Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/155



NATIVES AND FOREIGNERS. 125

and at other places Aranadal de Gallos. It is usually a loosely made wooden circus^ with three or four tiers of benches, rising from a sawdusted arena. The latter is shaped like a bath, fifteen feet in diameter, with walls sixteen inches high, made sloping or perpendicular, of tin, wood, or matting. The two lower tiers are mostly ticketed, showing that they are private. Those on the ground floor are boxes, each containing its trained bird, the cocks not wanted at the time are tied by the leg and dispersed about the building, which resounds with their pugnacious cro wings. They are small compared with our English blood; the usual food is wheat and cooked meat, and they are trained by shampooing and occasional sparring. The Argentines in this matter are far behind the Spaniards, and the Moslems of India are a century in advance of both, being able to train a cock to fly at man or dog. The spur is not so artificial as ours or as that of Hindustan ; it is of metal, and made hollow to fit over the natural weapon, whose slope it imitates. There is scant art shown in choosing the angle, and the birds instead of being lifted are simply thrown into the pit. The pas- time is very slow, hours being often wasted till a good bargain is secured. As a rule to strangers, ^^back the Colorado^' or red bird, and if there be two reds back the redder.

Prize-fighting, expelled from the old, seems likely to find a home in the New World. Lately a " set-to " for $2000 a side took place on the Cerro between a Manchester man and a so-called American. Many natives witnessed it with great engouement ; they were prepared by hearsay to find the spectacle more brutal than it is, and they were charmed by its fair play. Before I left the Plate another fight was talked of between Professor Cox and Mr. Jack Turner, terms 200/., and place " between â– 'ome and ^ome."^ Per- haps prizefighting is prettier sport than the "pronuncia- mento.'^