Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/549

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I spent the evening before at the house of a Spanish family of standing, and the hostess had defended the sport. She was a lady of a round, smiling countenance, corresponding to an amiable, easy-going character, from which no such savagery would have been expected.

"The animals have to be killed some time or other," she said, "and why not this way as well as another? You Norte Americanos yourselves shoot pigeons, don't you, and are very well satisfied when you can go hunting and get a good bagful of game? Besides, the sport sets the men a good example of courage."

Her argument did not strike me as at all convincing. It had a very feminine ring, and begged the main question; and yet even this is the best defence I recollect to have heard of a practice which has very lately become the leading social phenomenon of Mexico.

"Shall you go to-morrow?" I asked.

"We like to pasear (to take the air) occasionally on Sundays, and Cuatitlan is very accessible," she replied.

Let me go back a little more at length to that first bull-fight of mine at Cuatitlan. What an artful tendency is this of human nature to so often want to see a thing "just once," even when we are perfectly certain we can-