It was a terrible life these brigands led, very different from the free and picturesque career with which poetry and romance love to identify them. Hunted by the soldiers and fleeced by their friends the peasants; suffering the extremes of hunger, thirst and fatigue; passing long days and nights of apprehension among the perpetual snows of the mountain summits, where they often durst not light a fire to warm their benumbed limbs or cook their stolen sheep or goat, for fear lest the flame should betray them, and where they would scarcely snatch a few moments for repose, that they might be ready for instant flight; dreading even to take off their clothes to wash themselves, because the pursuit might be upon them at any moment; paying absurd prices for all that they obtained from the country people; wasting in gambling the sums they received for ransoms; and haunted every hour by the Nemesis of past crimes and vain longings for a lawful and quiet life—the most wretched captive in his dungeon seems almost happy in comparison with them. Mr. Moens passed about a hundred days in their company. The ransom, finally reduced to 30,000 ducats, was not raised without some delay, in a country where he had few acquaintances, and even after it was raised the getting it safely to the band was a work of time and difficulty, for the government punishes all intercourse with the brigands with great severity. The robbers meanwhile became impatient. Our author was forced to accustom himself to kicks, cuffs, starvation, and every species of ill-usage, and there was serious talk of cutting off his ears and sending them to his wife as a gentle incentive to haste. The money came at last, however, and he parted from the gang on very friendly terms, receiving from them before he left enough money to enable him to travel to Naples "like a gentleman," besides several interesting keepsakes, such as a number of rings, and a knife which had been the instrument of one or two murders.
There is a sort of relief in turning from these two narratives of rascality to the next hook on our list, though in literary merit it is very far inferior to [{123}] them. It is the narrative of a lady's travels in Spain. There is not much novelty in the subject, and only a very moderate degree of skill in the execution; but it is something to get into decent company. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne [Footnote 26] travelled from the Pyreneean frontier of Spain, through Valladolid, Segovia, Madrid, Toledo, and Cordova, to Seville. Her book, with all its faults, supplies some lively pictures of modern Spanish life, and the reader who has patience to hunt for them will also find in her pages some valuable bits of information about the condition and prospects of the kingdom. She has a great deal to say about the discomforts of travelling in Spain, and the horrors of the hotels and inns, which are scarcely less abominable than those of Russia. However useful these particulars may be to persons meditating a trip through the Peninsula, they can scarcely be thought very important to the public generally; and we shall therefore content ourselves with extracting from Mrs. Byrne's two handsome volumes an account of a bull-fight at Madrid, which, notwithstanding her sex, she was induced by a sense of public duty to witness. We pass over the description of the arena and the spectators, and the preliminary procession of the actors in the bloody spectacle, and come at once to the moment when the bull is let into the ring:
[Footnote 26: Cosas de España: Illustrative of Spain and the Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, Author of Flemish Interiors, etc. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 279, 322. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.]
"No sooner was egress offered him than he rushed headlong into the circus, dashing madly round as if he sought an escape; baffled in this, and scared by the fanfare of the trumpets, the glare of the sun on the yellow sand, and the vociferous shouts of the people, he suddenly stopped, raised his head, and stared wildly round. The blood was already streaming from his neck where the devisa, [Footnote 27] in this case a sky-blue ribbon, had been fixed. Meantime the lidiadores, fifteen in number, were scattered about the arena, each with a brightly tinted cloak of different colors twisted about his arm, the picadores being drawn up in a defensive attitude, one behind the other, as far as possible from the centre of the circus. The horses, we observed, were blindfolded, pour cause. Some precautions were taken for the safety of the toreros; thus there were, here and there, slits in the barriers, [Footnote 28] through which an expert fellow could glide, in extreme cases, and there is a step all round, from which the more readily to vault over the paling. For the protection of the public, a tight rope was strained all round the circus, fixed to iron stays, to arrest the progress of the bull, if, in his fury, he should attempt to scamper upwards among the spectators. This frequently occurs, to the great delight of those who are far enough off not to be damaged, and who seem to forget that the next time it may be their turn. Frightful indeed are the accidents, both among actors and spectators, which sometimes happen during these games; and, as they are generally of some unexpected kind, one never knows whether some awful casualty may not be on the point of occurring; it is always on the cards.
