Shall I stay another? Perhaps it may be more successful, and—if the new bull will only bruise somebody! But the new bull is a failure. After all their attempts to excite him, he only trots round, and snuffs at the gates; and the cry of “Fuera el toro!” becomes so general, with the significant triple beat of the feet, in time with the words, all over the house, that the gates are opened, and the bull trots through, to his quarters.
But the meanness, and cruelty, and impotency of this crowd! They cry out to the spear-men and the dart-men, and to the tormentors, and to the bull, and to the horses, and to each other, in a Babel of sounds, where no man’s voice can possibly be distinguished ten feet from him, all manner of advice and encouragement or derision, like children at a play. One full grown, well-dressed young man, near me, kept up a constant cry to the men in the ring, when I am sure no one could distinguish his words, and no one cared to—until I became so irritated that I could have throttled him.
But, such you are! You can cry and howl at bullfights and cockfights and in the pits of operas and theatres, and drive bulls and horses distracted, and urge gallant gamecocks to the death, and applaud opera singers into patriotic songs, and leave them to imprisonment and fines—and you yourselves, cannot lift a finger, or join hand to hand, or bring to the hazard life, fortune, or honor, for your liberty and your dignity as men. Work your slaves, torture your bulls, fight your gamecocks, crown your dancers and singers—and leave the weightier matters of judgment and justice, of fame by sea and land, of letters and arts and sciences, of private right and public honor, the present and future of your race and of your native land, to the care of others—of a people of no better blood than your own, strangers and sojourners among you!
The next bull is treated to a refinement of torture, in the form of darts filled with heavy China crackers, which explode on the neck of the poor beast. I could not see that even this made him really dangerous. The light complexioned, green-and-silver matador dispatches him, as he did the first bull, with a single lunge, and—a fall and a quiver, and all is over!
The fifth bull is a failure and is allowed to go out of the ring. The sixth is nearly the same with the others, harmless if let alone, and goaded into short-lived activity, but not into anything like fury or even a dangerous animosity. He is treated to firecrackers, and gores one horse a little—the horse standing, side on, and taking it, until the bull is driven off by the punching of the spear; and runs at the other horse, and, to my delight, upsets the rider, but unfortunately without hurting him, and the black-haired matador in green tries his hand on him and fails again, and is hooted, and takes to throwing darts, and gets a fall, and looks disconcerted, and gets his sword again, and makes another false thrust; and the crippled and bleeding animal is thrown down and dispatched by the butcher with his short knife, and drawn off by the three poor horses. The gates close, and I hurry out of the theatre, in a din of shouts and drums and trumpets, the great crowd waiting for the last bull;—but I have seen enough.
There is no volante in waiting, and I have to take my seat in an omnibus, and wait for the end of the scene. The confusion of cries and shouts and the interludes of music still goes on, for a quarter of an hour, and then the crowd begins to pour out, and to scatter over the ground. Four faces in a line are heading for my omnibus. There is no mistaking that head man, the file leader. “Down East” is written legibly all over his face. Tall, thin, sallow, grave, circumspect! The others are not counterparts. They vary. But “New England” is graven on all.
“Wa-a-al!” says the leader, as he gets into the omnibus. No reply. They take their seats, and wipe their foreheads. One expectorates. Another looks too wise for utterance. “By,” … a long pause—How will he end it?—“Jingoes!” That is a failure. It is plain he fell short, and did not end as he intended. The sentiment of the four has not yet got uttered. The fat, flaxen-haired man makes his attempt. “If there is a new-milch cow in Vermont that wouldn’t show more fight, under such usage, than them bulls, I’d buy her and make a present of her to Governor Cunchy—or whatever they call him.”—This is practical and direct, and opens the way to a more free interchange. The northern ice is thawed. The meanness and cruelty of the exhibition is commented upon. The moral view is not overlooked, nor underrated.—None but cowards would be so cruel. And last of all, it is an imposition. Their money has been obtained under false pretences. A suit would lie to recover it back; but the poor devils are welcome to the money. The coach fills up with Cubans; and the noise of the pavements drowns the further reflections of the four philanthropists, patriots and economists.
XXI
Habits of the Cubans, beckoning, smoking, etc.—Visit to the Bishop, at Jesus del Monte—Coolie mart, in the Cerro—The condition
