ame, and generally taking a rise out
of them.

The bulls have been trained and medicined, for months beforehand, with
much careful tending, many strength-giving potions, and volumes of the
old-world charms, which put valour and courage into a beast. They stand
at each end of a piece of grassy lawn, with their knots of admirers
around them, descanting on their various points, and with the proud
trainer, who is at once keeper and medicine man, holding them by the
cord which is passed through their nose-rings. Until you have seen the
water-buffalo stripped for the fight, it is impossible to conceive how
handsome the ugly brute can look. One has been accustomed to see him
with his neck bowed to the yoke he hates, and breaks whenever the
opportunity offers; or else in the _padi_ fields. In the former case he
looks out of place,--an anachronism belonging to a prehistoric period,
drawing a cart which seems also to date back to the days before the
Deluge. In the fields the buffalo has usually a complete suit of grey
mud, and during the quiet evening hour, goggles at you through the
clouds of flies, which surround his flapping ears and brutal nose, the
only parts that can be seen of him, above the surface of the mud-hole,
or the running water of the river. In both cases he is unlovely, but in
the bull-ring he has something magnificent about him. His black coat has
a gloss upon it which would not disgrace a London carriage horse, and
which shews him to be in tip-top condition. His neck seems thicker and
more powerful than that of any other animal, and it glistens with the
_chili_ water, which has been poured over it, in order to increase his
excitement. His resolute shoulders, his straining quarters,--each vying
with the other for the prize for strength,--and his great girth, give a
look of astonishing vigour and vitality to the animal. It is the head
of the buffalo, however, which it is best to look at on these occasions.
Its great spread of horns is very imposing, and the eyes which are
usually sleepy, cynically contemptuous and indifferent, or sullenly
cruel,--are for once full of life, anger, passion, and excitement. He
stands there quivering and stamping, blowing great clouds of smoke from
his mouth and nose:

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim.
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim.

The wild joy of battle is sending the blood boiling through the great
arteries of the beast, and his