[Footnote 27: The devisa differs in color, and indicates the ganaderia whence the bull has come.]
[Footnote 28: At Seville the lidiadores, at least those who are on foot, have an additional chance of safety in the wooden screens placed all around at intervals, about fifteen inches in front of the fenced ring, behind which they can glide, without fear of being followed by the bull.]
"The bull now discovered his adversaries, and seemed instinctively to recognize their treacherous intentions. The people became impatient for an attack, and the trumpets blew; the capeadores hovered about, dazzling, perplexing, attacking and repelling the bewildered brute, according to the different colors of their cloaks, and always gracefully and ingeniously eluding his vengeance. At length one, emboldened by success, continued his provocations beyond the bounds of discretion; the bull abandoned the others, and selecting his persevering tormentor, defied him to single combat. Scattering about the sand with his hoofs, he ploughed the ground with his muzzle, and, putting himself in a butting attitude, he pointed the back of his head and the tips of his horns with a menacing determination towards the object of his just vengeance. The agile torero, however, knew his bull; he never lost presence of mind for a moment, but twisting about the capa till it became inflated, he flung it before the beast's face, and, under cover of its folds, fled nimbly to the barrier. The bull, furiously enraged, tossed the crimson silk, tearing it with his horns, and then, discovering how he had been duped, made for his foe with redoubled rage; but the capeador had just gained the time he needed to vault over into the fenced ring just as the bull came up with him. His eye was dilated, and seemed to glare with fire; he had pursued his foe with such fury that the impetus given to his course served him instead of address, and, never losing sight of his man, he followed him, tumbling rather than leaping over the barrier into the narrow passage, [{124}] within one short section of which man and beast were now shut up together.
"The approving roars from the amphitheatre were deafening; it was difficult not to be carried away by the general enthusiasm; it was a moment of intense excitement; the life of a fellow-being seemed to hang on a thread, and a moment more must decide his doom. It was a struggle between brute force and intelligent activity:—the man got the better of it. In that instant he made another desperate bound, and leaped over into the next division. The people, true to its character—
'Sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit Damnatos,'
and who but now had thundered a unanimous 'Bravo toro!' changed its cry, and it was the lidiador they hailed. But he was not saved yet; the next move—quick as thought—was on the part of the bull, who, making a second and almost supernatural bound, was seen coming up behind him a third time, when the active fellow, by a happy inspiration, leaped back into the arena, and his brethren in arms, rushing to the rescue, threw open the communications to give his provoked and angry foe free course, till, one of the barriers being opened, he spontaneously returned into the circus, when it was neatly closed, and the combatant was saved for this time. Still panting from the desperate chase, the disappointed brute now turned upon the first picador, but received a check from the point of his lance; a broad stream flowed from the widening gash, crimsoning the sand, and, as might be expected, the wounded beast turned again with greater fury on his assailant, who by this time had driven his spurs into his horse, and by a bound had cleared the spot, so that the creature's horns struck violently, and with a fearful crash, into the wooden wall, and the bull, who as yet had gained no advantage, baffled and stung, coursed once more desperately round the ring.
