arms; and next to me was a
half-blooded maternal head of a family, with the key of her house in
her hand, her children tacked in between the legs of her neighbours, or
under their chairs. At the feet of those sitting on the front seats was
a row of boys and girls, with their little heads poked through the
railing; and all around hung down a variegated fringe-work of black and
white legs. Opposite, and on the top of the scaffold, was a band of
music, the leader of which wore a shining black mask, caricaturing a
negro.

A bull was in the ring, two barbed darts trimmed with blue and yellow
paper were hanging from his flanks, and his neck was pierced with
wounds, from which ran down streams of blood. The picadores stood aloof
with bloody spears in their hands; a mounted dragoon was master of
ceremonies, and there were, besides, eight or ten vaqueros, or
cattle-tenders, from the neighbouring haciendas, hard riders, and
brought up to deal with cattle that run wild in the woods. These were
dressed in pink-coloured shirt and trousers, and wore small hats of
straw platted thick, with low round crowns, and narrow brims turned up
at the side. Their saddles had large leathern flaps, covering half the
body of the horse, and each had a lazo, or coil of rope, in his hand,
and a pair of enormous iron spurs, perhaps six inches long, and
weighing two or three pounds, which, contrasted with their small
horses, gave a sort of Bombastes Furioso character to their appearance.
By the order of the dragoon, these vaqueros, striking their coils of
rope against the large flaps of their saddles, started the bull, and,
chasing him round the ring, with a few throws of the lazo caught him by
the horns and dragged him to a post at one side of the ring, where,
riding off with the rope, they hauled his head down to the ground close
against the post. Keeping it down in that position, some of the others
passed a rope twice round his body just behind the fore legs, and,
securing it on the back, passed it under his tail, and returning it,
crossed it with the coils around his body. Two or three men on each
side then hauled upon the rope, which cut into and compressed the
bull's chest, and by its tightness under the tail almost lifted his
hind legs from off the ground. This was to excite and madden him. The
poor animal bellowed, threw himself on the ground, and kicked and
struggled to get rid of the brutal tie. From the place where we sat we
had in full view