176 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



years they are often undisputed masters of large areas 

 in which they seldom see a human being. To separate 

 these creatures from the herd, and drive them for 

 miles surrounded by horsemen armed only with iron- 

 shod poles, is a feat of skill and danger far greater 

 than any which the South American Spaniard under- 

 takes when armed with the bolas or the lasso. Each 

 bull is successively enticed into pursuit of some rider, 

 and then diverted into following a second, until it 

 loses the herd. The whole of those thus separated 

 are then united, and driven in a tumult of pursuit, 

 retreat, dust, and occasional disaster into an enclosure 

 in the town. Next day they are driven into the 

 square, which has been fitted up as a bull-ring, and 

 the fight begins. There is no apparatus or ordered 

 succession of attacks, but the picadors face the bulls 

 on foot, without the aid of the central goal, which in 

 the old Italian giostra gave some shelter to the men, 

 and they are armed with darts instead of sticks as a 

 means of defence. When men and animals are tired 

 out the performance ends, and the bulls, subdued by 

 their two days' combat, are kept for use in agriculture. 

 According to Spanish tradition, the bull-fight in its 

 full development, as seen in Madrid, Carthagena, 

 Murcia, or any of the great provincial capitals, was 

 borrowed from the Moors ; with the exception that 

 the Moors of Granada did not kill their bulls, and 

 were too anxious to display their horsemanship to 

 allow their steeds to be injured. There is clearly no 

 likelihood of an institution so dear to the whole 

 nation being abolished ; but it is much to be hoped 



