Each animal in the herd is put through the tests we have described, the proportion selected varying according to the excellence and purity of the strain: and then, for three years longer, the selected bulls continue to lead a life of ease and abundance upon the smiling Andalucian _vega_.[15]
Skill in handling the _garrocha_, and the ability to turn over a running bull, are accomplishments in high esteem amongst Spanish youth. Names now famous in politics or diplomacy (Don Luis Albereda, for example, late Spanish Minister at St. James's, the Duke of San Lorenzo, and many more), are still mentioned in Andalucia as past experts in the records of this southern diversion--a fame analogous to that of our foremost steeple-chase riders at home.[16]
The _tentadero_ at the present day affords opportunity for aristocratic gatherings, that recall the tauromachian tournaments of old. Even the Infantas of Spain enter into the spirit of the sport, and have been known themselves to wield the _garrocha_ with good effect, as was, a few months ago, the case at a brilliant _fête champêtre_ on the Sevillian _vegas_, when the Condesa de Paris and her daughter, Princess Elena, each overthrew a sturdy two-year-old; the Infanta Eulalia riding "_á ancas_," or pillion-fashion, with an Andalucian nobleman, among the merriest of a merry party.
At length, however, the years spent in luxurious idleness on the silent plains must come to an end. One summer morning the brave herd find grazing in their midst some strange animals, which appear to make themselves extremely agreeable to the lordly champions, now in the zenith of magnificent strength and beauty. The strangers grazing with them are the _cabrestos_ (or _cabestros_, in correct Castilian), the decoy-oxen sent out to fraternize for a few days with the fighting race, preparatory to the _encierro_, or operation of conveying the latter to the town where the corrida takes place. Each _cabestro_ has a large cattle-bell, of the usual Spanish type, suspended round its neck, in order to accustom the wild herd to follow the lead of these base betrayers of the brave. Shortly the noble bulls will be lured in their company away from their native plains, through country paths and byeways, to the entrance of the fatal _toril_.