What a spectacle is presented by the Plaza at this moment!--one without parallel in the modern world. The vast amphitheatre, crowded to the last seat in every row and tier, is held for some seconds in breathless suspense; above, the glorious azure canopy of an Andalucian summer sky; below, on the yellow arena, rushes forth the bull, fresh from his distant prairie, amazed yet undaunted by the unwonted sight and bewildering blaze of colour which surrounds him. For one brief moment the vast mass of excited humanity sits spell-bound; the clamour of myriads is stilled. Then the pent-up cry bursts forth in frantic volume, for the gleaning horns have done their work, and _Buen toro! buen toro!_ rings from twice ten thousand throats. We have traced in brief outline the life-history of our gallant bull; we have brought him face to face with the matador and his Toledan blade--there we must leave him.[33] In concluding this chapter, may we beg the generous reader, should he ever enter the historic precincts of the Plaza, to go there with an open mind, to form his own opinion without prejudice or bias. Let him remember that to untrained eyes there must ever fall unseen many of the finer "passes," much of the skilled technique and science of tauromachian art. The casual spectator necessarily loses that; he perceives no more difficulty in the perilous _suerte de vol-á-pié_ than in the simpler but more attractive _suerte de recibir_, and a hundred similar details. Finally, before crystallising a judgment, critics should endeavour to see a few second-or third-rate _corridas_. It is at these that the relative values of the forces opposed--brute strength and human skill--are displayed in truer and more speaking contrast. At set bull-fights of the first-class, the latter quality is often so marked as partly to obscure the difficulties and dangers it surmounts. Watch _toréros_ of finished skill and the game seems easy--as when some phenomenal batsman, well set, knocks the best bowling in England all over the field. Yet that bowling, the expert knows, is not easy. Nor are the bulls. At second-rate fights the forces placed face to face are more evenly balanced; and there it is often the bull that scores. THE MIURA QUESTION A raging controversy, illuminative of Tauromachia, has recently split into two camps the bull-fighting world and agitated one-half of Spain. The breeding of the fighting-bull is in this country a semi-æsthetic pursuit, analogous to that of short-horns or racehorses in England, and the possession of a notable herd the ambition of many of the grandees and big landowners of Spain.