Toro

“ Instinctively one strains forward and catches one’s breath. Toro does not keep us long in suspense. There is a momentary lull, and then the bull dashes from his dark cell into the glint of the Spring sunshine. The novelty of the environment staggers him for a moment. He hesitates in the centre of the ring, and looks wildly around him. The arena is empty, with the exception of three picadores, who sit rigidly in a row on their sorry hacks, waiting for the bull to recognise their presence. ”

“ The mate, who was steering, began to chaff his companions. "Say, El Toro, you thought the authorities below had sent for you when you felt that trembling of the sea."
"Trembling?" replied the Basque gruffly. "There was more trembling of thee than of the sea itself, thou white-gilled Frenchman."
"So there was," drawled the sarcastic El Chico. "But let us remember that our mate is a man of education—of soul. His nerves are in harmony with Nature. When Nature is merry he is merry; when Nature trembles; he trembles. But that is poetical sympathy, not fear, my friend El Toro." ”

“ Then they heard a yell, whereat Shag sprung up, his eyes starting, and his coat bristling with defiance, and Topsie had hard work to control him. The next minute, with a furious bellow, the bull came crashing through the jungle into the open, with El Toro seated astride his back!
It was a most extraordinary sight, and fascinated the onlookers. The bull, terrified out of his wits, bounded high in the air with his head between his forelegs, and his knotted tail lashing his sides in wild anger, but El Toro was not to be dislodged by any buck-jumping; he was far too fine a rider for that. ”

“ He longed to see the jungle go up in a blaze, in a roaring, marching army of fire, that would cut a blackened swath to the hills, leaping over tree-tops, charring the undergrowth, making good pasture for cattle, for the great, pale Campeachy cattle which his ships should bring there from Sisal. He tried to make Don Toro understand his wish, but failed; for Don Toro was a woodland Indian; the forest was his home. That stroke of policy, the bonfire, would have to wait till he could bring the Indians to help him, and till the logwood on the banks of the rivers had all been cut and shipped. ”

“ For a brief moment the Prior of Toro became again that Count of Trevino who had led the troops of his noble house to victory on more than one occasion, and whose gallant doings even then were not quite forgotten in the court and world of Spain. The habitual respect of the lowly-born for a man of higher station and finer fibre asserted itself. He stood before his Prior pale and downcast, like a frightened hound.
"Listen," the prior continued. "Oh you, my brother, of little charity. What you call zeal, I call malice. To you has been given your talent. It led you to these convent walls. ”

“ He takes his straight keen-tempered sword and his cloak of offensive scarlet, and advances towards the bull. Now is the supreme trial, now is the time when men let their lighted cigarettes drop from their mouths and clench their teeth; now is the time when women close their fans and draw long breaths. Cucharra faces Toro at a yard's distance. They regard each other. Cucharra hides his sword under his cloak, and presents it to the bull. Toro lowers his head, shuts his eyes, and charges, but the toreador gracefully slips aside and saves his life by a turn of the heel. ”

“ Then he briefly disclosed the plan.
"Bravo!" grunted El Toro. "That sounds a likely bit of business. I will go and sharpen my knife at once. And so our English milord is a game-cock, after all, like the rest of us."
"He is worth fifty of you," said Baptiste. "He has the clever brains that can devise; and he is braver than you, El Toro."
"I acknowledge him to be my superior, even in courage. I have not forgotten how he defied the devil himself in the terremoto," replied the Basque.
Baptiste turned to Carew, and proceeded to speak in French. "The lads are ready to follow you anywhere, sir." ”

“ All that could be seen of the rider was his head, which he tried vainly to shield with his arms. They carried him off for dead. This toro was very hard to kill. It required seven lunges of the sword to convert him into beef. One toro refused to fight, and when stuck with a sharp pica he jumped over the fence and was with the audience. Such a scrambling! Most of the people threw themselves into the ring, about the first ones to go being the guards, who are placed around to take care of the people. ”

