The miserable horse, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a bloody furrow
on the sand, as the river-beds of the arid plains of Barbary are marked
by the crimson fringe of the flowering oleanders. A universal sympathy
is shown for the horseman in these awful moments; the men rise, the
women scream, but all this soon subsides; the _picador_, if wounded, is
carried out and forgotten--“_los muertos y idos no tienen amigos_”--a
new combatant fills up his gap, the battle rages--wounds and death are
the order of the day--he is not missed; and as new incidents arise, no
pause is left for regret or reflection. We remember seeing at Granada a
matador cruelly gored by a bull: he was carried away as dead, and his
place immediately taken by his son, as coolly as a viscount succeeds to
an earl’s estate and title. Carnerero, the musician, died while fiddling
at a ball at Madrid, in 1838; neither the band nor the dancers stopped
one moment. The boldness of the picadors is great. Francisco Sevilla,
when thrown from his horse and lying under the dying animal, seized the
bull, as he rushed at him, by his ears, turned round to the people, and
laughed; but, in fact, the long horns of the bull make it difficult for
him to gore a man on the ground; he generally bruises them with his
nose: nor does he remain long busied with his victim, since he is lured
to fresh attacks by the glittering cloaks of the _Chulos_ who come
instantly to the rescue. At the same time we are free to confess, that
few picadors, although men of bronze, can be said to have a sound rib in
their body. When one is carried off apparently dead, but returns
immediately mounted on a fresh horse, the applauding voice of the people
outbellows a thousand bulls. If the wounded man should chance not to
come back, _n’importe_, however courted outside the _Plaza_, now he is
ranked, like the gladiator was by the Romans, no higher than a
beast,--or about the same as a slave under the perfect equality and man
rights of the model republic.
[Sidenote: A COWARD BULL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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