the circle to which they always return. It is called their querencia. Usually it is the gate by which they enter the arena.

We frequently see the bull bearing the fatal weapon in his neck-the hilt only appearing above his shoulder - traversing the arena at a slow pace, disdaining the chulos and their draperies, with which they pursue him. He thinks only of dying at his ease. He seeks the place that he has taken a fancy to, kneels, lies down, stretches out his head, and dies tranquilly, if the blow of a poniard does not come to hasten his end.

If the bull refuses fight, the matador runs towards him, and, always at the moment when the animal wavers his head, he pierces him with his sword; but if he keep his head erect, or still flees, it is necessary to employ a more cruel method for his death. A man, armed with a long pole, terminating in a sharp iron, shaped like a crescent, strikes him, assassin-like, from behind, and when he is prostrate, completes the work with his poniard. It is the only episode of the combat at which every one revolts. Fortunately, it is seldom necessary to resort to it.

A flourish of trumpets announces the death. Three coachmules then enter the circus at a full trot; a knot of cords is fixed between the horns of the bull, a hook is passed through it, and the mules gallop from the arena. In two minutes, the carcasses of the horses and the bull disappear from the arena.

Each combat lasts about twenty minutes, and usually they kill about eight bulls in an afternoon. If the entertainment has been but indifferent, and the public demand it, the president of the exhibition usually permits a supplement of two or three courses.

You see that the profession of a torero is sufficiently dangerous. On an average, two or three are killed in it during a year, in all all Spain. Very few reach an advanced age. If they do not die in the circus, they are obliged to give it up at an early day, in consequence of their wounds. The famous Pepe Illo, in the course of his life was wounded twenty-six times by the horns of bulls; the last thrust killed him. The high salary of these people is not their only inducement to embrace their dangerous business. Glory - applause — make them brave death. It is pleasure to triumph before five or six thousand people. So it is not rare to see amateurs of distinguished birth sharing in the dangers and honors of professional bull-fighters. At Seville, I have seen a Marquis and a Count discharging the functions of a matador at a public exhibition.

It is true, however, that the public is not very indulgent to the toreros. The least sign of cowardice is punished by cries and hisses. The most atrocious insults are showered from all sides; and sometimes by order of the people and it is the most decisive mark of their indignation-an alguazil advances towards the

combatant, and commands him, under pain of imprisonment, to attack the bull on the instant.

One day, the actor Maiquez, indignant at seeing a matador hesitate in the presence of the most obscure of all the bulls, loaded him with insults. Monsieur Maiquez,' said the matador, • look you - there is no such make-believe here as there is on your boards.'

Applause, and the desire of acquiring fame, or preserving that already obtained, oblige the bull-fighters to go beyond the dangers to which they are, of necessity, exposed. Pepe Illo, and Romero after him, presented themselves before the bull with irons on their feet. The coolness of these men, in the most urgent dangers, is absolutely miraculous.

Recently, a picador, named Juan Sevilla, was overthrown with his horse, by an Andalusian bull, of prodigious strength and agility. This bull, instead of permitting himself to be defeated. by the chulos, threw himself upon the man, stamped upon him, and gave him repeated thrusts in the legs with his horns; but perceiving that they were too well protected by his pantaloons of iron-ribbed hide, he turned and lowered his head, to thrust his horn into the man's breast. Then Sevilla, raising himself by a desperate effort, with one hand seized the bull by the ear; and thrust the fingers of the other into his nostrils, whilst he kept his head fastened under that of the infuriated beast. In vain did the bull try to shake him off, trample him under foot, hurl him to the ground- he could never force him to quit his hold. Every one regarded with a beating heart this unequal struggle. It was the agony of a brave man; they almost regretted that it should be prolonged; they could neither cry nor breathe, nor turn their eyes from this horrible scene which lasted nearly two minutes. At last the bull, vanquished by the man in this close struggle, left him in pursuit of the chulos. Every one expected to see Sevilla borne out of the enclosure. They raise him, and he is hardly on his feet when he seizes a mantle, and wishes to attract the bull towards him, in spite of his heavy boots and the inconvenient casing of his legs. If the mantle had not been forcibly snatched from him, he would certainly have been killed. They bring him a horse; he leaps on it, foaming with rage, and attacks the bull in the centre of the arena. The shock of the two valiant adversaries was so terrible, that the horse and bull both fell upon their knees. Oh! if you had heard the viva, if you had witnessed the frantic joy, the crazy ecstacy, at the display of so much courage and good fortune, like me you would have envied the lot of Sevilla! This man has become immortal at Madrid.

A REAL SCENE.

It was a lowly dwelling. Round the room, The half-raised curtain threw a twilight gloom; Beside a scanty fire, upon her breast,

A mother rocked her infant to its rest:

Coarse was their humble fare and hard their lot-
Yet, mid their keenest wants, they murmured not.

In that small room, through each successive day,
In lingering pain, a grey-haired woman lay ;
Her body worn by toil and ill at ease,
Stricken in years and feeble with disease.

I stood beside her bed. Her quick-drawn breath
Brought to my saddened mind the thought of death -
(If by the name of death we call that strife
Which leads the spirit to Eternal Life.)

