United States or Gabon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The slidewalks were packed with people, traveling motionless like purposeful statues or pivoting with practiced grace from one slidewalk to another, like a thousand toreros doing veronicas. The slidewalks were moving faster than he recalled from his last venture underground and at the same time the whole pedestrian concourse was quieter than he remembered.

The depiction of this final scene was noteworthy; the bull was seen fleeing as one possessed of the devil amidst the toreros, whose noses were visible in profile while their mouths and both eyes were drawn in front view.

One of the most fashionable amusements in Madrid is to attend on the morning of the bull-fight while the espadas choose the particular bulls they wish to have as enemy, and affix their colours, the large rosette of ribbon which shows which of the toreros the bull is to meet in deadly conflict. The bulls are then placed in their iron cages in the order in which they are to enter the arena.

We send for wine, Don Jorge, and the nationals become wild, Don Jorge, dancing and drinking through the night, whilst Baltasarito strums the guitar and sings them songs of Germania: "Una romi sin pachi Le peno a su chindomar," &c., &c. That is Gitano, Don Jorge; I learnt it from the toreros of Andalusia, who all speak Gitano, and are mostly of Gypsy blood.

'Big leaguers of some kind, thinks Cogan, and asked the fruit-stand keeper who they were, and the fruit-seller said 'Torero. "'Torero? Torero? Ah-h-h' Cogan recalled his 'Spanish Without A Master' 'Ah-h-h, of course, Toreros Toreadors' he remembered the opera 'Carmen' bull-fighters. Cogan got up and followed them.

Manuel glared into the arena; they were about to kill the bull near the stone wall that bounded the ring, at a short distance from where they were. The poor beast, half dead already, was dragging himself slowly along, followed by three or four toreros and the matador, who, curved forward, with his red flag in one hand and his sword in the other, came behind.

It advances a little, a splendid beast conscious of its strength, and suddenly stops dead, looking round. The toreros wave their capes and the picadors flourish their lances, long wooden spikes with an iron point. The bull catches sight of a horse, and lowering his head, bears down swiftly upon it.

He had always imagined that the toreros, in the sheer skill of their art, would play around with the bull, and there wasn't any of this; they entrusted their salvation to their legs, just like the rest of the world. After the inciting tactics of the toreros, two monosabios began to beat a picador's horse with several sticks, until they got him to advance as far as the middle of the arena.

If you do not find in the market the abundance you expect of its picturesqueness you must blame the lateness of the season, and go visit the bull-ring, one of the most famous in the world, for Ronda is not less noted for its toreros and aficionados than for its vineyards and orchards.

By this time the sense of duty was so strong upon us that if there had been a bull-feast we would have shared in it and stayed through till the last espada dropped dead, gored through, at the knees of the last bull transfixed by his unerring sword; and the other toreros, the banderilleros with their darts and the picadors with their disemboweled horses, lay scattered over the blood-stained arena.