Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/558

554 At the head of the procession walk the Espadas, then come the Banderilleros, the mounted Picadores and the attendants (Chulos) on foot with a team of gaily bedecked mules used in dragging off the dead bulls and horses. The fight can be described as follows:

It is one of three acts. In the first act the picadores receive the charge of the bull, which they try to withstand by prodding him with their pikes. In nearly every case horse and rider are overthrown by the bull, and the horse terribly gored. The bull's attention is attracted as quickly as possible by the waving of cloaks in the hands of attendants, and he is enticed to leave the prostrate man and horse. This, performance is repeated several times until the bull becomes a little wearied. The second act now begins, and in this a banderillero on foot will meet the bull in full charge, stick into his neck on either side two barbed darts about thirty inches long covered with colored paper, and step nimbly aside to escape the enraged animal. Usually eight of these darts are used. In the third and last act, the espada teases the bull with his red cloth and manœuvers to get the weakened bull in a favorable position to give the death stroke by thrusting his sword through the neck and into the bull's heart. Great is the applause when the bull falls dead from a single stroke. The dead bull and horses are dragged out by the mule team, the ring is sanded to cover up all traces of blood, a new bull is let in and the fight goes on as before. (A bull fight is quite expensive. Each bull costs about $250, and horses, though poor, cost something. The animals killed in the ordinary corrida are worth at least $2,000.)

It had been decided to divide the Naval Observatory expedition into three, sending two parties to Spain and one to Africa. The U. S. S. Dixie took the African party to Tunis, and the astronomers Jewell, Gilbert and Dinwiddie located themselves at Guelma near the central line of the shadow cast by the moon. In Spain there were two parties, one located at the edge of the path of totality at Poerto Coeli, and the other near the central line at Daroca. At the former place were Lieutenant Commander Hayden, Professor Littell, Mr. Peters and Mr. Hill from the Naval Observatory, and Mr. Anderson from the Johns Hopkins University; at the latter place were stationed Professor Eichelberger and Mr. Yowell of the U. S. Naval Observatory, Professor Bigelow of the U. S. Weather Bureau, Mr. Hoxton of the Johns Hopkins University, and the writer.

Daroca is in the heart of old Spain, about forty miles from Saragosso, and as a railroad has been there only four years it is a terra incognita for modern tourists—for which we were duly thankful. Our six weeks' stay there was a happy commingling of hard work—and there was plenty of work to do—with pleasant experiences in getting acquainted with Spanish life and people. The site for the town is indeed a peculiar one, in a valley so surrounded by hills that each