Gatherings From Spain Part 19

[Sidenote: A QUESTION OF DAYS.]

To return, however, to sight-seeing in Spain. Lucky was the traveller prepared even to bribe and pay, who ever in our time chanced to fall in with a librarian who knew what books he had, or with a priest who could tell what pictures were in his chapel; ask him for _the_ painting by Murillo--a shoulder-shrug was his reply, or a curt "_no hay_," "there is none;" had you inquired for the "blessed Saint Thomas," then he might have pointed it out; the _subject_, not the artist, being all that was required for the service of the church. An incurious bliss of ignorance is no less grateful to the Spanish mind, than the _dolce far niente_ or sweet indolent doing nothing is to the body. All that gives trouble, or "fashes," destroys the supreme height of felicity, which consists in avoiding exertion. A chapter might be filled with instances, which, had they not occurred to our humble selves, would seem caricature inventions. The not to be able to answer the commonest question, or to give any information as to matters of the most ordinary daily occurrence, is so prevalent, that we at first thought it must proceed from some fear of committal, some remnant of inquisitorial engendered reserve, rather than from bona fide careless and contented ignorance.

The result, however, of much intercourse and experience arrived at, was, that few people are more communicative than the lower cla.s.ses of Spaniards, especially to an Englishman, to whom they reveal private and family secrets: their want of knowledge applies rather to things than to persons.

[Sidenote: UNCERTAINTY OF SPANISH THINGS.]

If you called on a Spanish gentleman, and, finding him out, wished afterwards to write him a note, and inquired of his man or maid servant the number of the house;--"I do not know, my lord," was the invariable answer, "I never was asked it before, I have never looked for it: let us go out and see. Ah! it is number 36." Wis.h.i.+ng once to send a parcel by the wagon from Merida to Madrid, "On what day, my lord," said I to the potbellied, black-whiskered _ventero_, "does your _galera_ start for the Court?" "Every Wednesday," answered he; "and let not your grace be anxious"--"_Disparate_--nonsense," exclaimed his copper-skinned, bright-eyed wife, "why do you tell the English knight such lies? the wagon, my lord, sets out on Fridays." During the logomachy, or the few words which ensued between the well-matched pair, our good luck willed, that the _mayoral_ or driver of the vehicle should come in, who forthwith informed us that the days of departure were Thursdays; and he was right. This occurred in the provinces; take, therefore, a parallel pa.s.sage in the capital, the heart and brain of the Castiles. "_Senor, tenga Usted la bondad_--My lord," said I to a portly, pompous bureaucrat, who booked places in the dilly to Toledo,--"have the goodness, your grace, to secure me one for Monday, the 7th."--"I fear,"

replied he, politely, for the _negocio_ had been prudently opened by my offering him a real Havannah, "that your lords.h.i.+p has made a mistake in the date. Monday is the 8th of the current month"--which it was not.

Thinking to settle the matter, we handed to him, with a bow, the almanack of the year, which chanced to be in our pocket-book. "_Senor_,"

said he, gravely, when he had duly examined it, "I knew that I was right; this one was printed at Seville,"--which it was--"and we are here at Madrid, which is _otra cosa_, that is, altogether another affair." In this solar difference and pre-eminence of the Court, it must be remembered, that the sun, at its creation, first shone over the neighbouring city, to which the dilly ran; and that even in the last century, it was held to be heresy at Salamanca, to say that it did not move round Spain. In sad truth, it has there stood still longer than in astronomical lectures or metaphors. Spain is no paradise for calculators; here, what ought to happen, and what would happen elsewhere according to c.o.c.ker and the doctrine probabilities, is exactly the event which is the least likely to come to pa.s.s. One arithmetical fact only can be reckoned upon with tolerable certainty: let given events be represented by numbers; then two and two may at one time make three, or possibly five at another; but the odds are four to one against two and two ever making four; another safe rule in Spanish official numbers; _e.

g._ "five thousand men killed and wounded"--"five thousand dollars will be given," and so forth, is to deduct two noughts, and sometimes even three, and read fifty or five instead.