"The men seemed to be taking breath; but the spectators had no intention of being satisfied with this tame dallying, and they vociferously signified their disapprobation. The trumpet sounded once more, and the picador advanced a second time to the bleeding hero of the sport, and provoked him with his 'vara,' at the same time siding up to the fence, so that, in case his horse should fall, he might secure an escape: the sagacious beast, albeit blindfolded, seemed to have an instinctive presentiment of the fate that awaited him; he trembled for a moment in every limb, as the bull, with a thundering roar, rent the air; but, obedient to the spur and to his master's voice, he recovered his pace, and advanced to meet the inevitable attack. The bull, lowering his head, rushed at the picador, and, with all the force of his weight, plunged his horns deep into the poor beast's right flank, turning him completely round as on a pivot, and lifting his hind quarters several times from the ground, the horse kicking violently. It was a ghastly group. The picador kept his seat unmoved while the whole assemblage yelled it's savage delight. The attention of the bull, as soon as the lance had forced him to withdraw his horns, was called off by the chulos, who dazzled him with the evolutions of a yellow cloak, and the gored steed, now released, but frightfully torn, tottered on, a hideous spectacle, endeavoring with his fast-failing strength, to bear his rider out of danger. Arrived near the middle of the arena, however, his broken steps were arrested; his hour was come, and, making one last but futile effort, he fell with his rider heavily to the ground. When a picador falls, and with his horse upon him, it is no easy matter for him to rise; and no sooner had the wretched steed succumbed, than the bull, dashing at the struggling and powerless man, 'in one red ruin blent,' attacked horse and man once more with all the vigor of his horns. The picador was utterly helpless; imbedded in his deep saddle and ponderous stirrups, his lower limbs cased in iron, he had not the shadow of a chance of extricating himself. His lance he had dropped, and all he could do, and all he did, was to urge his dying horse with violent and desperate blows to rise and release him. The cruelly-used beast, willing and intelligent to the last, mangled as he was, and almost swimming in the crimson pool beneath him, made a supreme effort to rise; it was in vain, and all he could now do was to serve as a shield by receiving the attack of the enraged bull, instead of his master. Still the position was eminently critical; the struggles of the dying horse under the horns of the infuriated full complicated the position, and the next moment might decide the helpless man's fate. He looked around, dismayed, when another picador advanced, and, driving his lance into the bull's shoulder, aroused him to the consciousness of a new foe. The toreros and chulos took advantage of the diversion to bear the bruised and wounded picador off the field, and the expiring horse—not deemed worth of thought, because, pecuniarily speaking, he was valueless—was left there, not only to struggle in the agonies of a cruel death, but to form a butt for the frantic bull every time he passed in the fight.
"Meantime, as if to carry their barbarity to the lowest depth, two or three chulos, watching their opportunity, advanced to the moribund horse, and beating him violently with clubs and sticks, tried to force him to rise, but in vain; his feet, once so swift, were destined never to support him again, and, after several attempts to comply, he dropped his head heavily, and with an almost human expression of powerlessness and despair. His savage tormentors were not satisfied even now, and as if determined the noble beast should not even die in peace, forestalled the [{125}] few moments he had yet to breathe, by dragging off, with frightful violence, the heavy accoutrements with which he was incumbered; and, having possessed themselves of these articles, departed without having even had the grace to put an end to his miserable existence, the bull being engaged in a deadly combat with the second picador on the other side of the circus. The second picador, indeed, came off better than the first. His horse, after the first goring, and when just about to fall, was recalled by a sharp spur-stroke in his already lacerated sides; he started off at a convulsive gala, and for his rider nearly round the ring, a miserable spectacle. His entrails were dragging along till, his feet getting entangled in them, his master, with surprising skill, contrived to dismount before he fell, and abandoned the dying and defenseless creature to the fury of the bull, who again gored and tossed him violently, escaped scot-free.
"But the term of the persecuted toro's own existence was shortening, and the people, fearing lest his end should arrive for they had had all the enjoyment that could possibly be extracted from his struggles, called loudly for the banderillas. The trumpets blew gets approving blast, and to bold banderilleros presented themselves, after the bull had been provoked by the chulos into the right position and attitude for these new tormentors to commence their attack. The banderillero was an accomplished torero, who understood his business, and he took in at a glance the bull he had to deal with. His is a perilous office, but he executed it with intelligence, skill, and grace; he hovered about and around his bewildered victim, turning and twisting his banderillas with provoking perseverance, and gliding aside with surprising muscular accuracy every time the poor bull tried to parry a feint; at last he succeeded in planting his gaudy instruments of torture into the exact spot in which a clever artiste is bound to spike them, unless he can face the execrations of an assemblage of fastidious and disappointed connoisseurs. As it was, they testified their appreciation of the barbarous feat by the thunder of applause as the nimble torero eluded the pursuit of his foe by swift retreat. The bespangled and befringed banderillas drooped over with their own weight, and slapped violently on either side of the poor wretches neck, as with the sudden start and hideous roar at the unlooked-for aggravation, he bounded furiously across the sand, tearing up the ground with his horns and hoofs, and tossing everything in his way, in his frantic efforts to rid himself of the new torment; the blood, which had quite coagulated into a gory texture, hanging like a broad crimson sheet from either side of his neck, completely concealed his hide, now started in a fresh stream from the new wound, and his parched tongue hung from his mouth, eloquently appealing in its mute helplessness for one small drop of water. Strange to say, the pitiful sight touched no responsive chord in the hearts of that countless mass of humanity; on the contrary, like the beast of prey who has once licked up blood, this insatiate crowd seemed to gloat over the scene that had well-nigh sickened us; so far from being moved to compassion, regret, or sympathy, they urged on the remaining banderilleros, eager in their turn to show their skill, and after the usual flourishes, two more pair of fiery banderillas were adding their piercing points to the smarting shoulders of the luckless bull, 'butchered to make a Spanish holiday.' What must the Roman circus have been, if this was so unendurable?—and yet tender, gentle, loving womankind assisted—ay, and applauded at the ghastly human sacrifice.
