the front of the church of San Cristoval, and over the
door we read in large characters, "_Hic est domus Dei, hic est porta
c[oe]li_" "Here is the house of God, here is the gate of heaven."

But they had yet another goad for the bull. Watching narrowly that the
ropes around his horns did not get loose, they fixed upon his back the
figure of a soldier in a cocked hat, seated in a saddle. This excited a
great laugh among the spectators. We learned that both the saddle and
the figure of the soldier were made of wood, paper, and gunpowder,
composing a formidable piece of fireworks. When this was fairly
secured, all fell back, and the picadores, mounted, and with their
spears poised, took their places in the ring. The band, perhaps in
compliment to us, and to remind us of home, struck up the beautiful
_national_ melody of "Jim Crow." A villanous-looking fellow set off
large and furiously-whizzing rockets within a few feet of the bull;
another fired in the heel the figure of the soldier on his back; the
spectators shouted, the rope was slipped, and the bull let loose.

His first dash was perfectly furious. Bounding forward and throwing up
his hind legs, maddened by the shouts of the crowd, and the whizzing
and explosion, fire and smoke of the engine of torture on his back, he
dashed blindly at every picador, receiving thrust after thrust with the
spear, until, amid the loud laughter and shouts of the spectators, the
powder burned out, and the poor beast, with gaping wounds, and blood
streaming from them, turned and ran, bellowed for escape at the gate of
entrance, and then crawled around the wall of the ring, looking up to
the spectators, and with imploring eyes seemed pleading to the mild
faces of the women for mercy.

In a few minutes he was lazoed and dragged off, and he had hardly
disappeared when another was led in, the manner of whose introduction
seemed more barbarous and brutal than any of the torments inflicted on
the former. It was by a rope two or three hundred feet long, passed
through the fleshy part of the bull's nose, and secured at both ends to
the vaquero's saddle. In this way he was hauled through the streets and
into the ring. Another vaquero followed, with a lazo over the horns, to
hold the bull back, and keep him from rushing upon his leader. In the
centre of the ring the leader loosed one end of the rope, and, riding
on, dragged it trailing on the ground its whole length, perhaps a
hundred yards, thro