[Sidenote: CERTAINTY OF BULL-FIGHTS.]

Well might even the keen-sighted, practical Duke say it is difficult to understand the Spaniards exactly; there neither men nor women, suns nor clocks go together; there, as in a Dutch concert, all choose their own tune and time, each performer in the orchestra endeavouring to play the first fiddle. All this is so much a matter of course, that the natives, like the Irish, make a joke of petty mistakes, blunders, unpunctualities, inconsequences, and pococurantisms, at which accurate Germans and British men of business are driven frantic. Made up of contradictions, and dwelling in the _pays de l'imprevu_, where exception is the rule, where accident and the impulse of the moment are the moving powers, the happy-go-lucky natives, especially in their collective capacity, act like women and children. A spark, a trifle, sets the impressionable ma.s.ses in action, and none can foresee the commonest event; nor does any Spaniard ever attempt to guess beyond _la situacion actual_, the actual present, or to foretell what the morrow will bring; that he leaves to the foreigner, who does not understand him.

_Paciencia y barajar_ is his motto; and he waits _patiently_ to see what next will turn up after another _shuffle_.

There is one thing, however, which all know exactly, one question which all can answer; and providentially this refers to the grand object of every foreigner's observation--"When will the bull-fight be and begin?"

and this holds good, notwithstanding that there is a proviso inserted in the notices, that it will come off on such a day and hour, "if the weather permits." Thus, although these spectacles take place in summer, when for months and months rain and clouds are matters of history, the cautious authorities doubt the blessed sun himself, and mistrust the certainty of his proceedings, as much as if they were ir-regulated by a Castilian clockmaker.

[Sidenote: THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT.]

CHAPTER XXI.

Origin of the Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious Character--Fiestas Reales--Royal Feasts--Charles I. at one--Discontinuance of the Old System--Sham Bull-fights--Plaza de Toros--Slang Language--Spanish Bulls--Breeds--The Going to a Bull-fight.

Our honest John Bulls have long been more partial to their Spanish namesakes, than even to those perpetrated by the Pope, or made in the Emerald Isle; to see a bull-fight has been the emphatic object of enlightened curiosity, since Peninsular sketches have been taken and published by our travellers. No sooner had Charles the First, when prince, lost his heart at Madrid, than his royal father-in-law-that-was-to-be, regaled him and the fair inspirer of his tender pa.s.sion, with one of these charming spectacles; an event which, as many men and animals were butchered, was thought by the historiographers of the day to be one that posterity would not willingly let die; their contemporary accounts will ever form the gems of every tauromachian library that aspires to be complete.

[Sidenote: BULL FESTIVALS.]

These sports, which recall the b.l.o.o.d.y games of the Roman amphitheatre, are now only to be seen in Spain, where the present clashes with the past, where at every moment we stumble on some bone and relic of Biblical and Roman antiquity; the close parallels, nay the ident.i.ties, which are observable between these combats and those of cla.s.sical ages, both as regards the spectators and actors, are omitted, as being more interesting to the scholar than to the general reader; they were pointed out by us some years ago in the Quarterly Review, No. cxxiv. And as human nature changes not, men when placed in given and similar circ.u.mstances, will without any previous knowledge or intercommunication arrive at nearly similar results; the gentle pastime of spearing and killing bulls in public and single-handed was probably devised by the Moors, or rather by the Spanish Moors, for nothing of the kind has ever obtained in Africa either now or heretofore. The Moslem Arab, when transplanted into a Christian and European land, modified himself in many respects to the ways and usages of the people among whom he settled, just as his Oriental element was widely introduced among his Gotho-Hispano neighbours. Moorish Andalucia is still the head-quarters of the tauromachian art, and those who wish carefully to master this, the science of Spain _par excellence_, should commence their studies in the school of Ronda, and proceed thence to take the highest honours in the University of Seville, the Bullford of the Peninsula.

[Sidenote: FIESTAS REALES.]

