The Bull-Ring 



naughty, cruel wretches, we went to see it. Bull-fights 

 have often been described ; I will, therefore, endeavour to 

 make mine as short and disgusting as my powers of con- 

 densation will admit. 



An arena about a hundred yards in diameter, girt by a 

 sloping amphitheatre, and half surrounded above by arched 

 and columned galleries, is filled by twelve thousand men, 

 women, and children, all impatient. A score or so of men, 

 arrayed in scarlet and yellow and purple and pink and 

 green and blue, embroidered and laced and frogged and 

 tasselled and tagged with gold and silver and silk, are 

 strutting about upon the sand. 



There is a flourish of trumpets. A door is opened in 

 the wooden barrier, which defends the lower benches of 

 spectators, and in rushes a broad-nosed, innocent, astonished- 

 looking bull. He looks here and there, and round about 

 him, and has every reason to be surprised, if not alarmed. 

 The men in gaudy colours at first keep a respectful distance, 

 and observe whether he is very fierce ; then the boldest of 

 them goes forward. The foolish bull now thinks he has 

 discovered his principal enemy, and canters towards him 

 with the full intention of playing cup and ball with his body 

 on the points of his horns. 



As the bull reaches him, he flings out his cloak and skips 

 aside, so that the horns impinge on nothing but a cloud of 

 floating drapery. Sometimes it is carried away on the 

 points, and the disappointed beast shakes it off his face, and 

 gores and tramples it in the dust. The other men do the 

 same as the first, with more or less agility, and there is a 

 good deal of running about and jumping over the barriers, 

 into which the pursuer comes full tilt. The public are soon 

 tired of these first performers, who are called the burladores 

 (jokers) or chuUllos. 



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