En yivant. 247 



This is what they did. They provided for us a bull-tight. The arena was on 

 one side of their principalstreet, at the western end -and their old cathedral, 

 built, as they allege, in 1640, was on the other side ! These two facts were 

 what they had to show us — an old cathedral and a bull-fight; strange 

 mixture and jux aposition of what remains to us in these last days of the 

 ancient cruelty and persistent faith of the old Latin race. 



Some of the more reputable of our companj'^ stayed away from the bull- 

 fight; but the rest of us, reckless of reputation, went. The ticket was 

 a dollar. It was strictly a horticultural show ! An arena, boarded up to the 

 height of ten feet and about eighty feet in diameter, was the scene. The 

 seats of the spectators rise in rows from the top of the arena, so that the 

 latter appears as a pit. Over the seats, on high, are stretched thin awnings, 

 through which the ^Mexican sunshine in many places manages to get its 

 yellow feet on the benches. Here is the crowd ; and the band of Paso del 

 Norte blows brass music across the arena. The cat-call is " Tor-r-ro ! tor-r-ro !" 

 Soon a gate inside the pit is opened, and tor-r-ro plunges in with a snort. 

 He is of a size, shape and general architecture wholly repugnant to the 

 great American idea of what a bull ought to be. Moreover, he has been 

 trained to this sort of business. The scars of fifty old fights are on his neck 

 and shoulders and sides. He inspects the arena, knowing what is to come. 

 Here are the picadores, on foot— gorgeous creatures in green and red, with 

 fiat caps on their heads and a tassel. But they are active as cats. In the left 

 hand each picadore takes a red streamer, and a little pike in his right hand. 

 He flings out the streamer in the face of tor-r-ro, who plunges at it. The 

 picadore jumps aside and prods his four-footed superior in the side or 

 neck. There is much of this sort of business. The picadoi'e takes two 

 arrows embossed with colored paper and little streamers. He runs squarely 

 into the face of tor-r-ro, who plunges at him, and when between the very 

 horns of his enemy reaches over and plants his javelins in the taurine 

 shoulders. There they stick. At the last the matadores come in on horse- 

 back, either with lassos to throw the bull and relieve him of the tormenting 

 spikes and arrows in his flesh, or else to kill him with a saber-thrust in the 

 side and drag him out of the arena. During the afternoon there were four 

 of these fights. The sympathj^ of one of the spectators was wholly with the 

 bull, and doubtless many others entertained the same sentiment with regard 

 to the essential merits of the contest. Is a white man ever justifiable in 

 going to a bull-fight? Rarely, if ever. There is one pretty thing to be seen 

 in Paso del Norte, and that is the Spanish baby sitting in the window on the 

 south side of the principal street, seven doors east of the crossing of the 

 Mexican Central Railway. 



Over in El Paso the excursionists suppered after the manner of Amer- 

 ican citizens, and then betook themselves to the trains. It was already the 

 gathering shadow of evening, and we must now tunnel through another 

 night. It was matter of regret to most of our company that the darkness 

 fell upon us on our entrance into New Mexico. . Nor did we make our exit 



