Читать книгу Into the Frozen South онлайн

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Another took his place and did the same thing. Instead of trying to knock up a century in Portugal you try to plant a dart shorter than any other dart in the back of a mad bull’s neck! And you go on doing it until the bull begins to look like an animated pincushion. If Stephenson’s first locomotive was “bad for the coo,” bull-fighting must be very bad for the bull!

Folks tire of this exhibition, so presently a whole crowd of funny-looking fellows in red and yellow are let into the ring. One of these steps forward as if he intended to be properly introduced to the bull; whereupon the bull promptly goes for him, because he thinks he’s responsible for the pain he is suffering. But the man of the moment leaps fairly between the lowered horns, gets one of them under each armpit, and then starts a wrestling match with his four-footed opponent. His object is to throw the bull, and to do so requires more skill than most of them possess. There’s the indignant bovine doing its best to throw the man off and stamp him or gore him to death; there’s the red-faced man working as hard as you like to pitch the bull over on his side. It seemed rather a waste of energy to me, but it is the national sport down there, and we Britons must live and let live. Anyhow, this wrestling was uncommonly exciting. It would have been even more so if the bull’s horns hadn’t been padded.