You should be told, however, that Seville is acknowledged, on all hands, to have carried these fights to perfection. To her school of _bullmanship_, that art owes all its refinements. Bull-fighting is considered by many of our young men of fashion a high and becoming accomplishment; and mimicking the scenes of the amphitheatre forms the chief amusement among boys of all ranks in Andalusia. The boy who personates the most important character in the drama--the bull--is furnished with a large piece of board, armed in front, with the natural weapons of the animal, and having handles fastened to the lower surface. By the last the boy keeps the machine steady on the top of the head, and with the former he unmercifully pushes such of his antagonists as are not dexterous enough to evade, or sufficiently swift to escape him. The fighters have small darts, pointed with pins, which they endeavour to fix on a piece of cork stuck flat on the horned board, till at length the bull falls, according to rule, at the touch of a wooden sword. Our young country-gentlemen have a substitute for the regular bull-fights, much more approaching to reality. About the beginning of summer, the great breeders of black cattle--generally men of rank and fortune--send an invitation to their neighbours to be present at the trial of the yearlings, in order to select those that are to be reserved for the amphitheatre. The greatest festivity prevails at these meetings. A temporary scaffolding is raised round the walls of a very large court, for the accommodation of the ladies. The gentlemen attend on horseback, dressed in short loose jackets of silk, chintz, or dimity, the sleeves of which are not sewed to the body, but laced with broad ribbons of a suitable colour, swelling not ungracefully round the top of the shoulders. A profusion of hanging buttons, either silver or gold, mostly silver gilt, twinkle in numerous rows round the wrists of both sexes. The saddles, called _Albardones_, to distinguish them from the peak-saddle, which is seldom used in Andalusia, rise about a foot before and behind in a triangular shape. The stirrups are iron boxes, open on both sides, and affording a complete rest the whole length of the foot. Both country-people and gentlemen riding in these saddles, use the stirrups so short, that, in defiance of all the rules of _manège_, the knees and toes project from the side of the horse, and, when galloping, the rider appears to kneel on its back. A white beaver-hat, of rather more than two feet diameter, fastened under the chin by a ribbon, was till lately worn at these sports, and is still used by the horsemen at the public exhibitions; but the _Montera_ is now prevalent. I find it difficult to describe this part of the national dress without the aid of a drawing. Imagine, however, a bishop’s mitre inverted, and closed on the side intended to receive the head. Conceive the two points of the mitre so shortened that,