38 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



thrown the graces of chivalry. The danger to which 

 the man exposed himself, to a certain extent atoned 

 for the barbarities inflicted on the bull. Here for 

 eight days bulls with blunted horns had been stab- 

 bed, mangled, and tortured ; many, no doubt, died 

 of their wounds, or were killed because they could 

 not recover ; and that day we had seen four men 

 struck down and carried off, two of whom had nar- 

 rowly escaped with their lives, if, indeed, they ever 

 recovered. After the immediate excitement of the 

 danger, the men were less objects of commiseration 

 than the beasts, but the whole showed the still bloody 

 effects of this modified system of bull-fighting. Men 

 go into all places without shame, though not with- 

 out reproach, but I am happy in being able to say 

 that none of what are called the higher classes of 

 the ladies of Merida were present. Still there were 

 many whose young and gentle faces did not convey 

 the idea that they could find pleasure in scenes of 

 blood, even though but the blood of brutes. 



In the evening we took another hot-bath at the lo- 

 teria, and the next day was Sunday, the last day of 

 the fiesta, which opened in the morning with grand 

 mass in the church of San Cristoval. The great 

 church, the paintings and altars, the burning of in- 

 cense, the music, the imposing ceremonies of the al- 

 tar, and the kneeling figures, inspired, as they always 

 do, if not a religious, at least a solemn feeling ; and, 

 as on the occasion of grand mass in the Cathedral on 

 my first vist to Merida, among the kneeling figures of 



