[Sidenote: CERTAINTY OF BULL-FIGHTS.] Well might even the keen-sighted, practical Duke say it is difficult to understand the Spaniards exactly; there neither men nor women, suns nor clocks go together; there, as in a Dutch concert, all choose their own tune and time, each performer in the orchestra endeavouring to play the first fiddle. All this is so much a matter of course, that the natives, like the Irish, make a joke of petty mistakes, blunders, unpunctualities, inconsequences, and pococurantisms, at which accurate Germans and British men of business are driven frantic. Made up of contradictions, and dwelling in the _pays de l’imprévu_, where exception is the rule, where accident and the impulse of the moment are the moving powers, the happy-go-lucky natives, especially in their collective capacity, act like women and children. A spark, a trifle, sets the impressionable masses in action, and none can foresee the commonest event; nor does any Spaniard ever attempt to guess beyond _la situacion actual_, the actual present, or to foretell what the morrow will bring; that he leaves to the foreigner, who does not understand him. _Paciencia y barajar_ is his motto; and he waits _patiently_ to see what next will turn up after another _shuffle_. There is one thing, however, which all know exactly, one question which all can answer; and providentially this refers to the grand object of every foreigner’s observation--“When will the bull-fight be and begin?” and this holds good, notwithstanding that there is a proviso inserted in the notices, that it will come off on such a day and hour, “if the weather permits.” Thus, although these spectacles take place in summer, when for months and months rain and clouds are matters of history, the cautious authorities doubt the blessed sun himself, and mistrust the certainty of his proceedings, as much as if they were ir-regulated by a Castilian clockmaker. [Sidenote: THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT.] CHAPTER XXI. Origin of the Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious Character--Fiestas Reales--Royal Feasts--Charles I. at one--Discontinuance of the Old System--Sham Bull-fights--Plaza de Toros--Slang Language--Spanish Bulls--Breeds--The Going to a Bull-fight.