All the mules, and most of the horses, ponies, or donkeys ridden by the "Jacket" men or country people are trained to pace instead of to trot; it is said to be less fatiguing on a long journey. The motion as you ride is, to our notions, very unpleasant, being a kind of roll, which at first, at any rate, gives one the feeling of sea-sickness. The animal uses the fore and hind feet together alternately, as he literally runs over the ground. It does not appear to be a natural pace, but is carefully taught, and, once acquired, it is very difficult to break the animal of it; his idea of trotting has become quite lost; nor is it a pretty action, nor one suited to show off good qualities—it has always something of a shuffle about it. If it has its advantages, except that stirrups may be dispensed with, they are not very apparent to those accustomed to the usual paces of an English horse. Personally, I disliked it particularly.
There have been many efforts to introduce racing, with its contingent improvement in the breed of horses, perhaps the earliest during the regency of Espartero; but these ended, as most things did in the old days when Spain was only beginning her long struggle for freedom, in failure and loss to the enterprising gentlemen—of whom the then Duque de Osuna was one—who spent large sums of money in the effort. The old race-course of that time lay somewhere in the low ground outside Madrid on the course of the Manzanares; many a good gallop I have had on it, though it was abandoned and forgotten long ago by the Madrileños. At the present time horse-racing may be said to have become naturalised in Spain under the Sociedad del Fomento de la Cria Caballar (Society for the Encouragement of Horse-breeding), and all that concerns horsemanship is naturally improved and improving.
A good idea of Spanish horses may be gained by a visit to the Royal Mews in Madrid. There are the cream-coloured horses from the royal stud at Aranjuez, jacuitas from Andalucia, as well as the mountain ponies of Galicia. Those who have never seen the Spanish mule have no idea what the animal is—powerful, active, graceful, and almost impossible to injure. They are used in the royal stables and in those of the nobility, for night work, since they are so hardy as not to be injured by long waiting in the cold or wet. They are the correct thing in the carriages of the Papal Nuncio and all ecclesiastics, and are generally preferred to horses for long or difficult journeys. They are a great feature in the army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule carries a small gun on his back. A brigade of this arm would have been invaluable to the British in South Africa, having no doubt had its initiation in the guerilla warfare of Spain's frequent civil wars.
The clipping of mules and donkeys, which are also very superior animals to anything we know by that name, is in the hands of the gypsies, who have a perfect genius for decorating their own animals and any others committed to their manipulation. Only the upper part is shaved, or clipped to the skin, the long winter coat being left on the legs and half-way up the body. Generally, on the shoulders and haunches a pattern is made by leaving some of the hair a little longer; the figure of the cross with rays is not uncommon, but it is wonderful how elaborate and beautiful some of these patterns are, looking as if embossed in velvet on the skin. One day, passing a venta in a street in Madrid, we were attracted by a gaily-decked donkey standing outside. He had the words, Viva mi Amo (Long live my Master!), finished with a beautiful and artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate decoration was a practical joke!
The mules and donkeys which come in from the country are generally very picturesque, with a network of crimson silk tassels over their heads, and a bright-coloured manta thrown across their sleek, glossy backs. These mantas serve many purposes; they are made of two breadths of brightly striped and ornamented material of wool and silk, sewn up at one end, or sometimes for some distance at each end, like a purse; sometimes they are thrown across the mule to serve as saddle-bags, sometimes one end is used as a hood and is drawn over the master's head, while the remainder is thrown across his chest and mouth and over the left shoulder. The best of these mantas are elaborately trimmed at both ends with a deep interlacing fringe, ending in a close row of balls, and have a thick ornamental cord sewn over the joining. These, which are intended for human wraps and not as saddle-bags, are only sewn up at one end, so as to form something very like the old monkish hood. All the horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen wear bells: the oxen have generally only one large bronze bell, which hangs under the head; the others have rows of small jingling silver or brass bells round their collars or bridles.
These draught oxen are beautiful animals, mostly a deep cream in colour, with dark points, magnificent eyes, and a sphinx-like look of patience, as if biding their time for something much better to come. Their harness is not apparently irksome to them, and is not so heavy as one sees on the Portuguese oxen, for instance. They are coupled by a wooden bar across the head, and their driver, if such he can be called—rather, perhaps, the guide—walks in front with a long stick, possibly a wand of office, over his shoulder to show them the way. The dress of this functionary is picturesque: a wide-brimmed hat (sombrero), a shirt, short trousers to the knees, with gaiters of woven grass (esparto), a faja round his waist, and manta thrown over his shoulder if cold. He stalks majestically along, followed by his equally majestic bueyes, and one wonders of what all three are thinking as they trudge along the sun-smitten roads, regardless of dust or of anything else. The cars are rude enough, and the wheels sometimes solid discs of wood. Occasionally, a hood of bent pieces of wood covered with linen is fixed. Tame oxen, or cabestros, as they are called, play a very important part in the ganaderos and the bull-rings. They appear to be held in some sort of superstitious reverence, or strange affection, by the poor beasts who only live to make sport for men. In driving the bulls from one pasture to another, or bringing them into the towns, the cabestros are followed with unwavering faith by these otherwise dangerous animals; where the cabestro goes, clanging his great bell, the bull follows, and while under the charge of his domesticated friend he is quite harmless.
BUEYES RESTING
At one time, the bulls used to be driven to the bull-ring outside Madrid in specially made roads sunk some fifteen feet below the level of the fields, and paved. Along these the pastor, or shepherd, and picadores, armed with long lances, went with the cabestros and the herd of bulls to be immolated. I have frequently met this procession when riding, either in the early morning or late evening, outside Madrid; but so long as the cabestros are present, there is nothing to fear, for the bulls are perfectly quiet and harmless. Once, however, riding with a friend, I had a disagreeable and exciting adventure. We were quietly walking our horses along the Ronda de Alcalá, when we heard an immense amount of shouting, and suddenly became aware that we ourselves were the objects of the excitement, waving of hands, screaming, and gesticulating. Before we had time to do more than realise that we were being warned of some terrific danger in wait for us round the corner of the high wall, some little distance in advance, two picadores on horseback, armed with their long pikes, galloped round the corner, also shouting wildly to us, and pointing across the fields as if telling us to fly, and almost at the same moment the whole drove of bulls, tearing along at a terrific rate, without cabestros, appeared, charging straight towards us. We did not need a second hint. At one side of the road was the old wall of Madrid, at the other a high bank with a wide ditch beyond it. Without a word, we put our horses at the bank,—they had realised the situation as quickly as we had,—jumped the ditch at a flying leap from the top of the bank, and were off across a field of young wheat. Once only I looked behind, and saw a magnificent black bull, with his tail in the air—a signal of attack—on the top of the bank over which I had just leaped, preparing to follow me. Long afterwards, as it seemed, when my horse slackened his pace, I found myself alone in a wide plain, neither bulls nor fellow-rider to be seen. His horse had bolted in another direction from mine, and we heard afterwards that the picadores had galloped in between me and the sporting bull and turned him back. Eventually, the cabestros appeared on the scene, and the poor misguided bulls were inveigled into the shambles for the fiesta of the morrow. How they had ever managed to break away or gain the public road at all, we were never able to learn.