By the way, our boxing, baiting term bull-_fight_ is a very lay and low translation of the time-honoured Castilian t.i.tle, _Fiestas de Toros_, the feasts, festivals of bulls. The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of antiquity were conciliated by the sacrifice of hecatombs; the lowing tickled their divine ears, and the purple blood fed their eyes, no less than the roasted sirloins fattened the priests, while the grand spectacle and death delighted their dinnerless congregations. In Spain, the Church of Rome, never indifferent to its interests, instantly marshalled into its own service a ceremonial at once profitable and popular;[13] it consecrated butchery by wedding it to the altar, availing itself of this gentle handmaid, to obtain funds in order to raise convents; even in the last century Papal bulls were granted to mendicant orders, authorising them to celebrate a certain number of _Fiestas de Toros_, on condition of devoting the profit to finis.h.i.+ng their church; and in order to swell the receipts at the doors, spiritual indulgences and soul releases from purgatory, the number of years being apportioned to the relative prices of the seats, were added as a bonus to all paid for places at a spectacle hallowed by a pious object. So at the _taurobolia_ of antiquity, those who were sprinkled with bull blood were absolved from sin. Protestant ministers, who very properly fear and distrust papal bulls, replace them by bazaars and fancy fairs, whenever a fas.h.i.+onable chapel requires a new blue slate roofing. Again, when not devoted to religious purposes, every bull-fight aids the cause of charity; the profits form the chief income of the public hospitals, and thus furnish both funds and patients, as the venous circulation of the mob thirsting for gore, rises to blood heat under a sun of fire, and the subsequent mingling of s.e.xes, opening of bottles and knives, occasion more deaths among the lords and ladies of the Spanish creation, than among the horned and hoofed victims of the amphitheatre.

It is a common but very great mistake, to suppose that bull-fights are as numerous in Spain as bandits; it is just the contrary, for this may there be considered the tip-top aesthetic treat, as the Italian Opera is in England, and both are rather expensive amus.e.m.e.nts; true it is that with us, only the salt of the earth patronises the performers of the Haymarket, while high and low, vulgar and exquisite, alike delight in those of the Spanish fields. Each bull-fight costs from 200_l._ to 300_l._, and even more when got up out of Andalucia or Madrid, which alone can afford to support a standing company; in other cities the actors and animals have to be sent for express, and from great distances. Hence the representations occur like angels' visits, few and far between; they are reserved for the chief festivals of the church and crown, for the unfeigned devotion of the faithful on the holy days of local saints, and the Virgin; they are also given at the marriages and coronations of the sovereign, and thence are called Fiestas _reales_, _Royal_ festivals--the ceremonial being then deprived of its religious character, although it is much increased in worldly and imposing importance. The sight is indeed one of surpa.s.sing pomp, etiquette, and magnificence, and has succeeded to the _Auto de Fe_, in offering to the most Catholic Queen and her subjects the greatest possible means of tasting rapture, that the limited powers of mortal enjoyment can experience in this world of shadows and sorrows.

[Sidenote: AN INVOLUNTARY CHAMPION.]

They are only given at Madrid, and then are conducted entirely after the ancient Spanish and Moorish customs, of which such splendid descriptions remain in the ballad romances. They take place in the great square of the capital, which is then converted into an arena. The windows of the quaint and lofty houses are arranged as boxes, and hung with velvets and silks. The royal family is seated under a canopy of state in the balcony of the central mansion. There we beheld Ferdinand VII. presiding at the solemn swearing of allegiance to his daughter. He was then seated where Charles I. had sat two centuries before; he was guarded by the unchanged halberdiers, and was witnessing the unchanged spectacle. On these royal occasions the bulls are a.s.sailed by gentlemen, dressed and armed as in good old Spanish times, before the fatal Bourbon accession obliterated Castilian costume, customs, and nationality. The champions, clad in the fas.h.i.+ons of the Philips, and mounted on beauteous barbs, the minions of their race, attack the fierce animal with only a short spear, the immemorial weapon of the Iberian. The combatants must be hidalgos by birth, and have each for a _padrino_, or G.o.d-father, a first-rate grandee of Spain, who pa.s.ses before royalty in a splendid equipage and six, and is attended by bands of running footmen, who are arrayed either as Greeks, Romans, Moors, or fancy characters. It is not easy to obtain these _caballeros en plaza_, or poor knights, who are willing to expose their lives to the imminent dangers, albeit during the fight they have the benefit of experienced _toreros_ to advise their actions and cover their retreats.

