Impressions of Spain

by Albert Frederick Calvert

ENTRANCE OF THE BULL.

Punctuality is not a strong trait in the Spanish character, but punctuality will be observed to-day. At the hour and the minute appointed, the President enters his palco, the signal is given, and the proceedings commence. The procession, headed by two caballeros, habited in black velvet, moves slowly across the ring to the front of the President’s seat. The two espadas in yellow and violet, and gold and green costumes respectively, follow the caballeros. After them come half-a-dozen stoutly-protected picadores, then eight banderilleros, gay with a profusion of silk sashes, short breeches, and variously-coloured hose, and the rear is brought up by a posse of attendants, leading the mules, all bedecked in plumes and rich trappings, which are to drag off the carcases from the arena. The entrance of the glittering cavalcade is announced by a trumpet sound, and the President tosses the key of the toril into the ring.

To the “new chum,” all this preliminary detail, commonplace and “circusy” as it is, is sufficient to strain the nerves, and expectancy changes to apprehension. The creak emitted by the opening of the heavy door of the toril intensifies the feeling. The clutch of curiosity with which the entire concourse awaits the entrance of the first bull is contagious. Instinctively one strains forward and catches one’s breath. Toro does not keep us long in suspense. There is a momentary lull, and then the bull dashes from his dark cell into the glint of the Spring sunshine. The novelty of the environment staggers him for a moment. He hesitates in the centre of the ring, and looks wildly around him. The arena is empty, with the exception of three picadores, who sit rigidly in a row on their sorry hacks, waiting for the bull to recognise their presence.

Our first victim is a doughty warrior. He is as ignorant as the blindfold knackers—that would be dear at a pound a leg—of the fate in store for him. He may make a brave fight, kill horses, upset men, and leap the barriers with a heroic rush, but in twenty minutes his corpse will be coupled up to the mules, and fresh sand will be strewn on the red trail that will mark his last passage across the arena. The inevitableness of the outcome of the encounter, so far as the principal actor is concerned, is the least pleasing feature of the sport. The fox and the stag are

ANTONIO FUENTES.

LUIS MAZZANTINI AND CUADRILLA.

UERRITA. Bandillero.

given a gambling chance, the grouse is not without hope, and the gladiator of the cock-pit may live to fight another day, but the bull is a doomed animal. Happily he is not capable of calculating the uselessness of his efforts. The horses stand but little better chance, and the picadores, despite their iron and leather greaves and spears, are paid to take risks.

The art of the picador is displayed in the skill with which he avoids the charge of the bull, and turns him on to the next picador, who, in turn, will pass him on to the third. In this instance the manœuvre does not come off. The bull’s rush is met by the first picador with the point, but the horse he strides is too ancient to obey with sufficient celerity the rider’s injunction to swerve, and horse and man are rolled over with the force of the impact. The wretched equine is lacerated on his opposing flank, but the spearman appears to be uninjured, and before the bull has completed his circuit of the ring, the horse is on his feet again, and the picador is waiting for the next attack. The toreros, with their red capa, are immediately on the spot to draw the bull from his victim, but the bull is too eager to waste time on a fallen foe. The second and third horseman avoid his rush; and the bull, smarting from spear thrusts, and confused by the cheers, is inclined, in racing parlance, to “turn it up.” The first horse who crosses the line of sight is caught on the brute’s horns, and is so deeply impaled that the bull has to swerve at right angles to rid himself of his enemy. The second horse is impaled before the combatant can plant his spear in the bull’s neck. Steed and rider are lurched in the air, and fall heavily to the ground, and the momentary victor lowers his head again to the prostrate man, and rolls him over and over. Toreros hasten to the spot to get him away, the people rise in their places, ladies lift their fans and avert their faces, while the air is filled with the usual murmur of lamentation which accompanies an accident. Both the other picadores are unhorsed before the President gives the signal for them to retire. Act one of this most realistic of sporting melodramas is over.

The banderilleros now come forward. They are costumed like Figaro, in the opera of “Il Barbiere de Sevilla,” and their hair is tied into a knot behind. To the English spectator, this part of the performance is the most fascinating and least abhorrent of the entire piece. The banderillero inflicts no more pain on the bull than the humane angler deals out to the wily trout, and the agility and daring with which he addresses himself to his task is superb. His aim is to plant small barbed darts, or banderillas, on each side of the neck of the bull. The chulos, or apprentices, here open the ball by tantalising the animal, and working him up to a proper pitch of fury. Then the banderilleros circle round him, and one, standing full in his line of flight, “defies” him with the arms raised high over his head. If the bull stops, as he is doing now, the man walks composedly towards him. Then the bull lowers his head and makes his rush, and the athlete, swerving nimbly to one side, pins in his banderillas simultaneously. Again and again the maddened animal, frantic more from impotence than pain, makes his rushes from one tormentor to another. At each rush he receives further instalments of his hated decorations. Then one man bungles. He loses his nerve, or, failing to time the animal’s charge, shirks the onslaught. A howl of execration greets the exhibition, and the unfortunate baiter is tempted to more rash efforts. He seats himself in a chair, and waits with suicidal calmness the rush of the bull. Just as the animal’s horns are thrust beneath him he jumps lightly up, manipulating his darts with miraculous precision, while the chair is tossed high in the air.