Spanish Highways and Byways

to suffer pain."-Shell

sure, are usually unwilling to admit to a foreigner their pleasure in the pastime. "It is brutal," said a young physician of Madrid, as we discussed it. "It is a very p

ver his ears, and others waving scarlet cloths and brandishing improvised swords and lances. It is said that in fierce Valencia youths have sometimes carried on this sport with knives for horns and swords,

icket to the bull-ring, but whatever the deficiencies of the inner costume, the dress that meets the eye is brave in the extreme. It is recently becoming the fashion for caballeros, especially in the north of Spain, to discard those very fetching cloaks with the vivid linings-cloaks in which Spaniards muffle their faces to the eyebrows as they tread the echoing streets of citie

nuance of the bull-fight means the ruin of Spain," urged a gigantic young German, in our hearing, on his Spanish friend. The slight figure of the Madrile?o shook with anger. "And I tell you" he choked, "that Spain would rather perish with the bull-fight than survive without it." Isabel la Católica, who earnestly strove to put down these savage contests, wrote at last to her Father Confessor that the task was too hard for her.

s to name the Cid a

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pressed to the fore. Out of the hardy Spanish multitude rose a series of masters,-Romero the shoemaker, who, in general, gave to the art its modern form; Martincho the shepherd, who, seated in a chair with his feet bound, would await the charging brute; Cándido, who would face the bull in full career and escape by leaping to its forehead and over its back; Costilla

a handso

to fear t

the bes

e town of

garding the shrill protests of his wife, he lavishes all his time, love, and money on the corridas and encourages his daughter's novio, an honest young paper-hanger, to throw over his trade and learn to torear. After two years of the provincial arenas, the aspirant, nicknamed in the ring The Baby, has nothing but torn clothes and bruises to show for his career, and his sweetheart, eager to recall him from the hazardous profession, vows a waxen bull, large as life, to the Virgin, in case he returns to pape

bulls as they can possibly afford. The May and June that I passed in the capital gave me a peculiar abhorrence of the Madrid Sunday,-that feverish excitement everywhere; the rattle of all those extra omnibuses and cars with their red-tasselled mules in full gallop for the Plaza de Toros; that sense of furious struggle and mortal agony hanging over the city all through the slow, hot afternoon; those gaping crowds pressing to greet the toreros, a gaudy-suited company, on their triumphal return in open carriages; that eager discussion of the day's tragedy at every street-corner and from seat to seat along the paseos, even at our own dainty dinner tab

rth with the life-stream of His creatures. Valladolid was, indeed, ashamed to have torn to death only seven horses, but Segovia rejoiced in an expert who sat at his work and killed his bulls with drawing-room ease. Bordeaux improved the occasion, with aid of two celebrated Spanish espadas, by opening a French Plaza de Toros, and Valencia had t

ght. In the interests of popular education, an historical corrida was arranged, with instructed toreros to display the special styles of bull-killing that have prevailed from the Cid to Guerrita. Again, as a zo?logical by-play, an elephant was pitted against the bulls. This, too,

sts," they said. "In fact, we disapprove the bull-fight. We regard it as demoralizing to the community at large. It is, nevertheless, a thing scientific, artistic, heroic, Spanish. Besides, a large portion of the proceeds goes to charity. We do not attend the corridas, except now and then, especially when we have foreign guests who wish to see them. Before going th

rejudice against being prejudice

f stone. The concourse was largely composed of men, both roughs and gentles, but there was no lack of ladies, elegantly dressed, nor of children. Two sweet little girls in white-feathered hats were just in front of us, dancing up and down to relieve the thrills of expectancy. White mantillas, pinned with jewels, bent from the boxes, while the daughters of the people dazzled the eye with their festival display of Manila shawls, some pure white, some with colored figures on a white ground or a black, and some a rainbow maze of capricious needle-work. The rich-hued blossoms of Andalusia were worn in the hair and on the breast. The sunny side of the circus was brightly dotted by parasols, orange, green, vermilion, and fans in all the cardinal colors twinkled like a shivered kaleidoscope. The men's black eyes glittered under those br