In 1833 a gentle dame, without the privity of her lord and husband, inscribed his name as one of the champion volunteers. In procuring him this agreeable surprise, she, so it was said in Madrid, argued thus: "Either _mi marido_ will be killed--in that case I shall get a new husband; or he will survive, in which event he will get a pension." She failed in both of these admirable calculations--such is the uncertainty of human events. The terror of this poor _heros malgre lui_, on whom chivalry had been thrust, was absolutely ludicrous when exposed by his well-intentioned better-half, to the horns of this dilemma and bull. Any other horns, my dearest, but these! He was wounded at the first rush, did survive, and did not get a pension; for Ferdinand died soon after, and few pensions have been paid in the Peninsula, since the land has been blessed with a _charte_, const.i.tution, liberty, and a representative government.

[Sidenote: CHARLES I. AT A BULL-FIGHT.]

One anecdote, where another lady is in the case, may be new to our fair readers. We quote from an ancient authentic chronicler:--"It will not be amiss here to mention what fell out in the presence of Charles the First of Blessed Memory, who, while Prince of Wales, repaired to the court of Spain, whether to be married to the Infanta, or upon what other design, I cannot well determine: however, all comedies, playes, and festivals (this of the bulls at Madrid being included), were appointed to be as decently and magnificently gone about as possible, for the more sumptuous and stately entertainment of such a splendid prince.

Therefore, after three bulls had been killed, and the fourth a coming forth, there appeared four gentlemen in good equipage; not long after, a brisk lady, in most gorgeous apparel, attended with persons of quality, and some three or four grooms, walked all along the square a-foot.

Astonishment seized upon the beholders, that one of the female s.e.x could a.s.sume the unheard boldness of exposing herself to the violence of the most furious beast yet seen, which had overcome, yea almost killed, two men of great strength, courage, and dexterity. Incontinently the bull rushed towards the corner where the lady and her attendants stood; she (after all had fled) drew forth her dagger very unconcernedly, and thrust it most dexterously into the bull's neck, having catched hold of his horn; by which stroak, without any more trouble, her design was brought to perfection; after which, turning about towards the king's balcony, she made her obeysance, and withdrew herself in suitable state and gravity."

At the _jura_ of 1833 ninety-nine bulls were ma.s.sacred; had one more been added the hecatomb would have been complete. These wholesale slaughterings have this year been repeated at the marriage of the same "_innocent_" Isabel, the critical events of whose life are death-warrants to quadrupeds. Bulls, however, represent in Spain the coronation banquets of England. In that hungry, ascetic land, bulls have always been killed, but no beef eaten; a remarkable fact, which did not escape the learned Justin in his remarks on the no-dinner-giving crowned heads of old Iberia.

These genuine ancient bull-fights were perilous and fatal in the extreme, yet knights were never wanting--valour being the point of honour--who readily exposed their lives in sight of their cruel mistresses. To kill the monster if not killed by him, was, before the time of Hudibras, the sure road to women's love, who very properly admire those qualities the best, in which they feel themselves to be the most deficient:--

[Sidenote: RUIN OF OLD BULL-FIGHT.]

"The ladies' hearts began to melt, Subdued by blows their lovers felt; So Spanish heroes, with their lances, At once wound bulls and ladies' fancies."

