The day appointed for a bull-feast is announced by placards of all colours; the important particulars decorate every wall. The first thing is to secure a good place beforehand, by sending for a _Boletin de Sombra_, a shade-ticket; and as the great object is to avoid glare and heat, the best places are on the northern side, which are in the shade. The transit of the sun over the Plaza, the zodiacal progress into Taurus, is decidedly the best calculated astronomical observation in Spain; the line of shadow defined on the arena is marked by a gradation of prices. The different seats and prices are everywhere detailed in the bills of the play, with the names of the combatants and the colours of the different breeds of bulls. [Sidenote: BEST BREED OF BULLS.] The day before the fight, the bulls destined for the spectacle are driven towards the town, and pastured in a meadow reserved for their reception; then the fine amateurs never fail to ride out to see what the cattle is like, just as the knowing in horseflesh go to Tattersall’s of a Sunday afternoon, instead of attending evening service in their parish churches. According to Pepe Illo, who was a very practical man, and the first author on the modern system of the arena, of which he was the brightest ornament, and on which he died in the arms of victory, the “love of bulls is inherent in man, especially in the Spaniard, among which glorious people there have been bull-fights ever since there were bulls, because the Spanish men are as much more brave than all other men, as the Spanish bull is more fierce and valiant than all other bulls.” Certainly, from having been bred at large, in roomy unenclosed plains, they are more active than the animals raised by John Bull, but as regards form and power they would be scouted in an English cattle-show; a real British bull, with his broad neck and short horns, would make quick work with the men and horses of Spain; his “spears” would be no less effective than the bayonets of our soldiers, which no foreigner faces twice, or the picks of our _Navvies_, three and three-eighths of whom are calculated by railway economists to eat more beef and do more work than five and five-eighths of corresponding foreign material. By the way, the correct Castilian word for the bull’s _horns_ is _astas_, the Latin _hastas_, spears. _Cuernos_ must never be used in good Spanish society, since, from its secondary meaning, it might give offence to present company: allusions to common calamities are never made to ears polite, however frequent among the vulgar, who call things by their improper names--nay, roar them out, as in the time of Horace: “Magnâ compellens voce cucullum.”