When they came to the end of their journey, their brows dusty and their mouths parched, tired and foot weary from the tramp, they presented themselves before the alcalde, and the boldest among them, who fulfilled the functions of director spoke of the merits of the troup, who thought themselves lucky if municipal generosity lodged them in the inn stables, and gave them in addition an "olla"[52] which was emptied in a few seconds.
In the square of the town, enclosed with carts and boarded scaffolding, old bulls would be loosed, veritable castles of flesh, covered with seams and scars, with enormous sharp horns, brutes that for many years had been baited at all the holidays in the province, venerable animals who "knew Latin."[53] Their cunning was so great that accustomed to the perpetual baiting they were in the secrets of all the possibilities of the fight. The boys of the town pricked these beasts from a safe place, and the people derived more amusement from the "toreros" from Seville even than from the bull. The youngsters spread their cloaks with trembling legs, but their hearts comforted by the weight in their stomachs. There was great delight among the crowd when any one of them was knocked over; and when any lad among them in sudden terror took refuge behind the palisades, the peasant barbarians received him with insults, striking the hands clutching hold of the wood, and thrashing him on the legs to make him jump again into the Plaza. "Arre, coward! show your face to the bull. Cheat!"
Sometimes one of the "diestros" would be carried out of the Plaza by four of his companions, pale with the whiteness of paper, his eyes glassy, his head hanging, and his breast heaving like a broken bellows. The barber would arrive, reassuring them all as he saw no blood, it was only the shock the lad had suffered in being tossed to a distance of several yards, and falling on the ground like a bundle of clothes. At other times it was the agony of being trampled under foot by some enormously heavy animal; then a pail of water would be dashed on his head, and when he recovered his senses, he would be treated to a long draught of aguardiente from Cazalla de la Sierra. Not even a prince could be better cared for, and back he went to the Plaza again.