The final conquest of the Moors, and the subsequent cessation of the border chivalrous habits of Spaniards, occasioned these love-pastimes to fall into comparative disuse. The gentle Isabella was so shocked at the bull-fights which she saw at Medina del Campo, that she did her utmost to put them down; but she strove in vain, for the game and monarchy were destined to fall together. The accession of Philip V. deluged the Peninsula with Frenchmen. The puppies of Paris p.r.o.nounced the Spaniards and their bulls to be barbarous and brutal, as their _artistes_ to this day prefer the _buf gras_ of the Boulevards to whole flocks of Iberian lean kine. The spectacle which had withstood her influence, and had beat the bulls of Popes, bowed before the despotism of fas.h.i.+on. The periwigged courtiers deserted the arena, on which the royal Bourbon eye looked coldly, while the st.u.r.dy people, foes--then as now--to Frenchmen and innovations, clung closer to the sports of their forefathers. Yet a fatal blow was dealt to the combat: the art, once practised by knights, degenerated into the vulgar butchery of mercenary bull-fighters, who contended not for honour, but base lucre; thus, by becoming the game of the mob, it was soon stripped of every gentlemanlike prestige. So the tournament challenges of our chivalrous ancestors have sunk down to the vulgar boxings of ruffian pugilists.

[Sidenote: CRAVING FOR BULLS AND BREAD.]

Baiting a bull in any shape is irresistible to the lower orders of Spain, who disregard injuries to the bodies, and, what is worse, to their cloaks. The hostility to the horned beast is instinctive, and grows with their growth, until it becomes, as men are but children of a larger growth, a second nature. The young urchins in the streets play at "_toro_," as ours do at leap-frog; they go through the whole mimic spectacle amongst each other, observing every law and rule, as our schoolboys do when they fight. Few adult Spaniards, when journeying through the country, ever pa.s.s a herd of cows without this dormant propensity breaking out; they provoke the animals to fight by waving their cloaks or _capas_, a challenge hence called _el capeo_. The villagers, who cannot afford the expense of a regular bull-fight, amuse themselves with baiting _novillos_, or bull-youngsters--calves of one year old; and _embolados_, or bulls whose horns are guarded with tips and b.u.t.tons. These innocent pastimes are despised by the regular _aficion_, the "fancy;" because, as neither man nor beast are exposed to be killed, the whole affair is based in fiction, and impotent in conclusion. They cry out for Toros de _muerte_--bulls of _death_.

Nothing short of the reality of blood can allay their excitement. They despise the makes.h.i.+ft spectacle, as much as a true gastronome does mock-turtle, or an old campaigner a sham fight.

[Sidenote: THE PLAZA DE TOROS.]

In the wilder districts of Andalucia few cattle are ever brought into towns for slaughter, unless led by long ropes, and partially baited by those whose poverty prevents their indulgence in the luxury of real bull-fights and beef. The governor of Tarifa was wont on certain days to let a bull loose into the streets, when the delight of the inhabitants was to shut their doors, and behold from their grated windows the perplexities of the unwary or strangers, pursued by him in the narrow lanes without means of escape. Although many lives were lost, a governor in our time, named Dalmau, otherwise a public benefactor to the place, lost all his popularity in the vain attempt to put the custom down. When the Bourbon Philip V. first visited the _placa_ at Madrid, all the populace roared, _Bulls! give us bulls, my lord_. They cared little for the ruin of the monarchy; so when the intrusive Joseph Buonaparte arrived at the same place, the only and absorbing topic of public talk was whether he would grant or suppress the bull-fight. And now, as always, the cry of the capital is--"_Pan y toros_; bread and bulls:"

these const.i.tute the loaves and fishes of the "only modern court," as _Panes et Circenses_ did of ancient Rome. The national scowl and frown which welcomed Montpensier at his marriage, was relaxed for one moment, when Spaniards beheld his well-put-on admiration for the tauromachian spectacle. Nothing, since the recent vast improvements in Spain, has more progressed than the bull-fight--convents have come down, churches have been levelled, but new amphitheatres have arisen. The diffusion of useful and entertaining knowledge, as the means of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number, has thus obtained the best consideration of those patriots and statesmen who preside over the destinies of Spain; the bull is master of his ground. This last remnant and representative of Spanish nationality defies the foreigner and his civilization; he is a _fait accompli_, and tramples _la charte_ under his feet, although the honest Roi citoyen swears that it is desormais une _verite_.

