“A blast of trumpets sounds the hour for the spectacle to begin, and the eager shout of the multitude shows their impatience to see the fun. A great show precedes, the magistrates riding in with a troop to give something like dignity to the occasion, and when they have swept around the circle and retired, the spectators sit in breathless silence. Two mounted men, called _picadors_, ride in, each with a long spear at rest, and take their position, some fifty feet in front of the gateway through which the beasts are to enter. All things being ready, and the breathless throng thirsting for the fray, the huge door unfolds, and a fierce bull dashes into the arena. The multitude greet him with a shout of ecstasy. He makes straight upon the picadors, if he is a bull of spirit. There’s a great difference in the animals; some of them go scouring all around the ring, head down and tail up, pursued by the picador; but a real bull of Navarre—they are the fiercest and pluckiest—pitches right ahead for the first enemy he sees. The horseman levels his lance to meet the tremendous monster as he comes; sometimes catches him on the shoulder, and the blood spouts from the wound. But he does not stop for trifles. It takes more than a scratch to stop a good bull; he rushes on and sometimes buries the iron deeper in his flesh, or tosses it off, and catching the horse on his horns, hoists him and his rider into the air, and as they come down in a heap, he drives on to meet other antagonists lying in wait, and ready to do him mischief. The very last time I was there, it was this sight that made my husband sick; the horse scrambled up, and actually went trotting around the ring, when there was more of him outside than in, he was so terribly ripped open by that one lunge of those splendid horns. I was in hopes that the bull would beat the whole of them; now he met the men on foot, with red cloaks on their arms, which they shake to attract the excited gentleman’s attention. He sees them and bears down gallantly upon them like a Monitor or a Miantonomoh, and the wily _chulos_, or cloakers, leap dexterously to one side, and sometimes they jump over the barriers among the spectators, where they have been followed by the raging bull himself. This is not often, however. He has still another set of fighters to drive out of the ring. These are the _banderilleros_, who throw fiery darts into the bull’s neck; these darts are provided with a powder squib which explodes when it strikes in the flesh, and puts his majesty into a horrid rage: by this time, the bull, hunted by all these foes, charging upon one and speared by another, is becoming exhausted, or the spectators are wearied with the sameness of the fight, and want a new victim. The _matador_, or chief butcher, then enters the field in a full court dress, with a scarlet robe in one hand and a sharp stiletto in the other. He brandishes the red skirt to draw the bull on, and as he