guished from the crudos-the raw and sadly provincial majos of such places as Cadiz, Xeres, and Malaga.

There is something fearful in the aspect of a vast multitude! against its rage we feel conscious that individual life were not worth a moment's purchase; and, at times, nothing but ignorance of its own power would seem to restrain its fury. On this occasion, when I looked around and beneath me, and saw so many eyes upturned toward me, dark and seemingly threatening, and doubted not that many of the thousands carried under their cloaks the usual Catalonian knife, I felt how insecure a barrier law, or even the

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armed soldiery present, would interpose against their hostile determination. The swaying of their compact heads, as they moved to and fro in incessant action, reminded me of what sailors call the ground swell of the ocean; an agitation without visible cause, which ever portends a coming tempest. And to a foreigner unaccustomed to their habits, and unacquainted with their language, the vociferation, the shouting, the vehement gestures of the crowd were not at all assuring. Nor when I beheld a body of soldiers rush amid the multitude, seize hold of a man and forcibly carry him out, did I feel more courage; particularly when I learned the person so ejected had just stabbed another. However, Dolores told me it meant nothing; it was merely a cosa de España, and that as soon as the performance commenced all would be right.

An hour after our arrival their royal highnesses entered their loge, opposite the door, through which the bull rushes from his den into the arena. No very enthusiastic vivas from the crowd accompanied the entrance of the queen's sister. Spanish loyalty went out with Don Carlos. But hush! a trumpet sounds, and the vast multitude is silent.

The picadors, mounted on horseback, and cased in armor of stuffed leather, enter the arena-ungainlylooking beings and such horses! why ancient Pistol's "hollow pampered jades of Asia, which can not go but thirty miles a day," would have been Arabian steeds compared to them! Rosinante a Bucephalus! lean and limping, spare and spavined, with one eye bandaged and no leg sound, they tottered rather than trotted around the lists. However, their appearance was greeted by the multitude with greater enthusiasm than had been exhibited to the infanta.

Another blast from the trumpet, and the tauridors,

eight in number, bound into the lists amid the shouts of the crowd and the waving of scarfs and handkerchiefs. In their fanciful, gaudy, and costly attire, light of foot and quick of eye, they walk around the arena, bowing and smiling to their acquaintances, and take their places close to the barrier behind the picadors, who have taken position within thirty feet of each other; the foremost being within a short distance of the gate by which the bull is to enter.

He sits, with lance poised, awaiting the onset of the bull; like a knight of old with lance in rest expecting an attack. His weapon is some ten feet long, of strongest wood, terminating in a spear two inches in length, pointed, and sharp. Around his legs and underneath the stuffed leather he wears a covering of steel. He sits upon his horse as motionless as the statue of the Commander in Don Giovanni.

Another burst of wild, barbaric music, the den opens, and the bull, goaded upon his very entrance by a dart from a man stationed for the purpose, rushes furious into the arena. For a moment he stands still as if stupified; the unusual spectacle-the mounted horsemen and the clamor of the multitude astounding him. Soon you see his hoof move; he paws the ground; and dashes the sand over the arena. Then with a bound he rushes, with lowered head, at the nearest picador, who thrusts his lance deep into the flesh of his huge neck, and skillfully wards off the blow. The horse with his blinded eyes had not seen the bull, or he would not have bided the attack. Foiled, the bull stops to recover breath; but now the tauridors fearlessly advance, one or two at a time, and unfolding the variegated scarf dash it into his eyes. The animal rushes madly upon one, but he escapes the attack by springing over the barrier.

Another picador now advances against him. The bull plants himself, lashes his sides with his tail, and again rushes upon his foe-and this time with better success. He gores the helpless horse, breaking through the opposed spear, and rips up its body. The steed falls with his rider under him. "Bravo! toro," shout the multitude" Bravo! toro,” shouted even Dolores. "My dear little friend," I said to myself; "if you were where that poor picador is, you would hardly be shouting, "Bravo, toro." But I thought it best to say nothing to her. The picador was now in imminent peril of his life. The multitude but a moment before so clamorous, became suddenly and intensely still. The bull was rushing with avenging horns upon the prostrate picador, and in another instant would have let out his life-blood, when a daring and skillful tauridor flew to the rescue, shook his scarf into the very eyes of the bull, and frustrated the meditated blow. The animal attacks his new assailant, and is encountered by the whole band, whose consummate evolutions of alernate aggression and retreat are full of excitement, and elicit loud and repeated bravos from the crowd. The fallen picador, saved by this timely diversion, is pulled out from beneath his dying horse and hastily passed over the barrier: his heavy armor, and, perhaps, intoxicated condition (for the picadors drink deeply before these encounters) preventing his extricating himself unaided. The disemboweled steed is allowed to remain uncared for, his blood gurgling out at every respiration and clotting the sand.

The bull, now relinquishing the useless pursuit of the tauridors, most of whom, however, he had compelled to overleap the barrier, made a third rush at an opposing picador, who, by a dexterous management of his horse, escaped unharmed. Not so the bull; he had

exposed a flank to the spear of the picador, and received thereon a perilous wound.

The crowd by this time, tired of this part of the performances, shouted: "Banderillos, banderillos!" and straightway, amid loud and high flourishes of music, some half a dozen gayly-dressed, sinewy, active persons, with close-fitting jackets and breeches, leaped within the lists; armed with darts which were about two feet long, and decorated with flowers, they rushed with inconceivable swiftness upon the now panting animal, and dexterously stuck their pointed darts into dif ferent parts of his body; even where perhaps he had already received wounds from the picadors. Some of these darts contained fireworks which ignited as they penetrated the persecuted beast, who roared with rage and agony. With short convulsive leaps he bounded over the arena, rushing at tauridor, picador, banderillo, and even at the barrier in his tempestuous fury; while the joyous shouts of the mob drown his bellowing. Covered all over with ghastly wounds, with the darts still goading him, and with the blood spirting from his nostrils, he finally stood at bay, his black swollen tongue hanging out, and his mouth whitened with foam.

I looked at my fair companion in the faint hope that she would turn her head from the sickening spectacle; but alas! habit or education had indurated her feelings, and the only emotion I could read in her countenance, was one of joyful anticipation. The nurses even in the royal box held out their little charges that they might obtain a better view of the mutilated animal.

And now nothing could satisfy the excited crowd but the immediate death of their noble victim; and with another flourish of Saracenic music, Cuchares springs over the barrier into the arena. A shout arose as loud as, old Homer tells us, the God of War gave