From these few points of comparison, it is evident that the Spanish exhibition is a much more splendid and interesting spectacle than that of Portugal, and that there is nearly as much difference as between a field of battle and the sham fight of a review.  Probably the Portuguese sport has danger enough to excite common interest, and more than enough to be a popular diversion.  The place where these entertainments are given at Lisbon, is a large octagon amphitheatre called the Saletre, near the public walk behind the Rocio.  It has what is called a pit, into which the bull sometimes, but rarely, jumps, and on one side two tier of boxes, and is capable of containing about 4,000 or 5,000 spectators.  The amusements are always exhibited on Sundays, and are generally attended with great crowds.  On Sunday last every part of the amphitheatre was full, and the people betrayed such extravagant marks of pleasure as I could not have expected, from their usual sedate and dull habits.

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THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

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A TUCUMANESE SCHOOLMASTER.

The following day, July the 5th, we pursued our journey, intending to breakfast at a village very pleasantly situated, called Vinara, six leagues from the river of Santiago, and remarkable for the appearance of industry which it presented.  No one here seemed to live in idleness; the women, even while gazing at our carriage, were spinning away at the same time.  I observed too, that here the cochineal plant spread a broader leaf, and flourished with greater luxuriance in the gardens and hedge-rows of the cottages around, than at any place I had before visited.  “Industry is the first step to improvement, and education follows hard upon it,” thought I, as on foot, attracted by a busy hum of voices, we made our way through an intervening copse towards the spot whence it seemed to come.  A fig-tree, the superincumbent branches of which shaded a wide circuit of ground, arrested our progress; and looking through an opening among the large green leaves, we espied the village pedagogue, elevated on his authoritative seat, which was attached to the trunk of the tree.  He was reading a lecture on the heads of his scholars—­a phrenological dissertation, if one might judge from its effects, with a wand long enough to bump the caput of the most remote offender.  I began to think myself in some European district, certainly not from the late samples I had seen of the country, in the heart of the Columbian continent.  There, however, I was in reality, and in the fine province of Tucuman, with nearly half the globe’s surface between Europe and myself.  The picture was a very striking one occurring with these reflections.  The beautiful vegetable-roofed school-room, too, struck my fancy.  What a delightful natural study!—­the cool