554 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



At the head of the procession walk the Espadas, then come the Ban- 

 derilleros, the mounted Picadores and the attendants (Chulos) on foot 

 with a team of gaily bedecked mules used in dragging off the dead 

 bulls and horses. The fight can be described as follows : 



It is one of three acts. In the first act the picadores receive the 

 charge of the bull, which they try to withstand by prodding him with 

 their pikes. In nearly every case horse and rider are overthrown by 

 the bull, and the horse terribly gored. The bull's attention is attracted 

 as quickly as possible by the waving of cloaks in the hands of attend- 

 ants, and he is enticed to leave the prostrate man and horse. This, 

 performance is repeated several times until the bull becomes a little 

 wearied. The second act now begins, and in this a banderillero on 

 foot will meet the bull in full charge, stick into his neck on either side- 

 two barbed darts about thirty inches long covered with colored paper, 

 and step nimbly aside to escape the enraged animal. Usually eight 

 of these darts are used. In the third and last act, the espada teases the 

 bull with his red cloth and manceuvers to get the weakened bull in a 

 favorable position to give the death stroke by thrusting his sword 

 through the neck and into the bull's heart. Great is the applause when 

 the bull falls dead from a single stroke. The dead bull and horses are- 

 dragged out by the mule team, the ring is sanded to cover up all traces 

 of blood, a new bull is let in and the fight goes on as before. (A bull 

 fight is quite expensive. Each bull costs about $250, and horses, 

 though poor, cost something. The animals killed in the ordinary cor- 

 rida are worth at least $2,000.) 



It had been decided to divide the Naval Observatory expedition 

 into three, sending two parties to Spain and one to Africa. The 

 U. S. S. Dixie took the African party to Tunis, and the astronomers 

 Jewell, Gilbert and Dinwiddie located themselves at Guelma near the 

 central line of the shadow cast by the moon. In Spain there were 

 two parties, one located at the edge of the path of totality at Poerto 

 Coeli, and the other near the central line at Daroca. At the former 

 place were Lieutenant Commander Hayden, Professor Littell, Mr. 

 Peters and Mr. Hill from the Naval Observatory, and Mr. Anderson 

 from the Johns Hopkins University; at the latter place Avere stationed 

 Professor Eichelberger and Mr. Yowell of the U. S. Naval Observatory, 

 Professor Bigelow of the U. S. Weather Bureau, Mr. Hoxton of the 

 Johns Hopkins University, and the writer. 



Daroca is in the heart of old Spain, about forty miles from Sara- 

 gosso, and as a railroad has been there only four years it is a terra 

 incognita for modern tourists — for which we were duly thankful. Our 

 six weeks' stay there was a happy commingling of hard work — and 

 there was plenty of work to do— with pleasant experiences in getting 

 acquainted with Spanish life and people. The site for the town is 

 indeed a peculiar one, in a valley so surrounded by hills that each 



