endered it necessary for them to seek a less
exposed rendezvous. Of the Spanish marine they entertain no fear; there
is the most perfect understanding on this point, treaty stipulations
touching the slave-trade, between Spain, England and France, to the
contrary notwithstanding.[37] But we were referring to the subject of
the bull-fights. The arena at Regla, for this purpose, is a large
circular enclosure of sufficient dimensions to seat six thousand people,
and affording perhaps a little more than half an acre of ground for the
fight.

The seats are raised one above another in a circle around, at a secure
height from the dangerous struggle which is sure to characterize each
exhibition. On the occasion when the writer was present, after a
flourish of trumpets, a large bull was let loose from a stall opening
into the pit of the enclosure, where three Spaniards (_toreadors_), one
on foot and two on horseback, were ready to receive him, the former
armed with a sword, the latter with spears. They were three hardened
villains, if the human countenance can be relied upon as shadowing forth
the inner man, seemingly reckless to the last degree, but very expert,
agile, and wary. These men commenced at once to worry and torment the
bull until they should arouse him to a state of frenzy. Short spears
were thrust into his neck and sides with rockets attached, which
exploded into his very flesh, burning and affrighting the poor creature.
Thrusts from the horsemen's spears were made into his flesh, and while
he was bleeding thus at every pore, gaudy colors were shaken before his
glowing eyes; and wherever he turned to escape his tormentors, he was
sure to be met with some freshly devised expedient of torment, until at
last the creature became indeed perfectly infuriated and frantically
mad. Now the fight was in earnest!

In vain did the bull plunge gallantly and desperately at his enemies,
they were far too expert for him. They had made this game their business
perhaps for years. Each rush he made upon them was easily avoided, and
he passed them by, until, in his headlong course, he thrust his horns
deep into the boards of the enclosure. The idea, of course, was not to
give him any fatal wounds at the outset, and thus dispatch him at once,
but to worry and torment him to the last. One of the gladiators now
attacked him closely with the sword, and dexterously wounded him in the
back of the neck at each plunge the animal made towards