BULLS AND BULL-FIGHTS 173 



necessary to protect him from the piercing horns ; and 

 though the Spaniards have in modern times invested 

 the encounter in that country with circumstances of 

 revolting cruelty, the form of duel between man and 

 bull as practised elsewhere is by no means the odious 

 and unequal combat which the name now suggests. 



In the " Maremma " of Italy it was a natural growth 

 from the main occupation of that strange district. 

 Throughout the line of flat pestilential plains and 

 swamps which stretches along the western coast of the 

 Peninsula, through the Pontine Marshes, down to the 

 extremity of Calabria, huge herds of semi-wild cattle 

 and wild buffaloes are tended by mounted vaccari 

 and buffalari, armed with long lances to protect them- 

 selves from the bulls, which are there at least as 

 savage and dangerous as those kept in the " reserves " 

 of the Spanish nobles to supply the bull-rings of 

 Murcia, Carthagena, or Madrid. In the days of the 

 temporal power of the popes it was the privilege of 

 the boldest of the vaccari, after driving their cattle 

 into the towns for sale, to give an exhibition of their 

 skill in facing or checking the furious bulls, and the 

 proceeds of this performance formed part of their 

 remuneration. 



In Rome the Anfiteatro Correa, built partly from 

 the materials of the Mausoleum of Augustus in 

 the Campus Martius, was the scene of the giostra, 

 as these combats were called. The bulls were kept 

 in the vaults which had once held the ashes of 

 the Caesars, and in the centre of the arena was the 

 pyramid that was once crowned by the statue of 



