MEXICO. 



169 



the scenes enacted upon the spacious arena at your 

 feet. 



A very detailed account of a bullfight would be no 

 novelty to you, the ceremony having been described and 

 sung, in prose and verse, usque ad nauseam. If it is a 

 brutal and heartless exhibition in Spain, where, after all, 

 it is attended with some risk to the parties engaged 

 from the strength and vigour of the noble animal that 

 is the object of the sport — it is so here in a tenfold de- 

 gree ; as of all bulls I ever saw, the Mexican is the 

 weakest and the most spiritless. Instead of the com- 

 pact concentration of animal strength visible in the mas- 

 sive form, nervous limbs, short neck, and majestic port 

 of a European bull — English, Spanish, or Swiss — you 

 see animals turned into the arena, w 7 ith a demeanour un- 

 worthy of even a decent cow — hollow-backed, long- 

 legged, long-horned, nerveless animals, whose first im- 

 pulse is to get out of the way, and whose courage is the 

 courage of desperation. 



The pomp and circumstances of the spectacle — the 

 costumes of the different orders of actors — the picadores, 

 bandarillos, and matadores, are precisely the same as are 

 seen in the mother country. 



The first trumpet call from the alcalde's box gives a 

 token to the soldiers — who, with a military band, are al- 

 ways in attendance — to clear the arena of the sovereign 

 people, some hundreds of whom always take care to re- 

 main strolling over its surface till the very last moment, 

 all for the honour, apparently, of receiving an energetic 

 application of the butt end of a musket. This we saw 

 dispensed right and left, sans ceremonie. 



The second signal brings in the whole of the dramatis 

 personse, horse and foot, led onward in procession by 

 the mounted lancemen or picadpres, and terminated by 

 the butcher, garbed decently in white, and an humble 

 but gallant youth trundling a wheelbarrow. After salu- 

 ting the alcalde, and making the circuit, they separate 



