TAUKOMACBIA, THE FIGHTING BULL OP SPAIN. 55 



•weapon but the sword, a powerful and ferocious animal, 

 means taking one's life in one's hand, and relying for 

 safety and final triumph on cool intrepid pluck, on a 

 marvellous activity and truth of hand, eye, and limb, and 

 on a nerve which not the peril even of the supreme 

 moment can disturb. 



There are doubtless balanced minds which, while in no 

 way ignoring or exculpating its cruelties, can yet recognize 

 in the toreo an unrivalled exhibition of human skill, 

 nerve, and power, and can distinguish between the good 

 and the bad among its heterogeneous constituents. 



The bull-fight, as a spectacle, has often been described : 

 but no English writers have attempted to trace its origin 

 and history ; to explain its firm-seated hold on the affec- 

 tions of the Spanish people, and to show how their keen zest 

 for the national sport goes back to the days of chivalry. 

 Nor has anything been written of the agricultural, or 

 pastoral side of the question, and of the picturesque scenes 

 amidst which the earlier stages of the drama are enacted 

 on broad Iberian plain and prairie : of the feats of horse- 

 manship and " derring do " at the tentaderos, or trials, and 

 later at the encierro on that hot summer morning when 

 the gallant toro bravo is lured for ever from his native 

 pastures, and led by traitor kin within the fatal enclosure 

 of the arena. 



The custom of the toreo, if not the art, is so ancient, 

 its origin so lost in the mists of time, that it is difficult to 

 fix the precise period at which bull-fighting was first 

 practised. There is written evidence to show that en- 

 counters between men and bulls were not infrequent at the 

 time of the Arab invasion in the eighth century, and it 

 may be accepted that it was this eastern race that gave the 

 diversion its first popularity.* It is proved beyond doubt 

 that at the Moorish fetes encounters with bulls were one 

 of the chief sports, and when, centuries later, the Arab 



* Spanish writers, however, jealous for the national origin of the 

 sport, insist that the " Fiestas de Toros " were born in Spain, that 

 there alone have they increased and flourished, and that in Spain will 

 they continue while time lasts. 



