198 Unexplored Spain 



The career of tlie hull-fighter to-day is absolutely wanting 

 in such virtue. Lagartijo and Frascuelo staked their lives each 

 afternoon, through a love of their art, by the impress of honest 

 nature, perhaps by inspiration of a woman's eyes. Into their 

 calculations, ideas of lucre did not enter, money had no value. 



Then came on the scene (1887) that bright particular star, 

 Rafael Guerra (Guerrita) celebrated and admired — and with justice. 

 But his coming destroyed for ever the legend of the disinterested 

 torero. The lover of the art for its own sake was no more, 

 Guerrita was a mercenary of the first water. Admittedly first 

 of modern bull-fighters, the aspiration of his soul was the possession 

 of bank-notes, to be the clipper of many coupons ! Neither passion, 

 nor blood, nor favour of the fair inspired his sordid soul. At the 

 supreme moment of danger, money, only money, was the motive 

 which actuated him. In his desire for wealth, he succeeded. 

 His unexpected retirement from the arena in the very apogee of 

 his glory, and carrying away the accumulation of his thrift, was a 

 shock to this warm-hearted people. Every vestige of the romantic 

 halo with which personal prowess and graceful presence had 

 surrounded him was destroyed. Guerrita as a player of bulls 

 {torero) was the first in all the history of the ring. As a "matador " 

 also he was the most complete and certain. Unlike the majority 

 of his compeers, he was reserved in his habits, and lived apart 

 from the bizarre and tempestuous life of the ordinary bull-fighter, 

 with its feminine intrigues and excitements. For that reason 

 he had many enemies amongst his set ; but of his claim to be in 

 the very first rank there has never been a question. To see 

 Guerrita wind the silken sash around his ribs of steel, as he 

 attired himself for the arena, was a sight his ^Datrons considered 

 worth going many a mile to witness.^ 



Since his retirement, the show has fallen greatly, in the 

 quality of the bull-fighter. 



Luis Mazzantini created a temporary revolution in the annals 

 of toromaquia (1885), lighting up anew the enthusiasm for the 

 fiesta. He came not of the usual low, half-gipsy caste, but of 

 the class which entitled him to the Don of gentle birth. Don 

 Luis Mazzantini, the only professional bearing such a prefix, 

 acquired at an unusually late period of life sufficient technical 

 knowlede^e of bull-fightino; to embolden him to enter the lists in 



^ The authors personally assisted at this toilet, Talavera, May 1S91. 



