**With one exception, however, I gleaned nothing of information that is
not already chronicled in the guide-books; and that one piece of
information I only set down, because I think it contains a hint that may
be made practically useful in certain enterprising circles of New York.
We were in the Arena at Arles. It was a splendid day--barring the
Mistral, that windy nuisance, which, as it eddied through the antique
and ample Roman corridors, brought to my recollection certain
North-Westers experienced on a fine March day in Union Square. In fact,
it was far too cold for sentimentalizing or tracing measurements. But
the guardian, it seemed, had not latterly had much chance of exercising
his vocation, and his tongue was too nimble to be frozen. And so at it
he went. Only, being himself more interested in certain proceedings that
had lately taken place within a boarded fence that now encloses the
arena, than in historical or legendary lore, his subject was by many
centuries more fresh than the ruins whereon we stood, sunning ourselves
and crouching out of the wind's way. Arles, it appeared, had been
favoured with a bull fight, real Spanish matadors doing the beastly
honours; but to the credit of the city, be it said, the spectacle was
received with intense disapprobation. The gentle Provencals, whose
tastes are more Italian than Spanish, could not brook the sport dear to
their fair Empress who sets fashions in Paris. Indeed, the beauteous
Eugenie, I fear, will hold them to be the merest milk-sops, for when the
grand climax of a disembowelled horse was exhibited before them, the
Arlesians, male and female--in place of shouts of triumphant
approval--gave vent to loud cries of shame and execration, and in short
hissed the Spanish heroes incontinently from the scene of their
performance.
But what has all this to do with the future of New York, it may be asked
by any reader of these rambling reminiscences. Stay, a moment; I am only
at the commencement. I, too inquired if this were all. "By no means,
Sir," was the reply. "We had then the real _courses aux taureaux_, and
excellent they were." Now I must own that my notions of this branch of
the tauromachia were somewhat indistinct. I knew it was not precisely
the same thing as buffalo-hunting on the prairies, or as a steeple-chase
in Warwickshire or Yorkshire; but I could not have defined it to save my
life. "Perhaps, Monsieur, has never seen one" was the next appropriate
suggestion, and it led very naturally to my enlightenment. Briefly,
then, after the torture of the quadrupeds, and the indignant dismissal
of the Spanish matadors, the young gentlemen of the town took the place
of the latter, and began a diversion, which must have been infinitely
amusing, and which, I humbly submit, might be adopted on a different
soil. A lively young bull was turned into the arena, and was followed by
a number of lively youths, armed only with light staves whereon
fluttered blood-red pennons. The fun consists in provoking the excitable
animal by the red flags thrust before his face, and eluding the
consequences by a run, a dodge, or a jump. The fence, which was a
barrier for the bull, could easily be vaulted by a nimble-footed
youth--and none but such would venture upon the field. There was just
enough danger to make the game piquant; scarcely enough to make it
objectionable. One indiscreet young fellow did indeed narrowly escape a
catastrophe on the occasion described to me; but the fault was entirely
his own. He had been breakfasting at some Arlesian Delmonico's, and had
partially lost his wits before coming to the encounter, while retaining
all his courage. Therefore it happened--and I only tell the story as it
was told me--that the youth, when pursued by the bull, tripped and fell,
and the horns of the brute were immediately thrust into the fullest part
of his peg-top trousers. A great sensation among the spectators! The
bull succeeded in raising and throwing over his head the object of his
attack, but by no means in disentangling himself therefrom. His frantic
efforts to bring about a summary toss were for some minutes
unsuccessful; and the reader may conceive the mingled sense of the
ludicrous and the fearful, that pervaded the assembly. Finally--for even
French cassimere will give way in the end--he, the bull that is,
achieved his aim, and threw his unconscious tormentor a summerset, being
diverted from ulterior measures of vengeance by fresh attacks made upon
him, while the crest-fallen hero of the adventure was promptly bundled
over the paling. To sum up this sketch of the sport, in the humane and
pithy words of the guardian of the Amphitheatre--"it does no harm
whatever to the bull, and very little to the young gentleman."
Now then, Mr. Niblo; why should you not establish a Tauro-drome in the
centre of civilization? The leaning of the day is toward athletic
exercise. In England, at present, there is a run upon rifle-corps; and
the boldest riders are all bent upon becoming the crackest shots. In New
York, I have read since my absence in Europe, that the great English
Eleven have begotten a very rage for cricket. An excellent move this;
but then the climate is against it, and the summer is short, and the
game is utterly incomprehensible to the gentler sex, who are always
prompt to encourage the manly prowess of their admirers. Besides, for
lack of a permanent Bude light of adequate strength, we have not yet
achieved the desideratum of playing cricket during those special hours
when the youth of a commercial community finds itself prone to
relaxation. The _courses aux taureaux_ might just as well take place by
gas-light and in a New York circus, as amid Roman ruins and under the
blaze of sunshine. The dandies of Broadway have the two main requisites
for brilliant success in this suggested entertainment. Their pluck may
not be doubted; and who that has seen them, agile and unwearied in the
German or the _valse a deux temps_, could question their ability to
outfoot the fleetest bull that Andalusia itself could supply? I commend
the matter then to the serious consideration of Managers in search of
novelties, and to belles who would discover what stuff their beaux are
made of.