A GOOD BULL.
When the bull is turned by the spear of the first picador, he passes on to the two other horsemen, who receive him with similar cordiality. If the animal be baffled by their skill and valour, stunning are the shouts of applause which celebrate the victory of the men: should he on the contrary charge home and overwhelm horses and riders, then—for the balances of praise and blame are held with perfect fairness—the fierce lord of the arena is encouraged with roars of compliments, Bravo toro, Viva toro, Well done, bull! even a long life is wished to him by thousands who know that he must be dead in twenty minutes.
A bold beast is not to be deterred by a trifling inch-deep wound, but presses on, goring the horse in the flank, and then gaining confidence and courage by victory, and “baptized in blood,” à la Française, advances in a career of honour, gore, and glory. The picador is seldom well mounted, for the horses are provided, at the lowest possible price, by a contractor, who runs the risk whether many or few are killed; they indeed are the only things economised in this costly spectacle, and are sorry, broken-down hacks, fit only for the dog-kennel of an English squire, or carriage of a foreign Pair. This increases the danger to his rider; in the ancient combats, the finest and most spirited horses were used; quick as lightning, and turning to the touch, they escaped the deadly rush. The eyes of those poor horses which see and will not face death, are often bound over with a handkerchief, like criminals about to be executed; thus they await blindfold the fatal horn thrust which is to end their life of misery.
DEATH OF THE HORSE.
The picadors are subject to most severe falls; the bull often tosses horse and rider in one ruin, and when his victims fall with a crash on the ground exhausts his fury upon his prostrate foes. The picador manages (if he can) to fall off on the opposite side, in order that his horse may form a barrier and rampart between him and the bull. When these deadly struggles take place, when life hangs on a thread, the amphitheatre is peopled with heads; every feeling of anxiety, eagerness, fear, horror, and delight is stamped on their expressive countenances; if happiness is to be estimated by quality, intensity, and concentration, rather than duration (and it is), these are moments of excitement more precious to them, than ages of placid, insipid, uniform stagnation. Their feelings are wrought to a pitch, when the horse, maddened with wounds and terror, plunging in the death-struggle, the crimson seams of blood streaking his foam and sweat-whitened body, flies from the infuriated bull still pursuing, still goring; then are displayed the nerve, presence of mind, and horsemanship of the dexterous and undismayed picador. It is in truth a piteous sight to see the poor mangled horses treading out their entrails, and yet gallantly carrying off their riders unhurt. But as in the pagan sacrifices, the quivering intestines, trembling with life, formed the most propitious omens—to what will not early habit familiarise?—so the Spaniards are no more affected with the reality, than the Italians are with the abstract “tanti palpiti” of Rossini.
WOUNDED HORSES.
The miserable horse, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a bloody furrow on the sand, as the river-beds of the arid plains of Barbary are marked by the crimson fringe of the flowering oleanders. A universal sympathy is shown for the horseman in these awful moments; the men rise, the women scream, but all this soon subsides; the picador, if wounded, is carried out and forgotten—“los muertos y idos no tienen amigos”—a new combatant fills up his gap, the battle rages—wounds and death are the order of the day—he is not missed; and as new incidents arise, no pause is left for regret or reflection. We remember seeing at Granada a matador cruelly gored by a bull: he was carried away as dead, and his place immediately taken by his son, as coolly as a viscount succeeds to an earl’s estate and title. Carnerero, the musician, died while fiddling at a ball at Madrid, in 1838; neither the band nor the dancers stopped one moment. The boldness of the picadors is great. Francisco Sevilla, when thrown from his horse and lying under the dying animal, seized the bull, as he rushed at him, by his ears, turned round to the people, and laughed; but, in fact, the long horns of the bull make it difficult for him to gore a man on the ground; he generally bruises them with his nose: nor does he remain long busied with his victim, since he is lured to fresh attacks by the glittering cloaks of the Chulos who come instantly to the rescue. At the same time we are free to confess, that few picadors, although men of bronze, can be said to have a sound rib in their body. When one is carried off apparently dead, but returns immediately mounted on a fresh horse, the applauding voice of the people outbellows a thousand bulls. If the wounded man should chance not to come back, n’importe, however courted outside the Plaza, now he is ranked, like the gladiator was by the Romans, no higher than a beast,—or about the same as a slave under the perfect equality and man rights of the model republic.
