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268 DAYS IN THE SUN
should be delivered. Or the bull may be cowardly,
may have been unskillfully bred. The breeding of bat-
tle bulls is a fine art, and in this domain, at least, the
Spaniards have developed one of the sciences connected
with agriculture.
Though it may even come to pass that the wildest
of bulls becomes timid and cowardly when facing the
thousand-headed monster that occupies the seats of the
arena. In such cases little charges are inserted in the
darts of the banderilleros, which explode on being in-
serted in the animal’s neck, and these drive him mad
with pain. If he continues to show a tendency to run
away, the crowd will yell for the half-moon, which is
a sickle attached to the end of a long pole, and the
calf-muscles of the bull are severed with this instru-
ment. No decent bullfighter will have anything to do
with an animal so disgraced, and it is dispatched from
behind by a stable attendant, the bold public meanwhile
expressing their most fastidious contempt. But if it
should turn out that not only the first bull but also the
second, and perhaps even a third, is a failure and unfit
for the combat, the Prefect should be prepared for the
worst.
The day has come; the people flock to the arena, a
large circular amphitheater that can hold eleven thou-
sand persons. The great central space is covered with
sand, with a fence about five feet high all around it.
Outside the fence is a narrow passage, the outer wall
of which is a barrier seven feet high from which the
rows of benches rise in ever-expanding circles up to
the top of the encircling outer wall. The sky is blue
above. About half of the seats are shaded by the
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