself, no sooner did I see
the cause of my beloved Spain wrecked in Andalusia, than I wrote to
the steward of my Sardinian estate to make arrangements for my escape.
Some hardy coral fishers were despatched to wait for me at a point on
the coast; and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, I
was already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who defy all law
and all avengers.
The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found once more the
shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen horse, in an estate
which comes to it from Saracens. How the eyes of these brigands--who
but yesterday had dreaded my authority--sparkled with savage joy and
pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's
vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez--the first who
had come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the
Moors. More than a score of rifles were ready to point at Ferdinand of
Bourbon, son of a race which was still unknown when the Abencerrages
arrived as conquerors on the banks of the Loire.
My idea had been to live on the income of these huge estates, which,
unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected; but my stay there
convinced me that this was impossible, and that Queverdo's reports
were only too correct. The poor man had twenty-two lives at my
disposal, and not a single _real_; prairies of twenty thousand acres,
[Illustration: Portrait of "EHA."] CONCERNING ANIMALS AND OTHER MATTERS BY E.H. AITKEN ("EHA") AUTHOR OF "FIVE WINDOWS OF THE SOUL," "TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER," ETC. WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR BY SURGEON-GENERAL W.B. BANNERMAN I.M.S., C.S.I. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J A. SHEPHERD AND A PORTRAIT LONDON 1914