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resplendent carmine scarf over the railing before her seat. Immediately the complete circuit of

ed on a hose, and watered the great circle. They pulled out the hydrant and raked sand

ull rushed in. The fierce, bloodthirsty, horrible yell that greeted him checked his impetuous onset. For a few seconds the creature stood stock-still, glaring at the scene. Heaven knows what he thought of us. He had had five perfect years of life on the banks of the Guadalquivír,-one baby year by his mother's side, one year of sportive roving with his mates, and then had come the trial of his valor. He had found all the herdsmen gathered at the ranch one morning, and, nevertheless, flattered himself that he had evaded those hateful pikes, garrochas, that were always goading him back when he would sally out to explore the great green world. At all events, here he was scampering alone across the plain. But promptly two horsemen were at his heels, and one of these, planting a blunt garrocha on his flank, rolled the youngster over. Up again, panting with surprise and indignation, he felt a homesick impulse to get back to the herd, but the second horseman was full in his path. So much the worse for the horseman! The mettlesome young bull lowered his horns and charged the obstacle, only to be

ed. Lowering his head, the fiery brute dashed with a bellow at that tinselled figure. Ah, the pike had never been so sharp before! It went deep into his shoulder, but could not hold him back. He plunged his horns, those mighty spears, into the body of the helpless, blindfolded horse, which the picador, whose jacket

loody masses that had once been horses disfigured the arena, and the bull, stuck all over

off the first rage and vigor of the bull, weakening him, but not slaying him, by successive wounds. Then the jaunty banderilleros, the streamers of whose darts must correspond in color with their costumes, supply a picturesque and amusing element, a comic interlude. Finally

eir turn in baiting the now enfeebled but undaunted bull. Wildly he shook himself, the fore half of his body already a flood of crimson, to throw off the ignominy of those stinging darts. The chulos fretted and fooled him with their waving cloaks of red and yellow, till at last the creature grew hushed and sullen. A strain of music announced that the matador Fuentes was asking beneath the president's box permission to kill the bull. For my part, I gave the bull permission to kill the man. Fuentes, all pranked out in gray and gold, holding his keen blade behind

the hapless beasts still struggled in their agony, the amphitheatre howled with delirious joy. Several capas were caught away on those swift, effec

either side, but the

s, as if on fire, as

d they are set in cr

ith one red glare of

d intent, stood not far off and from time to time, by irritating passes, drew the bull's wrath upon the

na. The fourteen thousand, crazy with rage, sprang to their feet, shook their fists, called him cow. The chulos brandished their cloaks about his horns; men leaned over from the barrier and prodded him with staffs. Finally, in desperation, he turned on the nearest horse, rent it and bore it down. The picador, once set up by the chulos upon his stiff, iron-cased legs, his yellow finery streaked with red from his lacerated horse, tugged savagely at the bridle to force that dying creature to a second stand. One attendant wrenched it by the tail, another beat it viciously ove

clumsily about the arena, in unavailing efforts to escape from his tormentors, his violent, foolish plunges made the dark blood flow the faster. It was Guerrita, Guerrita the adored, Guerrita in gold-laced jacket and violet trousers, who struck the ultimate blow, and so cleverly that sombreros and cigarettes, oranges and pocket-flasks, came raining, amid furies of applause, into the arena. This was such a proud moment as he had dreamed of long ago in the Cordova slaughter-house, when, the little son of the slaughter-house

weight. He gave it an angry push with the foot as he left it writhing in its life-blood. This whirlwind of a bull, who shook off all but one of the banderillas, mortified even the matadores. Disregarding the red rag, he rushed at Fuentes himself. The nimble torero leapt aside, but the bull's horn struck his sword and sent it spinning half across the arena. His comrades immediately ran, with waving capas and bright steel, to his aid, but that too intelligent bull, fighting for his life, kept his foes at bay until the circus hissed with impatience. The toreros, visibly nettled, gathered closer and closer, but had to play that death-game cautiously. This bull was dangerous. The coliseum found him tedious. He took too long in dying. Stabbed again and again and again, he yet agonized to his feet and shook t

ht. It had all been the work of a moment,-a brave bull, a great sensation! For the performers it was rather too much of a good thing. Those disembowelled carcasses cluttered up the arena. The scattered entrails were slippery under foot. The dart-throwers hastened to the next act of the tragedy. Theirs was a subtlety too much for the fury-fuddled wits of that mighty, blundering brute. He galloped to and fro, spending his strength in useless charges and, a score of times, ignoring the men to hook wildly at their brandished strips of colored cloth. The darts had been planted and he was losing blood. The matador went to his work, but the uncivil bull did not make it easy for him. Bombita could not get in a handsome blow. The house began to hoot

Gi

justly enough, pursued me for weeks after. "It was a very favorable corrida for a beginner,-no serious accident, no use of the fire-dart

t circus?" I asked. "How could

ught. It was not necessary. I had read the paper, which gave half a column t