In Spain there is no mistaking the day and time that the bull-fight takes place, which is generally on Saint Monday, and in the afternoon, when the mid-day heats are past.

The arena, or _Plaza_, is most unlike a London Place, those enclosures of stunted smoke-blacked shrubs, fenced in with iron palisadoes to protect aristocratic nurserymaids from the mob. It is at once more cla.s.sical and amusing. The amphitheatre of Madrid is very s.p.a.cious, being about 1100 feet in circ.u.mference, and will hold 12,000 spectators.

In an architectural point of view this ring of the model court, is shabbier than many of those in provincial towns: there is no attempt at orders, pilasters, and Vitruvian columns; there is no adaptation of the Coliseum of Rome: the exterior is bald and plain, as if done so on purpose, while the interior is fitted up with wooden benches, and is scarcely better than a shambles; but for that it was designed, and there is a business-like, murderous intention about it, which marks the inaesthetic Gotho-Spaniard, who looked for a sport of blood and death, and not to a display of artistical skill. He has no need of extraneous stimulants; the _realite atroce_, as a tender-hearted foreigner observes, "is all-sufficing, because it is the recreation of the savage, and the sublime of common souls." The locality, however, is admirably calculated for seeing; and this combat is a spectacle entirely for the eyes. The open s.p.a.ce is full of the light of heaven, and here the sun is brighter than gas or wax-candles. The interior is as unadorned as the exterior, and looks positively "mesquin" when empty; around the sanded centre rise rows of wooden seats for the humbler cla.s.ses, and above them a tier of boxes for the fine ladies and gentlemen; but no sooner is the theatre filled than all this meanness is concealed, and the general appearance becomes superb.

[Sidenote: BULL-FIGHT SLANG.]

On entering the ring when thus full, the stranger finds his watch put back at once eighteen hundred years; he is transported to Rome under the Caesars; and in truth the sight is glorious, of the a.s.sembled thousands in their Spanish costume, the novelty of the spectacle, a.s.sociated with our earliest cla.s.sical studies, are enhanced by the blue expanse of the heavens, spread above as a canopy. There is something in these out-of-door entertainments, _a l'antique_, which peculiarly affects the s.h.i.+vering denizens of the catch-cold north, where climate contributes so little to the happiness of man. All first-rate connoisseurs go into the pit and place themselves among the mob, in order to be closer to the bulls and combatants. The _real thing_ is to sit near one of the openings, which enables the fancy-man to exhibit his embroidered gaiters and neat leg. It is here that the character of the bull, the nice traits and the behaviour of the bull-fighter are scientifically criticised. The ring has a dialect peculiar to itself, which is unintelligible to most Spaniards themselves, while to the sporting-men of Andalucia it expresses their drolleries with idiomatic raciness, and is exactly a.n.a.logous to the slang and technicalities of our pugilistic craft. The newspapers next day generally give a detailed report of the fight, in which every round is scientifically described in a style that defies translation, but which being drawn up by some Spanish Boz, is most delectable to all who can understand it; the nomenclature of praise and blame is defined with the most accurate precision of language, and the delicate shades of character are distinguished with the nicety of phrenological subdivision. The foundation of this lingo is gipsy Romany, metaphor, and double entendre; to master it is no easy matter; indeed, a distinguished diplomat and tauromachian philologist, whom we are proud to call our friend, was often unable to comprehend the full pregnancy of the meaning of certain terms, without a reference to the late Duke of San Lorenzo, who sustained the character of Spanish amba.s.sador in London and of bull-fighter in Madrid with equal dignity; his grace was a living lexicon of slang. Yet let no student be deterred by any difficulty, since he will eventually be repaid, when he can fully relish the Andalucian wit, or _sal Andaluca_, the salt, with which the reports are flavoured: that it is seldom Attic must, however, be confessed. Nor let time or pains be grudged; there is no royal road to Euclid, and life, say the Spanish fancy, is too short to learn bull-fighting. This possibly may seem strange, but English squires and country gentlemen a.s.sert as much in regard to fox-hunting.

