vapor_, made of wickerwork, covered with cloth, and manned by a crew of asses, decorated with red braces, and wearing, somehow or other, cocked hats on their heads, was pushed into the middle of the arena. The bull rushed at this machine, goring, overturning, and throwing the poor donkeys into the air in the most comical manner imaginable. I also saw a _picador_ kill a bull at one thrust of his lance, in the handle of which some fireworks were concealed, that exploded with such violence that the bull, the horse and its rider fell down all together,--the first because he was dead, and the two others from the force of the recoil. The _matador_ was an old rascal, dressed in a seedy, worn-out jacket, and yellow silk stockings, with rather too much open work about them, and looked like a Jeannot of the Opéra Comique, or a street tumbler. He was several times overthrown by the bull, the thrusts of his lance being so feeble and uncertain that it was at last necessary to have recourse to the _media luna_ in order to put the animal out of his misery. The _media luna_, as its name indicates, is a kind of crescent, fitted on a handle, and very like a pruning hook. It is used for houghing the bull, who is then despatched without danger. Nothing is more ignoble and hideous than this; as soon as there is an end to the danger, you feel disgusted, and the combat degenerates into mere butchery. The poor animal crawling about on its haunches, like Hyacinthe at the Théâtre des Variétés, when he plays the Female Dwarf, in that sublime piece of buffoonery, the _Saltembanques_, is the most melancholy sight it is possible to conceive; and you only desire one thing, and that is, that the bull may still have sufficient strength left to rip up its stupid tormentor with one last butt of its horns. The special occupation of this miserable wretch, who was only a _matador_, when not otherwise employed, was eating. He would absorb six or eight dozen hard eggs, a whole sheep or calf, and so on. From his thin appearance, I should say that he did not get work very often. There were a great number of people present; the _majos'_ dresses were rich and numerous; the women, whose characteristics were entirely different from those of the women of Cadiz, wore on their heads, instead of a mantilla, long scarlet shawls, which were admirably adapted to their fine olive faces, almost as dark as those of mulattoes, in which the pearly eyes and the ivory-like teeth stand out with singular brilliancy. These pure lines, and this tawny, golden tint, are marvellously suited for painting; and it is greatly to be regretted that Léopold Robert, that Raphael of peasants, died so young and never travelled through Spain.