I gazed upon her face. Her sunken cheek

The trial told, of which she did not speak :
Trusting, by kindness, to give faint relief,

I spake in love and sorrowed for her grief.

'Oh, sir,' she said, how can I speak the praise
Of Him, who so has blessed me all my days,
And, mid the sickness and the wants I've known,
Has taught my heart His holy will to own?'

I stood amazed.

What! could the human mind
Remain, amid such bitter pangs, resigned?
Still feel that every grief was sent in love,

And meekly drink the cup, and look above?
Could Christain faith have such stupendous power,

To soothe the mind in such a trying hour?

I looked upon her pallid face again:

Her parted lips were quivering with pain

Her cheek was ashy white-her spent frame shook ;
Yet there was calmness in her tranquil look —

A leaning upon God- —a faith sublime,
That he would aid her in his own good time.

R. C. W.

263

LETTERS FROM ARKANSAS.

NO. I.

SIR, You have been pleased to assure me that a passing sketch or two of Arkansas, its men and manners, would be admitted into your Magazine. If the hasty and imperfect fragments, which I shall from time to time send you, written in moments stolen from severe professional avocations, should merit a place in the New-England Magazine, I shall be gratified by affording your readers some information concerning a country, of which almost as little is known as of the interior of Mexico. If, as is equally probable, they should be deemed too uninteresting to find a place there, I shall be sufficiently rewarded if you yourself derive any pleasure from perusing them.

My knowledge of Arkansas, and of the people of the West, has been derived from personal observation and actual residence among them. I know their peculiarities well. I am like one of them an adopted son of the West; and I love my brethren and their character. To New-England, however, mine ancient home to Boston, my mother city, I look back with love and affection; and could I be the means of making more fully known to your readers the character and virtues of the inhabitants of the West, I should hold myself a fortunate man.

It will be my object, in the few letters which I shall indite at odd seasons and scattered moments, to give you, in the first place, a general sketch of Arkansas. What order I may afterwards pursue, is entirely uncertain. I think, however, that I shall not weary of my task until I have given you a description of some of the principal curiosities, including courts of justice and distinguished men in Arkansas.

The Territory of Arkansas, as every one knows, is bounded on the east by the river Mississippi, on the west by the Indian Territory, on the north by the State of Missouri, and on the south by Red River and a part of Louisiana. It is with the portion of the Territory lying on the river Arkansas, that I am most conversant; and it is therefore natural that this river should first engage our attention. It rises in the Rocky Mountains, about three hundred miles north of Santa Fe. I have crossed it and been on it in many places, but never within five hundred miles of its head. In the mountains, however, it is, like all other mountain streams, a clear, rapid river, and so continues until its color is changed in its passage through the prairie. I crossed it, in October, 1831, at a considerable distance above the mouth of the Semaron, where it was a shallow and clear stream, with low prairie on one side and sand hills on the other about an eighth

of a mile wide. Farther down it receives the red and salt waters of the Semaron, and above Fort Gibson the waters of the Canadian, which come from under the Rocky Mountains. In the Cherokee territory, it receives the waters of the Grand River, or Neosho, Illinois, and Salisau, and at Fort Smith, of the Poteau. Above Fort Smith, the river is generally about a quarter of a mile wide; and in fact, its width is not much increased from that point to its mouth. Above that place the river is shallow, and not often navigable by steamboats. Below Fort Smith, the river continues of about the same size and depth passing, in succession, through the counties of Crawford, Johnson and Pope, to Pulaski. Within the boundary of the Territory, that is to say, below Fort Smith, the Arkansas is a muddy, red and brackish stream though much more so at one time than another, according to the stages of water, or the places where the rises come from. At low water it is the worst river of the West, except Red River, for snags and difficult navigation. To a person passing down the river, the country presents generally a uniform appearance, owing to the low bottoms which extend in a continuous belt on each side of the river from Fort Smith to the mouth, except in places where a point or bluff juts out upon the river, immediately succeeded by the monotonous bottom.

The bottoms, as they are called, being entirely alluvial, are generally from one to three miles in width on each side of the river of a fine black and rich soil, producing excellent corn, and the best cotton in North America. The stranger who enters one of these bottoms for the first time, in spring or summer, is astonished and delighted. Imagine a New-Englander, familiar with the clear, silver-sanded, pebbly brooks and rivers of that country—the level, verdant, and heavy-swarded meadows through which they run, and the forests of pine, oak, maple and birch imagine him entering a solid mass of greenness, a heavy and unstirred body of verdure. He enters, by some narrow path, into the depth of the bottom. The first idea that strikes him is, that he could have had no conception of such a depth and solidity of greenness. There is not a hand-breadth of barrenness about him. The immense trees, standing close together, are completely covered and laden with leaves to their very tops — and their trunks, twined round and garlanded with vines, appear like pillars of embodied greenness. The undergrowth of small trees and bushes is matted with vines and green briers; and the ground is covered with grass and weeds, or perhaps with the never-failing greenness of the cane. Such is the character of a great propor

tion of the Arkansas bottom. The cottonwood a tree similar to the poplar, but of gigantic size and immense height is the most common tree in these bottoms. There is, besides, an abundance of ash, black, Spanish and yellow oak - all growing