“ An hundred and eighteen leagues from thence lies Toro, and near it the ruins of an ancient monastery. This is the place, if the report of the inhabitants deserves any credit, where the Israelites miraculously passed through the Red Sea on dry land; and there is some reason for imagining the tradition not ill grounded, for the sea is here only three leagues in breadth. All the ground about Toro is barren for want of water, which is only to be found at a considerable distance, in one fountain, which flows out of the neighbouring mountains, at the foot of which there are still twelve palm-trees. ”

“ No sight is more common in streets and parks than that of a group of boys playing al toro—one urchin charging about with sticks fastened to his shoulders for horns, or with a pasteboard bull's head pulled over his ears, and others waving scarlet cloths and brandishing improvised swords and lances. ”

“ The savagery of the big Basque would occasionally assert itself, and he was ever ready to pick a quarrel with his mates. The only one on board whom El Toro respected and feared was Carew himself; for he felt that the Englishman combined a physical courage, at least equal to his own, with a superior education; and the man who possesses these two qualities can always master a merely brute nature. El Toro did not conceal his contempt for Baptiste, who excelled him in mental ability alone; and again, he could not converse ten minutes with the little Galician without an altercation arising ”

“ But by this time our toro has learned a certain amount of logic; he begins to consider how little he gains in all this fierce fight and chase. He is weakened by his wounds and sensible of their pain. He now stands and meditates before making his dashes, and even inclines to let some of his affronts go unavenged.
Now is the time for the banderilleros. These are a new group of participants, beautifully dressed, light, deft, and swift on their feet. Their business is to torment the bull by thrusting into him long barbed darts, with streamers, or decoration of gay-colored tissue-papers. ”

“ It appeared that old Toro was crippled with a serious chill, and could only just hobble across from his cottage to the place where the building was going on, where he was acting as watchman until the new wall was finished. ”

“ Even the day-herding was a constant fight, as scarcely an hour passed but some old resident would scorn the restraint imposed upon his liberties and deliberately make a break for freedom. A pair of horsemen would double on the deserter, and with a prod-pole to his ear and the pressure of a man and horse bearing their weight on the same, a circle would be covered and Toro always reëntered the day-herd. ”

“ But El Toro and Sir Francis had hurried back, and this latter, seizing the Indian from behind, swung him over his shoulders, and in spite of his struggles bore him from the spot, El Toro doing likewise by Blancha.
Then Graviel, turning, beheld the measure of his 250danger in the great avalanche rushing towards him. He did not fly, however, but seized the lassos and swung himself into the yawning mouth once more, letting himself down hand over hand with wonderful rapidity. The brave lad expected death. At least, thought he, “I will die by my Queen.” ”

“ It was, however, during the first half of the eighteenth century that bull-fighting on a popular basis, as understood and practised at the present day, took its start. Then there stepped upon the enclosed arena the first professional Toréro amidst thrilling plaudits from tier above tier of encircling humanity. Never before had the bull been taken on by a single man on foot armed only with his good sword and scarlet flag—with these to pit his strength and skill against the weight and ferocity of a toro bravo—alone and unaided to despatch him. ”

“ At some fights the spectators are favored with a performer, who allows the maddened toro to attack him, when, by the aid of a long pole, he jumps clear over it. This is a dangerous and, many times, a fatal leap, but is a favorite sight of the people.
After the fight comes the toro embolado. A bull with balls on its horns is led in. All the paid fighters leave the ring and any one among the spectators who has a desire to try the sport can do so. The number is not few, and the sight is really funny. They wave their serapes at the bull, who, in return, often tosses them on his horns. ”

“ Into the large circle thus formed Toro led the laborers under their direction. At once the trained pioneers began the erection of earthworks upon a system imparted by Mori to Toro, and from the latter direct to the chief pioneers. The entire space of the immense circle was soon filled by the burrowing, grubbing laborers. ”

