2 04 Unexplored Spain 



loses, that ; he perceives no more difficulty in the perilous suerte 

 de vol-d-pie than in the simpler but more attractive siiei'te de 

 recibir, and a hundred similar details. Finally, before crystallis- 

 ing a judgment, critics should endeavour to see a few second- 

 or third-rate con-idas. It is at these that the relative values of 

 the forces opposed — brute strength and human skill — are dis- 

 played in truer and more speaking contrast. At set bull-fights 

 of the first-class, the latter quality is often so marked as partly 

 to obscure the difficulties and dangers it surmounts. Watch 

 toreros of finished skill and the game seems easy — as when 

 some phenomenal batsman, well set, knocks the best bowling 

 in England all over the field. Yet that bowling, the expert 

 knows, is not easy. Nor are the bulls. At second-rate fights 

 the forces placed face to face are more evenly balanced ; and 

 there it is often the bull that scores. 



The Miura Question 



A raging controversy, illuminative of Tauromachia, has 

 recently split into two camps the bull-fighting world and 

 agitated one-half of Spain. The breeding of the fighting-bull 

 is in this country a semi-gesthetic pursuit, analogous to that of 

 short-horns or racehorses iu England, and the possession of a 

 notable herd the ambition of manv of the o-randees and bis 

 landowners of Spain. 



Among the various crack herds that of Don Eduardo Miura 

 of Sevilla had always occupied a prominent rank ; while during 

 recent years the power and dashing prowess of the Miureno bulls 

 had raised that breed almost to a level apart, invested with a 

 halo of semi -mysterious quality. Captures occurred at every 

 corrida ; man after man had gone down before these redoubted 

 champions, and the minds of surviving matadors— saturated one 

 and all with gipsy-sprung superstition — began to attribute secret 

 or supernatural powers to the dreaded herd. Not a swordsman 

 but felt unwonted qualm when meeting a Miureno on the sanded 

 arena. Showy players with the capa and the banderillos proved 

 capable of giving attractive exhibitions, but it was another 

 matter when the matador stood alone, face to face with his foe. 

 Even second-class toreros can, with almost any bull, show off 

 their accomplishments in these lighter seances ; but in the 



