THE BULL-FIGHTS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
The following particulars were communicated to the Gentleman's Magazine of this month by a witness to a recent bull-fight in the city of Lisbon. Speaking without reference to its humane character or moral tendency, the writer remarks that no spectacle in the world can be compared, for interest and effect, to a Spanish bull-fight, every part of which is distinguished for striking parade or alarming danger.
The grand sweep of the amphitheatre in Cadiz, Seville, or Madrid, crowded with a gay and variegated mass of eager and shouting spectators, and garnished at distances with boxes for the judges, the court, or the music—the immense area in which the combats take place, occupied with the picadors in silk jackets, on horses richly caparisoned, and with the light skipping and elastic bandarilleros, carrying their gaudy silk flags to provoke the rage and to elude the attack of the bull, form of themselves a fine sight before the combat begins. When the door of the den which encloses the bull is opened, and the noble animal bursts in wildly upon this, to him, novel scene—his eyes glaring with fury—when he makes a trot or a gallop round the ring, receiving from each horseman as he passes a prick from a lance, which enrages him still more—when, meditating vengeance, he rushes on his adversaries, and scatters both horsemen and bandarilleros, by his onset, ripping up and casting the horses on the ground, and causing the bandarilleros to leap over the railing among the spectators—or when, after a defeated effort or a successful attack, he stands majestically in the middle of the area, scraping up the sand with his hoof, foaming at the mouth, and quivering in every fibre with rage, agony, or indignation, looking towards his adversaries, and meditating a fatal rush—the sight combines every element of interest and agitation which can be found in contempt of danger, in surprising boldness, and great animal force intensely excited. The horns of the Spanish bull are always sharp, and never covered. An animal of sufficient power and spirit to command popular applause frequently kills five or six horses, the riders taking care to fall over on the side most distant from the enemy, and being instantly relieved from their perilous situation by the bandarilleros, who attract his attention: and the bull himself is always killed in the ring by the matador, who enters in on foot with his bright flag in the left hand, and his sword in the right, and who, standing before the enraged animal waiting the favourable moment when he bends his head to toss him on his horns, plunges his sword into his neck or spine in such a fatal manner that he frequently falls instantaneously as if struck by lightning. This last operation is as dangerous as it is dexterous. At the moment in which the matador hits the bull, the pointed horn must be within an inch or two of his heart, and if he were to fail he must himself be the victim. When he succeeds in levelling to the ground with a single stroke his furious and irresistible enemy, the music strikes up, the applauses of the amphitheatre are showered upon the conqueror, he stalks proudly round the area, strewed with dead horses, and reddened with blood, bowing first to the judges of the fight, and then to the spectators, and leaves the place amid enthusiastic vivas for his successful audacity. The field of slaughter is then cleared by a yoke of horses, richly decorated with plumes on their heads and ribands on their manes, to which the dead bull or horses are attached, and by which they are dragged out at a gallop. That no part of the amusement may want its appropriate parade, this operation goes on amid the sound of a trumpet, or the playing of a military band. The horsemen are then remounted anew, and enter on fresh steeds—the door of the den is again opened—another furious animal is let loose on the possessors of the ring, till ten or twelve are thus sacrificed.
The bull-fights in Lisbon are a very inferior species of amusement to this, though much better than I was led to anticipate. Here the bulls are generally not so strong or so spirited as the Spanish breed. In the morning of the sport, the tips of their horns, instead of being left sharp, are covered with cork and leather. None but one horseman appeared in the ring at a time—no havoc was of course made among the horses; bulls were introduced and baited without being killed, and the matador, though he sometimes displays the same dexterity, never encounters the same danger as in Spain. In Lisbon the most interesting part of the sport consists in an operation which could not be practised in Spain, and is conducted by performers who are unknown where bull-fighting is more sanguinary. These performers are what they call here homens de furcado, or men of the fork; so denominated from their bearing a fork with which they push or strike the head of the bull, when he throws down a man or a horse. After the bull, not destined to be killed, has afforded amusement enough, these men go up before him, one of them trying to get in between his horns, or to cling to his neck, till the rest surround, master him, and lead him out of the area. The man of the fork, who gets between the bull's horns, is sometimes tossed in the air or dashed to the ground, and in this one of the chief dangers of the fight consists. On Sunday one of them was dashed down so violently as to be carried out of the ring in a state of insensibility. Only four bulls were killed out of the twelve exhibited. The rest being reserved for future sport, were either dragged out of the ring in the manner above described, or, when supposed to be too strong to be mastered by the men of the fork, were tamely driven out among a flock of oxen introduced into the area as a decoy. Another peculiarity of the Lisbon bull-fights is the presence of a buffoon on horseback called the Neto, who first enters the ring to take the commands of the Inspector, and occasionally bears the shock of the bull, to the no small diversion of the lower class of spectators. The Spanish bull-fight is too serious an affair for a buffoon: it is a tragedy, and not a farce.
From these few points of comparison, it is evident that the Spanish exhibition is a much more splendid and interesting spectacle than that of Portugal, and that there is nearly as much difference as between a field of battle and the sham fight of a review. Probably the Portuguese sport has danger enough to excite common interest, and more than enough to be a popular diversion. The place where these entertainments are given at Lisbon, is a large octagon amphitheatre called the Saletre, near the public walk behind the Rocio. It has what is called a pit, into which the bull sometimes, but rarely, jumps, and on one side two tier of boxes, and is capable of containing about 4,000 or 5,000 spectators. The amusements are always exhibited on Sundays, and are generally attended with great crowds. On Sunday last every part of the amphitheatre was full, and the people betrayed such extravagant marks of pleasure as I could not have expected, from their usual sedate and dull habits.