Después de tomados los billetes no se admitirán en los Despachos sino en el caso de que se suspenda la función antes de comenzada; no se darán contraseñas de salida y los ninos que no sean de pecho necesitan billete.
No se correrán más torros ni novillos que los anunciados.
No se permitirá estar entre barreras sino á los precisos operarios, ni bajar de los tendidos hasta que el último toro esté enganchado al tiro de mulas.
Se prohibe bajar á torear los novillos embolados á los niños y ancianos, á fin de evitar desgracias, así como que lleven palos, pinchos ú otros objetos con que puedan perjudicar al ganado.
Four bulls are to be killed, each four years old. Their names are Bailador, Cigarrero, Manquito, and Primoroso. The ‘stars’ on this occasion are the two espadas, Guerrita and Fabrilio. The first man is a famous matador; the second a beginner. Having made the acquaintance of a retired bull-fighter—an affable, gray-haired old gentleman, who still wears the chignon and pigtail, which are de rigueur, and by which you can always tell a bull-fighter in the crowd—I ask him to accompany me, and explain the points of the performance. He readily consents, and he secures me a private box next to the box of the president—the gentleman, generally a member of the Town Council, who is the official master of the ceremonies, judge, referee, and several other things rolled into one. I ought to mention that, the arena being open to the sky, one-half of the spectators have to sit with the blazing sun in their faces. This causes one side to be dearer than the other. There are two prices—the sol and the sombra. Seats in the shade are 50 per cent. the dearer. When I enter my box in the great arena, the spectacle is a magnificent one. Sixteen thousand people are crowded into the building, and a fourth of them are women. There are elegantly-dressed ladies in the boxes, and in the cheaper seats are gaily-attired women and girls of the lower class. Many of the women have brought their babies with them to see the show. Everybody is on the tiptoe of expectation. As we enter our box, my friend the bull-fighter has a friendly greeting from the mob. In the next box is a duke—a grandee of Spain of the first class—and a general renowned in war. Both of them lean over and shake hands effusively with my friend the bull-killer. Presently the president and his suite enter the official box. Then a trumpet sounds, and two alguazils, dressed in black velvet suits and plumed hats, ride into the ring on gaily-caparisoned steeds. They wheel round, face the president, and bow. The president then bids them summon the bull-fighters. Off go the alguazils across the ring with the message. The gates of the barrier are flung open, and a grand procession enters, and marches across the arena to salute the president. This is the prettiest part of the show. The costumes of the twenty or thirty toreros are brilliant and beautiful. Silver and gold, and yellow and crimson and blue are their jackets and breeches; their hats, of black velvet, are most picturesque; and their mantles, worn in a peculiar fashion, are such as the courtiers of a king might be proud to wear on gala days. Terrific applause breaks from the huge crowd of spectators as popular favourites advance with the band. About six of the men are mounted on wretched, broken-down horses. These men carry long lances, and are the picadors. You will see what they do presently.
The procession having saluted the president, the members of it scatter themselves about the arena, and prepare for business. Another trumpet sounds. The alguazil, in black velvet, rides up again and salutes the president. The president from his box flings him the key of the cells where the bulls are imprisoned, and he catches it in his hat. He hands the key to a torero, who opens the door of a kind of stable opposite, called the toril, and, out of the darkness into the light, out of the silence into the roar of thousands of voices, rushes an infuriated bull, full of life and spirit and courage—a magnificent beast, with terrible horns, already goaded to fierceness by sharp spikes which have been run into him in his prison.
He enters the arena alone. Everybody except the picadors leaps the barriers, and lets him have a run to himself. We are all on the tiptoe of expectation to see how the bull will behave. We can judge by his manner at first what sort of sport he will give. Now several of the toreros, mantle in hand, take their places, and begin to bait the bull to make him lively, and then the first act of the tragedy begins. Unfortunately for the foreigner who wants to see sport in a bull-fight, the first act is the most disgusting and dastardly. The picadors—the men with lances, mounted on wretched horses—have it to themselves. The picador, sitting bolt upright on his horse, charges the bull, and digs the spear into him just to tickle him up. The picador then prepares to receive the return charge of the bull. He turns his horse broadside to the bull (the poor horses have their eyes bandaged on one side), and calmly allows the infuriated beast to plunge its sharp horns right into the side of the steed. No attempt is made to save the horse. It is only used by the picador as a barrier between himself and the bull’s horns.
If the bull catches the horse fairly underneath, the sight is a hideous one. The wretched animal staggers and falls over, the life blood pouring from it. The audience shouts with delight. The men with the cloaks rush and turn the bull from the prostrate heap, and then pick the picador up. He always falls cleverly, and his legs, being encased in iron, are rarely hurt either by the bull’s horns or the falling horse. If the horse is only wounded, it is beaten on to its legs again with sticks, and the wound is stuffed with tow. It is remounted, beaten, and dragged up to the bull to be gored again. On the day of my visit, I saw a horse with its entrails hanging out actually dragged up, cruelly beaten, and remounted. This was considered glorious sport by the Spaniards. As they rode that poor disembowelled beast round the arena again, the spectacle was so hideous that I went to the corner of my box. ‘When that horse is dead, tell me, and I’ll look again,’ I said to my friend the bull-fighter. He laughed, but the next minute he leaned across to the president and said something. The president smiled and raised his hat to me, and then called down an order to one of the ring attendants. A moment afterwards the picador dismounted, and the staggering, bleeding horse was mercifully killed with a blow of the ‘puntilla.’ I saved one poor beast a few moments’ agony, at any rate, that day.
I saw four bulls killed, and the bulls between them killed seven horses. It was always a great relief to me when the bugle sounded, and the horses still living were led out of the ring. Each bull has so many minutes to live, and goes through three acts. The first with the picadors, the second with the banderilleros, and the third with the espada or matador. A bugle sounds the ‘time’ which terminates each act of the tragedy. I was always glad when the first act was over and the horses were done with. But my delight at seeing one or two go out alive was considerably modified when I was informed that the poor beasts would be kept half-starved until the following Sunday, and then brought out to be gored again. Many of the horses I saw were only fit for the knacker, but they had been good in their time. Some of them still retained fine action, and had probably, in the days of their strength, drawn the carriage of some aristocratic dame now looking down upon the ruthless slaughter. The horses are in no way necessary for the bull-fight. It is wanton cruelty to bring them in to be gored; but that is a part of the show which the Spaniards love best. When a bull has killed five or six horses, as sometimes happens, and there is a delay in bringing in others, the people go mad, and yell at the president, ‘More horses! more horses!’