He may be considered, indeed, to be wholly savage, save in so far as he may be supposed to inherit from his progenitors the nature of a race that man has more or less perfectly subjected and compelled to labor.  On first entering the arena he tosses up his head and shakes the shaggy black locks of wiry hair from before his small wicked-looking eyes, looks half alarmedly, half defiantly around, and stamps three or four times with one fore foot on the ground, partly, as it would seem, in wonder and doubt, and partly in increasing anger.  Then he trots slowly round the enclosure, starting aside and shying as the bright colors of the ladies’ dresses (at safe distance behind the palisades) catch and offend his eye.  Evidently he is seeking an egress and escape from a scene which must appear to him so wondrous and full of strange and unknown dangers.  But he has soon satisfied himself that there is no way out, that his enemies have encompassed him about on every side.  Then once again he throws his shaggy head into the air, shaking his short thick curly horns in a very menacing manner, and this time accompanying the action with a loud bellow, the compound expression of fear, wonder and wrath.

Now, what has to be done is simply this—­to seize him, throw him to the ground on his side, then to impress the branding-iron on his flank, and dismiss him to make way for another.  Of course nothing would be easier with properly contrived appliances and means than to accomplish this with promptitude, safety to man and beast, without struggle and without glory.  But this would involve change of habitudes, recourse to new methods, modern improvements, a confession to the mind of the buttero that he was no longer able to do what his fathers for many a generation had done before him.  It would be to lose the opportunity of exhibiting himself and his prowess on the great festival of the year, together with those subsequent hours of repose and reward for danger and fatigue endured which heroes of all ages, from the quaffers of mead in the halls of Odin to the “food for powder” around the vivandiere’s paniers, have never disdained.  For these sufficient reasons the merca is practiced still in the old way in the Roman Campagna, and the victory of the man over the brute has to be achieved by main force and dexterity.  The buttero has not so much as a lasso, or even a halter or a stick, to assist him in the struggle.  There is the beast with his horns, and there is the man with his hands.  Probably it might have been better to seize the creature instantly on his entry into the arena, while he was under the influence of his first bewilderment; and doubtless when the men have got hot to their work, and the advancing sun warns them to get on with it, the business will be more summarily despatched.  But in the first opening of the day’s work a little show-off is indulged in.  The buffalo has ceased his trot round the railing, and stands head in air as he bellows his