[Sidenote: SPANISH BULLS.]

The day appointed for a bull-feast is announced by placards of all colours; the important particulars decorate every wall. The first thing is to secure a good place beforehand, by sending for a _Boletin de Sombra_, a shade-ticket; and as the great object is to avoid glare and heat, the best places are on the northern side, which are in the shade.

The transit of the sun over the Plaza, the zodiacal progress into Taurus, is decidedly the best calculated astronomical observation in Spain; the line of shadow defined on the arena is marked by a gradation of prices. The different seats and prices are everywhere detailed in the bills of the play, with the names of the combatants and the colours of the different breeds of bulls.

[Sidenote: BEST BREED OF BULLS.]

The day before the fight, the bulls destined for the spectacle are driven towards the town, and pastured in a meadow reserved for their reception; then the fine amateurs never fail to ride out to see what the cattle is like, just as the knowing in horseflesh go to Tattersall's of a Sunday afternoon, instead of attending evening service in their parish churches. According to Pepe Illo, who was a very practical man, and the first author on the modern system of the arena, of which he was the brightest ornament, and on which he died in the arms of victory, the "love of bulls is inherent in man, especially in the Spaniard, among which glorious people there have been bull-fights ever since there were bulls, because the Spanish men are as much more brave than all other men, as the Spanish bull is more fierce and valiant than all other bulls." Certainly, from having been bred at large, in roomy unenclosed plains, they are more active than the animals raised by John Bull, but as regards form and power they would be scouted in an English cattle-show; a real British bull, with his broad neck and short horns, would make quick work with the men and horses of Spain; his "spears"

would be no less effective than the bayonets of our soldiers, which no foreigner faces twice, or the picks of our _Navvies_, three and three-eighths of whom are calculated by railway economists to eat more beef and do more work than five and five-eighths of corresponding foreign material. By the way, the correct Castilian word for the bull's _horns_ is _astas_, the Latin _hastas_, spears. _Cuernos_ must never be used in good Spanish society, since, from its secondary meaning, it might give offence to present company: allusions to common calamities are never made to ears polite, however frequent among the vulgar, who call things by their improper names--nay, roar them out, as in the time of Horace: "Magna compellens voce cucullum."

Not every bull will do for the Plaza, and none but the fiercest are selected, who undergo trials from the earliest youth; the most celebrated animals come from Utrera near Seville, and from the same pastures where that eminent breeder of old Geryon, raised those wonderful oxen, which all but burst with fat in fifty days, and were "lifted" by the invincible Hercules. Senor _Cabrera_, the modern Geryon, was so pleased with Joseph Buonaparte, or so afraid, that he offered to him a hundred bulls, as a hecatomb for the rations of his troops, who, braver and hungrier than Hercules, would otherwise have infallibly followed the demiG.o.d's example. The Manchegan bull, small, very powerful, and active, is considered to be the original stock of Spain; of this breed was "Manchangito," the pet of the Visconde de Miranda, a tauromachian n.o.ble of Cordova, and who used to come into the dining-room, but, having one day killed a guest, he was destroyed after violent resistance on the part of the Viscount, and only in obedience to the peremptory mandate of the Prince of the Peace.

The capital is supplied with animals bred in the valleys of the Jarama near Aranjuez, which have been immemorially celebrated. From hence came that _Harpado_, the magnificent beast of the magnificent Moorish ballad of Gazul, which was evidently written by a practical _torero_, and on the spot: the verses sparkle with daylight and local colour like a Velazquez, and are as minutely correct as a Paul Potter, while Byron's "Bull-fight" is the invention of a foreign poet, and full of slight inaccuracies.

The _encierro_, or the driving the bulls to the arena, is a service of danger; they are enticed by tame oxen, into a road which is barricadoed on each side, and then driven full speed by the mounted and spear-bearing peasants into the _Plaza_. It is an exciting, peculiar, and picturesque spectacle; and the poor who cannot afford to go to the bull-fight, risk their lives and cloaks in order to get the front places, and best chance of a stray poke _en pa.s.sant_.