to measure
their force against an animal of the latter class than against this
half-savage creature. He may be considered, indeed, to be wholly
savage, save in so far as he may be supposed to inherit from his
progenitors the nature of a race that man has more or less perfectly
subjected and compelled to labor. On first entering the arena he
tosses up his head and shakes the shaggy black locks of wiry hair from
before his small wicked-looking eyes, looks half alarmedly, half
defiantly around, and stamps three or four times with one fore foot on
the ground, partly, as it would seem, in wonder and doubt, and partly
in increasing anger. Then he trots slowly round the enclosure,
starting aside and shying as the bright colors of the ladies' dresses
(at safe distance behind the palisades) catch and offend his eye.
Evidently he is seeking an egress and escape from a scene which must
appear to him so wondrous and full of strange and unknown dangers. But
he has soon satisfied himself that there is no way out, that his
enemies have encompassed him about on every side. Then once again he
throws his shaggy head into the air, shaking his short thick curly
horns in a very menacing manner, and this time accompanying the action
with a loud bellow, the compound expression of fear, wonder and wrath.

Now, what has to be done is simply this--to seize him, throw him to
the ground on his side, then to impress the branding-iron on his
flank, and dismiss him to make way for another. Of course nothing
would be easier with properly contrived appliances and means than to
accomplish this with promptitude, safety to man and beast, without
struggle and without glory. But this would involve change of
habitudes, recourse to new methods, modern improvements, a confession
to the mind of the buttero that he was no longer able to do what his
fathers for many a generation had done before him. It would be to lose
the opportunity of exhibiting himself and his prowess on the great
festival of the year, together with those subsequent hours of repose
and reward for danger and fatigue endured which heroes of all ages,
from the quaffers of mead in the halls of Odin to the "food for
powder" around the vivandiere's paniers, have never disdained. For
these sufficient reasons the merca is practiced still in the old way
in the Roman Campagna, and the victory of the man over the brute has
to be achieved by main force and dexterity. The buttero has not so
much as a las