A COWARD BULL.
The poor horse is valued at even less, and he, of all the actors, is the one in which Englishmen, true lovers and breeders of the noble animal, take the liveliest interest; nor can any bull-fighting habit ever reconcile them to his sufferings and ill-treatment. The hearts of the picadors are as devoid of feeling as their iron-cased legs; they only think of themselves, and have a nice tact in knowing when a wound is fatal or not. Accordingly, if the horn-thrust has touched a vital part, no sooner has the enemy passed on to a new victim, than an experienced picador quietly dismounts, takes off the saddle and bridle, and hobbles off like Richard, calling out for another horse—a horse! The poor animal, when stripped of these accoutrements, has a most rippish look, as it staggers to and fro, like a drunken man, until again attacked by the bull and prostrated; then it lies dying unnoticed in the sand, or, if observed, merely rouses the jeers of the mob; as its tail quivers in the last agony of death, your attention is called to the fun; Mira, mira, que cola! The words and sight yet haunt us, for they were those that first caught our inexperienced ears and eyes at the first rush of the first bull of our first bullfight. While gazing on the scene in a total abstraction from the world, we felt our coat-tails tugged at, as by a greedily-biting pike; we had caught, or, rather, were caught by a venerable harridan, whose quick perception had discovered a novice, whom her kindness prompted to instruct, for e’en in the ashes live the wonted fires; a bright, fierce eye gleamed alive in a dead and shrivelled face, which evil passions had furrowed like the lava-seared sides of an extinct volcano, and dried up, like a cat starved behind a wainscot, into a thing of fur and bones, in which gender was obliterated—let her pass. If the wound received by the horse be not instantaneously mortal, the blood-vomiting hole is plugged up with tow, and the fountain of life stopped for a few minutes. If the flank is only partially ruptured, the protruding bowels are pushed back—no operation in hernia is half so well performed by Spanish surgeons—and the rent is sown up with a needle and pack-thread. Thus existence is prolonged for new tortures, and a few dollars are saved to the contractor; but neither death nor lacerations excite the least pity, nay, the bloodier and more fatal the spectacle, the more brilliant is it pronounced. It is of no use to remonstrate, or ask why the wounded sufferers are not mercifully killed at once; the utilitarian Spaniard dislikes to see the order of the sport interrupted and spoilt by what he considers foreign squeamishness and nonsense, “Ah que! no vale nã,”—“Bah! the beast is worth nothing;” that is, provided he condescends to reply to your disparates with anything beyond a shrug of civil contempt. But national tastes will differ. “Sir,” said an alderman to Dr. Johnson, “in attempting to listen to your long sentences, and give you a short answer, I have swallowed two pieces of green fat, without tasting the flavour. I beg you to let me enjoy my present happiness in peace and quiet.”
The bull is the hero of the scene; yet, like Satan in the Paradise Lost, he is foredoomed. Nothing can save him from a certain fate, which awaits all, whether brave or cowardly. The poor creatures sometimes endeavour in vain to escape, and have favourite retreats, to which they fly; or they leap over the barrier, among the spectators, creating a vast hubbub and fun, upsetting water-carriers and fancy men, putting sentinels and old women to flight, and affording infinite delight to all who are safe in the boxes; for, as Bacon remarks, “It is pleasant to see a battle from a distant hill.” Bulls which exhibit this cowardlike activity are insulted: cries of “fuego” and “perros,” fire and dogs, resound, and he is condemned to be baited. As the Spanish dogs have by no means the pluck of the English assailants of bulls, they are longer at the work, and many are made minced-meat of:—