The capital is supplied with animals bred in the valleys of the Jarama near Aranjuez, which have been immemorially celebrated. From hence came that Harpado, the magnificent beast of the magnificent Moorish ballad of Gazul, which was evidently written by a practical torero, and on the spot: the verses sparkle with daylight and local colour like a Velazquez, and are as minutely correct as a Paul Potter, while Byron’s “Bull-fight” is the invention of a foreign poet, and full of slight inaccuracies.
The encierro, or the driving the bulls to the arena, is a service of danger; they are enticed by tame oxen, into a road which is barricadoed on each side, and then driven full speed by the mounted and spear-bearing peasants into the Plaza. It is an exciting, peculiar, and picturesque spectacle; and the poor who cannot afford to go to the bull-fight, risk their lives and cloaks in order to get the front places, and best chance of a stray poke en passant.
THE ENCIERRO.
The next afternoon all the world crowds to the Plaza de toros. You need not ask the way; just launch into the tide, which in these Spanish affairs will assuredly carry you away. Nothing can exceed the gaiety and sparkle of a Spanish public going, eager and full-dressed, to the fight. They could not move faster were they running away from a real one. All the streets or open spaces near the outside of the arena present of themselves a spectacle to the stranger, and genuine Spain is far better to be seen and studied in the streets, than in the saloon. Now indeed a traveller from Belgravia feels that he is out of town, in a new world and no mistake; all around him is a perfect saturnalia, all ranks are fused in one stream of living beings, one bloody thought beats in every heart, one heart beats in ten thousand bosoms; every other business is at an end, the lover leaves his mistress unless she will go with him,—the doctor and lawyer renounce patients, briefs, and fees; the city of sleepers is awakened, and all is life, noise, and movement, where to-morrow will be the stillness and silence of death; now the bending line of the Calle de Alcalá, which on other days is broad and dull as Portland Place, becomes the aorta of Madrid, and is scarcely wide enough for the increased circulation; now it is filled with a dense mass coloured as the rainbow, which winds along like a spotted snake to its prey. Oh the din and dust! The merry mob is everything, and, like the Greek chorus, is always on the scene. How national and Spanish are the dresses of the lower classes—for their betters alone appear like Boulevard quizzes, or tigers cut out from our East end tailors’ pattern-book of the last new fashion; what Manolas, what reds and yellows, what fringes and flounces, what swarms of picturesque vagabonds, cluster, or alas, clustered, around calesas, whose wild drivers run on foot, whipping, screaming, swearing; the type of these vehicles in form and colour was Neapolitan; they alas! are also soon destined to be sacrificed to civilization to the ’bus and common-place cab, or vile fly.
FILLING THE THEATRE.
The plaza is the focus of a fire, which blood alone can extinguish; what public meetings and dinners are to Britons, reviews and razzias to Gauls, mass or music to Italians, is this one and absorbing bull-fight to Spaniards of all ranks, sexes, ages, for their happiness is quite catching; and yet a thorn peeps amid these rosebuds; when the dazzling glare and fierce African sun calcining the heavens and earth, fires up man and beast to madness, a raging thirst for blood is seen in flashing eyes and the irritable ready knife, then the passion of the Arab triumphs over the coldness of the Goth: the excitement would be terrific were it not on pleasure bent; indeed there is no sacrifice, even of chastity, no denial, even of dinner, which they will not undergo to save money for the bull-fight. It is the birdlime with which the devil catches many a female and male soul. The men go in all their best costume and majo-finery: the distinguished ladies wear on these occasions white lace mantillas, and when heated, look, as the Andaluz wag Adrian said, like sausages wrapped up in white paper; a fan, abanico, is quite as necessary to all as it was among the Romans. The article is sold outside for a trifle, and is made of rude paper, stuck into a handle of common cane or stick, and the gift of one to his nutbrown querida is thought a delicate attention to her complexion from her swarthy swain; at the same time the lower Salamander classes stand fire much better on these occasions than in action, and would rather be roasted fanless alive á la auto de fe than miss these hot engagements.
The place of slaughter, like the Abattoirs on the Continent, is erected outside the towns, in order to obtain space, and because horned animals when over driven in crowded streets are apt to be ill-mannered, as may be seen every Smithfield market-day in the City, as the Lord Mayor well knows.
SEAT OF THE CLERGY.
The seats occupied by the mob are filled more rapidly than our shilling galleries, and the “gods” are equally noisy and impatient. The anxiety of the immortals, wishes to annihilate time and space and make bull-fanciers happy. Now his majesty the many reigns triumphantly, and this—church excepted—is the only public meeting allowed; but even here, as on the Continent, the odious bayonet sparkles, and the soldier picket announces that innocent amusements are not free; treason and stratagem are suspected by coward despots, when one sole thought of pleasure engrosses every one else. All ranks are now fused into one mass of homogeneous humanity; their good humour is contagious; all leave their cares and sorrows at home, and enter with a gaiety of heart and a determination to be amused, which defies wrinkled care; many and not over-delicate are the quips and quirks bandied to and fro, with an eloquence more energetic than unadorned; things and persons are mentioned to the horror of periphrastic euphuists; the liberty of speech is perfect, and as it is all done quite in a parliamentary way, none take offence. Those only who cannot get in are sad; these rejected ones remain outside grinding their teeth, like the unhappy ghosts on the wrong side of the Styx, and listen anxiously to the joyous shouts of the thrice blessed within.
At Seville a choice box in the shade and to the right of the president is allotted as the seat of honour to the canons of the cathedral, who attend in their clerical costume; and such days are fixed upon for the bull-fight as will not by a long church service prevent their coming. The clergy of Spain have always been the most uncompromising enemies of the stage, where they never go; yet neither the cruelty nor profligacy of the amphitheatre has ever roused the zeal of their most elect or most fanatic: our puritans at least assailed the bear-bait, which induced the Cavalier Hudibras to defend them; so our methodists denounced the bull-bait, which was therefore patronised by the Right Hon. W. Windham, in the memorable debate May 24, 1802, on Mr. Dog Dent. The Spanish clergy pay due deference to bulls, both papal and quadruped; they dislike being touched on this subject, and generally reply “Es costumbre—it is the custom—siempre se ha praticado asi—it has always been done so, or son cosas de España, they are things of Spain”—the usual answer given as to everything which appears incomprehensible to strangers, and which they either can’t account for, or do not choose. In vain did St. Isidore write a chapter against the amphitheatre—his chapter minds him not; in vain did Alphonso the Wise forbid their attendance. The sacrifice of the bull has always been mixed up with the religion of old Rome and old and modern Spain, where they are classed among acts of charity, since they support the sick and wounded; therefore all the sable countrymen of Loyola hold to the Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means.