Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/266

234 watering the ring when we entered, crackers were fizzing, and the band was playing. At five o'clock the circle was filled.

"A blast from the trumpets announced the entry of the cavalleiro, a knight on a prancing steed richly caparisoned, which performed all the steps and evolutions of the old Spanish horsemanship—i.e. saluting the public and curveting all about in steps. The cavalleiro then announced the deeds to be performed, and this ceremony was called 'the greeting of the knight.' Before him marched the bull-fighters, who ranged themselves for inspection in ranks. They were sixteen in number. Eight gallegos were dressed in white stockings to the knee, flesh-coloured tights, green caps lined with red, red sashes, and gay, chintz-patterned jackets, and were armed with long pronged forks like pitchforks, called homens de forçado. They were Portuguese, fit and hearty. Two boys in chocolate-coloured velvet and gold attended as pages, and six Spaniards, who really did all the work, completed the number. They were tall, straight, slim, proud, and graceful, and they strutted about with cool jauntiness. Their dress began with dandy shoes, then flesh-coloured stockings, velvet tights slashed with gold or silver, a scarlet sash, and a short jacket that was a mass of gold or silver, and a sombrero of fanciful make. Their hair was as short as possible, save for a pigtail rolled up like a woman's back hair and knotted with ribbon. There was one in green and gold, one in pale blue and silver, one in purple and silver, one in dark blue and silver, one in chocolate and silver, and one in maroon and