"It was a relief when the trumpet blew its fatal blast, and the espada came forward, bowed to the president, threw off his cap, and displayed his crimson flag. It was Cuchares—the great Cuchares himself: the theatre rang with applause. The Toledo steel, bright as a mirror, flashed in his practised hand, dexterously he felt his ground; he eyed the bull, and in a moment—a critical moment for him—perceived by tests his experience suggested to him the nature of the animal he had to deal with, and the mode in which he must be treated . . . and . . . despatched. All the other toreros had retired, and he stood alone, as an executioner, face to face with his foredoomed victim. It was a supreme moment, and the attention of the amphitheatre seemed breathlessly concentrated into a single point.
"There is a wonderful power of fascination in perfection of any kind, and, notwithstanding the nature of the act in which it was to be displayed, we felt ourselves insensibly drawn under its influence.
"The matador began his operations by dallying with the bull: possessing all the qualifications of a first-rate espada, the confidence he had in the accuracy of his eye and the steadiness of his hand was apparent in every gesture; the group formed a singular tableau, and the attitudes supplied a series of excitements. Every head was stretched forward with an eagerness which offered each individual character without disguise, to be read like the page of a book. The interest was intensified by a sudden and unexpected plunge on the part of the bull; it was vigorous, but it was his last; the poor beast was received with masterly self-possession on the point of the sword, which entered deep, deep into the shoulder, just above the blade, and with a fearful groan, the huge and bloody form fell, an inert mass, to the ground.
"The crimson tide of life burst like an unstemmed torrent from his wide nostrils and gaping mouth, and with a quiver which seemed to communicate itself to the whole [{126}] amphitheatre, he was still for ever. The air was rent with shouts of men, screams of women, cries of approbation and roars of applause, which were still at their height, when one of the barriers suddenly opened, and the mules, with their harness glittering, and their grélots tinkling, trotted gaily in; a rope was fastened with great dexterity around the neck of the still palpitating carcase, which was then dragged off with incredible rapidity, leaving a purple furrow in the sand: the dead bodies of the luckless horses, one of which still lingered on, were mercilessly disposed of in a similar manner; the chulos came in, some raked over the large deep stains beneath where the dead had lain, and cleverly masked the tracks they had left, and others sprinkled fresh sand over the spots. All traces of the deadly contest were obliterated, and in the few moments the arena, bright and sunny as ever, was prepared for a new corrida; the toreros appeared again, as smart and dapper as the first, their costumes as fresh, their silk stockings as spotless; not a splash of blood had touched them, and their limbs appeared to retain their original pliability to the last. One corrida is so like another, the routine is so precisely the same—never, apparently, having varied since the first bull-fight that was ever exhibited in the crudest times, and—unless there be an accident—the detail is so slightly varied, that it would be needless to add to the notes we have already recorded, especially as it is not an entertainment we would willingly linger over, even in recollection. We felt we ought to see it once; we saw, were utterly disgusted, and hope never to witness the horrid exposition a second time."
We have another book on Spain, just published in London, and much better written than Mrs. Byrne's, though it does not contain a quarter so much information as that lady's desultory journal. It is by Mr. Henry Blackburn, [Footnote 29] who made a trip through the kingdom, in 1864, with a party of ladies and gentlemen.