CHAPTER THREE. The first exhibition on the programme was to be the _coleo de toros_, which may be rendered in English as "tailing the bull." It is only in the very large cities of Mexico where a regular _plaza de toros_, or arena for the bull-fight, is to be found; but in every tillage, however insignificant, the spoil of bull-tailing may be witnessed, as this only requires an open plain, and as wild a bull as can be procured. The sport is not quite so exciting as the bull-fight, as it is less perilous to those engaged in it. Not unfrequently, however, a gored horse or a mutilated rider is produced by the "coleo;" and fatal accidents have occurred at times. The horses, too, sometimes stumble, and both horse and rider are trampled by the others crowding from behind, so that in the pellmell drive awkward accidents are anything but uncommon. The coleo is, therefore, a game of strength, courage, and skill; and to excel in it is an object of high ambition among the youth of a New Mexican settlement. The arrangements having been completed, it was announced by a herald that the coleo was about to begin. These arrangements were simple enough, and consisted in collecting the crowd to one side, so that the bull, when let loose, would have a clear track before him in the direction of the open country. Should he not be allowed this favour he might head _towards_ the crowd,--a thing to be apprehended. In fear of this, most of the women were to be seen mounting into the rude _carretas_, scores of which were upon the ground, having carried their owners to the spectacle. Of course the senoras and senoritas on the raised benches felt secure. The competitors were now drawn up in a line. There were a dozen detailed for this first race,--young men of all classes, who were, or fancied themselves, "crack" riders. There were rancheros in their picturesque attire, smart arrieros, miners from the hills, townsmen, hacendados of the valley, vaqueros from the grazing-farms, and ciboleros, whose home is for the most part on the wide prairies. Several dragoons, too, were arrayed with the rest, eager to prove their superiority in the _manege_ of the horse. At a given signal the bull was brought forth from a neighbouring _corral_. He was not led by men afoot,--that would have been a dangerous undertaking. His conductors were well-mounted vaqueros, who, with their lazoes around his horns, were ready, in case of his showing symptoms of mutiny, to fling him to the earth by a jerk. A vicious-looking brute he appeared, with shaggy frontlet and scowling lurid eye. It was _plain_ that it only needed a little goading to make him a still more terrible object; for he already swept his tail angrily against his flanks, tossed his long straight horns in the air, snorted sharply, and beat the turf at intervals with his hoofs. He was evidently one of the fiercest of a fierce race--the race of Spanish bulls.