CHAPTER TWELVE

No one can say, on seeing a fighting bull in the corrals, whether that bull will be brave in the ring although, usually, the quieter the bull is, the less nervous he seems, the calmer he is, the more chance that he will turn out brave. The reason for this is that the braver he is, usually, the more confident he is and the less he bluffs. All supposed exterior signs of danger that a bull gives, such as pawing the ground, threatening with his horns, or bellowing are forms of bluffing. They are warnings given in order that combat may be avoided if possible. The truly brave bull gives no warning before he charges except the fixing of his eye on his enemy, the raising of the crest of muscle in his neck, the twitching of an ear, and, as he charges, the lifting of his tail. A completely brave bull, if he is in perfect condition will never open his mouth, will not even let his tongue out, during the course of the entire fight and, at the finish, with the sword in him, will come toward the man while his legs support him, his mouth tight shut to keep the blood in.

Now what makes a bull brave is first the strain of fighting blood which can only be kept pure by conscientious testing in the tientas and second his own health and condition. Health and condition will not replace scrupulous breeding, but lack of them will ruin the natural inherited bravery of an animal, will make his body incapable of responding to it, or else cause the bravery to burn up as a fire of straw, burning out in a single flare and the bull being then empty and hollow. Health and condition are determined, granting there has been no disease on the ranch, by pasture and water.

It is the differences of pasture and water in different parts of Spain caused by the different climates, the changes in composition of the soil and the distances the stock must go to water from their pastures that make entirely different types of bulls. Spain is more a continent than a country in regard to climates, for the climate and vegetation of the north, of Navarra for example, has nothing in common with that of Valencia or Andalucia and none of those three, except parts of Navarra, have any resemblance to the high plateau of Castilla. So the bulls raised in Navarra, Andalucia and Salamanca differ greatly, and this is not due to them coming from differing strains. Navarrese bulls are almost a different race, smaller and usually of a reddish color, but when bull raisers in Navarra have taken seed bulls and cows from an Andalucian ranch and tried to transplant them to Navarra they have invariably taken on the present vices of the northern bulls, nervousness, uncertainty in attack and lack of true bravery, and have lost their original character without gaining any of the quickness, courage and deerlike speed that characterized the old strains of Navarra. Bulls in Navarra are about bred out due to inbreeding of the original Navarrese strain and the selling of their best cows to France a number of years ago for use in the Course Landaise, a French form of bull fête, and the inability of the Andalucian and Castillian strains to retain their type and bravery on the northern ranges although many costly experiments have been made to develop a new and brave Navarrese strain. The best fighting bulls come from Andalucia, Colmenar, Salamanca, and, exceptionally, Portugal. The most typical bulls are those of Andalucia. The Andalucian breeds have been taken to Salamanca and perverted by breeding them down in size and in length of horn in order to please the bullfighters. Salamanca is an ideal province for bull breeding. The pastures and water are good and the bulls from there are sold at under four years and often, to make them appear larger and older, are fed on grain for a time which gives them a false size, covering the natural muscle with fat, giving them a false well-being, causing them to tire quickly and to be short of wind. Many bulls from Salamanca, if fought at four and one-half to five years, hence having their natural size and not needing to be fed up on grain to reach the government-required poundage, with a year more on the range and the consequent added maturity, would be the ideal fighting bulls except for a tendency that they have to lose frankness and bravery when they have passed their fourth year. Occasionally you will see such a corrida in Madrid, but on the publicity they receive from such a splendid lot of bulls and with the aid and connivances of the bullfighters the same breeders that send such an ideal corrida to the capital will sell fifteen or twenty other corridas throughout the provinces in a season which will be composed of bulls under the minimum age, stuffed on grain to make them seem big, giving the minimum of danger because of their lack of experience in using their horns, and helping in every way, by depriving the spectacle of that which makes it, the true fighting bull, to contribute to the decadence of bullfighting.

For the third factor in the making of a bull, after breeding and condition, is age. With any one of these three factors lacking you cannot have a complete fighting bull. A bull is not mature until after his fourth year. It is true that after his third year he looks mature, but he is not. Maturity brings strength, resistance, but above all, knowledge. Now the knowledge of a bull consists principally in his memory of experience, he forgets nothing, and in his knowledge of, and ability to use, his horns. It is the horn that makes bullfighting and the ideal bull is one whose memory is as clean as possible from any experience of bullfighting so that he will learn everything that he is to learn in the ring; being dominated if the bullfighter works him properly, and dominating the bullfighter if his work is deficient or cowardly; and for this bull to provide the most real danger and put the bullfighter to the necessary test of knowledge of how to handle a bull properly he must know how to use his horns. At four years a bull has this knowledge, he has acquired it by fighting on the range, the only way he can acquire it. To see two bulls fight is a beautiful sight. They use their horns as a fencer does his weapon. They strike, parry, feint, block, and have an exactitude of aim that is amazing. When they both know how to use the horn the combat usually ends as does a fight between two really skillful boxers, with all dangerous blows stopped, without bloodshed and with mutual respect. They do not have to kill each other for a decision. The bull that loses is the first one that breaks and turns acknowledging the other's superiority. I have seen them fight again and again for small causes that I was not able to make out; coming head on, feinting with their master horn, the horns clattering as they knocked together, the blows being parried and countered, then, suddenly one bull would wheel and turn and gallop off. Once though, in the corrals after a fight in which one bull turned away admitting he was beaten, the other followed him and charged, getting the horn in the defeated bull's flank and throwing him over. Before the bull that was down could get to his feet the other was on him, driving the horn in with chopping thrusts of his neck and head; driving in all the time. The defeated bull got to his feet once, wheeled to face head-on, but in the first horn exchange he was caught in the eye, then went down under another charge. The bull killed him without letting him get to his feet again. Before the fight, two days later, that same bull killed another in the corrals, but when he came into the ring he was one of the best animals, both for bullfighters and public, that I have ever seen. His horn knowledge had been acquired as it should be. He had no vices with the horn, he simply knew how to use it, and the matador, Felix Rodriguez, dominated him, did splendid work with the cape and muleta and killed him perfectly.