“ Then he had started to run from the Lago Frio, with his coat on his arm. Dressing was a quick job in those wilds, where at midday in summer one didn't want much clothing.
"No, I won't let on!" he had cried back over his shoulder.
Toro, the Cuban kiddy, sat down on the margin of the cold blue lake and finished his cigarette reflectively. White folks, especially white English-speaking ones, were rather unsatisfactory. He liked them, because as a rule he could trust them. ”

“ This held his attention until Tiburcio, gaining courage, dashed past him from the rear and planted a musket ball behind the base of his ear, and the patriarch succumbed.
After the first few days’ work, we found that the most vulnerable spot was where the spinal cord connects with the base of the brain. A well-directed shot at this point, even from a six-shooter, never failed to bring Toro to grass; and some of us became so expert that we could deliver this favorite shot from a running horse. The trouble was to get the bull to run evenly. ”

“ I imagined a very fierce and ferocious animal fit for a Spanish bull-ring, a sharp-horned Murcian good enough to try the nerve of the best matador who ever faced horns and a vicious charge. Then he took me round the barn and opened a stable. In it El Toro was tied to a [Pg 63] manger by a rope and ring through his nose: he greeted us with a strangled whistle as he still lay down. "When you are hard driven good old El Toro will help you," said Jack, as he sat down on the bull's big shoulders and started to scratch his curl with a little piece of wood which had a blunt nail in it. ”

“ El Toro, “the bull,” the malevolent “comic man” of the play, dressed in buffalo skin with the animal’s horns on his head; Aguelo, the “grandfather,” and Aguela, “grandmother.” With the help of a chorus of dancers they portray the desertion of his people by Montezuma, the luring of him back by the wiles and smiles of Malinche, the final reunion of king and people, and the killing of El Toro, who is supposed to have made all the mischief. ”

“ Having said so much in defence of bull-fighting, I may be permitted, in entering into details of the diversion, to anticipate experiences and knowledge which did not come to me until later on. The further my acquaintance with the ring extended, the more convinced I became that tauromachy will last as long as Spain lasts. It has blemishes, like other recreations. To my thinking, the chief is that Toro goes into the sanded arena foredoomed to die. No matter how pluckily he fights, no matter what play he shows, the cachetero awaits him. ”

“ A little way beyond Toro, on the borders of the sea, a mountain begins to rise by little and little; and thrusting out a large high cape or promontory, seems to those in the town like three great and mighty separate mountains. This town of Tor is small but well situated, all its inhabitants being Christians who speak Arabic. It has a monastery of friars of the order of Monserrat, in which is the oracle or image of Santa Catalina of Mount Sinai or St Catharine. These friars are all Greeks. ”

“ Every big city has a great bullring, a round building with many steps of seats and no roof, called the "Plaza de Toros." "Toro" is the bull. The bulls are especially bred for the ring, because no ordinary cow or bull would be able to take part in this colorful pageant. Almost every Sunday afternoon throughout the year, and at holiday times, there is a "corrida" or bullfight, and everybody goes to see the toreros fight the bulls. ”

“ Out comes the pretty one, out comes the ugly one, out comes the dwarf with his jacket of skin. The little he-dwarfs were angry, because some one pinched the she-dwarfs." There is another called the Toro, of which the words are not very interesting; and the Zapatero, or shoemaker, was very well danced by a gentleman who accompanied himself, at the same time, on the guitar.
Yesterday morning we set off in a burning sun, over a perfect Egyptian desert, to visit the famous arches of Cempoala, a magnificent work, which we are told had greatly excited the admiration of Mr. ”

“ He felt himself capable of fighting the whole audience for a torero he liked, and he disturbed the plaudits of the public by unexpected objections, when those plaudits were given to any torero who had not been lucky enough to gain his affection.
He had been a cavalry officer, more on account of his love of horses than of his love of war. His stoutness and his enthusiasm for bulls had made him retire from the service.... Oh! to be the guide, the mentor, the agent of an espada! ”