CHARACTERS OF BULLS.
There are several sorts of toros, whose characters vary no less than those of men: some are brave and dashing, others are slow and heavy, others sly and cowardly. The matador foils and plays with the bull until he has discovered his disposition. The fundamental principle consists in the animal’s mode of attack, the stooping his head and shutting his eyes, before he butts; the secret of mastering him lies in distinguishing whether he acts on the offensive or defensive. Those which are fearless, and rush boldly on at once, closing their eyes, are the most easy to kill; those which are cunning—which seldom go straight when they charge, but stop, dodge, and run at the man, not the flag, are the most dangerous. The interest of the spectators increases in proportion as the peril is great.
Although fatal accidents do not often occur (and we ourselves have never seen a man killed, yet we have beheld some hundred bulls despatched), such events are always possible. At Tudela, a bull having killed seventeen horses, a picador named Blanco, and a banderillero, then leapt over the barriers, where he gored to death a peasant, and wounded many others. The newspapers simply headed the statement, “Accidents have happened.” Pepe Illo, who had received thirty-eight wounds in the wars, died, like Nelson, the hero’s death. He was killed on the 11th of May, 1801. He had a presentiment of his death, but said that he must do his duty.
Every matador must be quick and decided. He must not let the bull run at the flag above two or three times; the moral tension of the multitudes is too strained to endure a longer suspense; they vent their impatience in jeers, noises, and endeavour by every possible manner to irritate him, and make him lose his temper, and perhaps life. Under such circumstances, Manuel Romero, who had murdered a man, was always saluted with cries of “A la Plaza de Cebada—to Tyburn.” The populace absolutely loathe those who show the smallest white feather, or do not brave death cheerfully.
THE MEDIA LUNA.
There are many ways of killing the bull: the principal is when the matador receives him on his sword when charging; then the weapon, which is held still and never thrust forward, enters just between the left shoulder and the blade-bone; a firm hand, eye, and nerve, are essential, since in nothing is the real fancy so fastidious as in the exact nicety of the placing this death-wound. The bull very often is not killed at the first effort; if not true, the sword strikes a bone, and then it is ejected high in air by the rising neck. When the blow is true, death is instantaneous, and the bull, vomiting forth blood, drops at the feet of his conqueror. It is indeed the triumph of knowledge over brute force; all that was fire, fury, passion, and life, falls in an instant, still for ever. The gay team of mules now enter, glittering with flags, and tinkling with bells; the dead bull is carried off at a rapid gallop, which always delights the populace. The matador then wipes the hot blood from his sword, and bows to the spectators with admirable sang froid, who fling their hats into the arena, a compliment which he returns by throwing them back again (they are generally “shocking bad” ones); when Spain was rich, a golden, or at least a silver shower was rained down—ces beaux jours là sont passés; thanks to her kind neighbour. The poverty-stricken Spaniard, however, gives all he can, and lets the bullfighter dream the rest. As hats in Spain represent grandeeship, so these beavers, part and parcel of themselves, are given as symbols of their generous hearts and souls; and none but a huckster would go into minute details of value or condition.
When a bull will not run at the fatal flag, or prays for pardon, he is doomed to a dishonourable death, as no true Spaniard begs for his own life, or spares that of his foe, when in his power; now the media Luna is yelled for, and the call implies insult; the use is equivalent to shooting traitors in the back: this half moon is the precise Oriental ancient and cruel instrument of houghing cattle; moreover it is the exact old Iberian bident, or a sharp steel crescent placed on a long pole. The cowardly blow is given from behind; and when the poor beast is crippled by dividing the sinew of his leg, and crawls along in agony, an assistant pierces with a pointed dagger the spinal marrow, which is the usual method of slaughtering cattle in Spain by the butcher. To perform all these vile operations is considered beneath the dignity of the matador; some, however, will kill the bull by plunging the point of their sword in the vertebræ, as the danger gives dignity to the difficult feat.
CONCLUSION OF BULL-FIGHT.
Such is a single bull-fight; each of which is repeated eight times with succeeding bulls, the excitement of the multitude rising with each indulgence; after a short collapse new desires are roused by fresh objects, the fierce sport is renewed, which night alone can extinguish; nay, often when royalty is present, a ninth bull is clamoured for, which is always graciously granted by the nominal monarch’s welcome sign, the pulling his royal ear; in truth here the mob is autocrat, and his majesty the many will take no denial; the bull-fight terminates when the day dies like a dolphin, and the curtain of heaven hung over the bloody show, is incarnadined and crimsoned; this glorious finish is seen in full perfection at Seville, where the plaza from being unfinished is open toward the cathedral, which furnishes a Moorish distance to the picturesque foreground. On particular occasions this side is decorated with flags. When the blazing sun setting on the red Giralda tower, lights up its fair proportions like a pillar of fire, the refreshing evening breeze springs up, and the flagging banners wave in triumph over the concluding spectacle; then when all is come to an end, as all things human must, the congregation depart, with rather less decorum than if quitting a church; all hasten to sacrifice the rest of the night to Bacchus and Venus, with a passing homage to the knife, should critics differ too hotly on the merits of some particular thrust of the bull-fight.
To conclude; the minds of men, like the House of Commons in 1802, are divided on the merits of the bull-fight; the Wilberforces assert (especially foreigners, who, notwithstanding, seldom fail to sanction the arena by their presence) that all the best feelings are blunted—that idleness, extravagance, cruelty, and ferocity are promoted at a vast expense of human and animal life by these pastimes; the Windhams contend that loyalty, courage, presence of mind, endurance of pain, and contempt of death, are inculcated—that, while the theatre is all illusion, the opera all effeminacy, these manly, national games are all truth, and in the words of a native eulogist “elevate the soul to those grandiose actions of valour and heroism which have long proved the Spaniards to be the best and bravest of all nations.”