Two large, high, basket-like gabions were afterwards brought in, when two men entered them up to the arms, and it was great diversion to the people to see the bulls, who were successively led into the arena, and whose horns were covered with leather, tossing these baskets about. The men who were inside had got banderillos, which they stuck in the bull's back when he came up to them. This lasted for some time, but at last the crowd grew weary of it, and dispersed. On this day, Charpur (who certainly was the hero of the play), exhibited his dexterity as a chulos in the scene where the bull killing took place. One of the novices, who was being educated as a matador, drove his sword through the bull's neck, up to the hilt, transfixing a portion of the flesh, and leaving the blade dangling from it. Charpur went up to the bull, and, partly by his cloak and partly by his menaces, led him towards the barrera, when he seized hold of his tail, and holding on by his back, approached his neck, and coolly took the sword out, which he threw on the ground. Such is the recreation, and such the feats, which are the theme of praise and topic of conversation amongst the Spanish people, who discourse of it as we do of the races at Ascot or Newmarket, or any other resort of the men on the turf. But I certainly did not see one English lady there, notwithstanding the numbers of Spanish mantillas which might have kept them in countenance. "Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, But formed for all the witching arts of love; In softness and in firmness far above Remoter females, famed for sickening prate." This, by what I can learn, is the only remnant of the ancient fights which the Goths must have learned from the Romans; cruel and barbarous exhibitions, much "more honored in the breach than in the observance." The next day we passed in walking about the town. We entered a church, which was built of soft granite, and the internal structure of which reminded me of some that I had seen in Florence and Milan. The arches were Gothic; the columns that supported the cupolas inside, and the different domes into which the aisle was divided, were massive and grand. The paintings seemed not to be from the hands of masters; and the altars, which at a distance seemed so gorgeous, had rather a tinsel glittering sort of appearance on near approach, such as would be called familiarly "gingerbread shows"--but it was very lofty and extensive.