The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-09-12
A bull EleAr lN PRovENoE.
Scenes Of Excitement Attendant Upon the
Event.

Scenes of Excitement Attendant Upon the
Event.
Usually tne bulls for the Sundays
bull fight aro brought into the town
from the Camargue in closed van, and
scarcely anyone knows when they ar
rive. But at rare intervals they are
driven by their Camarguan keepers
through the streets to their stables in
the amphitheater. In most parts of the
civilized world all precaution is taken
to keep wild cattle out of the public
thoroughfares; in Provence, to send
them tearing through the towns is the
treat of treats reserved for holidays.
The route they were now to follow had
been officially announced, with NJ. lie
maire's signature to the proclamation.
The greater part of it of course lay
along the boulevards. The whole place
was barricaded with wooden barriers to
prevent their escape down any cross
street, and everywhere shutters were
drawn in lower windows, and doors
were closed, and shops were shut, in
case they did, by chance, get loose.
Business was suspended.
BY three o'clock, the entire town of
more than twenty thousand people had
turned out to meet them At the cafes
on the Lices there was not vacant
table. Gay parties were at every win
dow and in every pretty hanging-gar-
den. The paths opposite were thronged,
and the market was over TO greet
the bulls the stately, handsome women
of Aries had put on their finest cos
tunes, their long gold watch-chains
hanging over the Qual1er-like shawls
and soft fichus, the pretty Arlesian
cross at their throat, tiny square of
rich old lace inclosed in the velvet rib
bon of their head-dress. They walked
together arm-in-arm on the wide road,
conscious that they were, as sight,
equal to any other part of the days
show.
Boys already were climbing into the
trees in delicious tremor of fear and
expectation. But suddenly
there was cry of, "Ye! les taureauxr'
and the dancers, hot and breathless,
rushed to the garden ratings. Out on
the Lices people were fleeing in every
direction, springing across the little
ditch by the roadside, jumping up on
the high marble benches.
At the far end of the boulcvards rose
cloud of white dust. The next minute
eight black bulls thundered past on a
dead gallop, the foam streaming from
their mouths, guarded on each side by
men, each one of whom carried a long
trident and was mounted on white
horse of Camargue. After them came
at full tilt men and boys and even wo-
men. From the gardens the crowd
turned and made short cut for the am
phitheater. From every street people
were running towards it, laughing,
shouting, pushing, painting. All Aries
was racing for one more look at the bulls.
We reached the front of the main en-
trance just In time to see the black
bulls galloping up narrow street, one
or two a little in advance, and the white
horses, their riders setting firm in the
saddle, the long tridents in their hands.
They were at the top of the street The
only way now open for them led into
the stables. Suddenly the barrier fell.
Eight bulls were at large in the streets
of Aries
Everybody left. l did not wait to see
anything more. But when, once safe
inside the amphitheater, l looked out
again, near windows and balconies were
still crowded, and there were still groups
on many housetops; but no one was on
the street.
Gradually the women came back to
the doors, lifting up the green curtains
and peeping out while they kept the
children well behind them. Men
walked boldly about. Then at last we
started cautiously for the hotel. Wild
rumors were abroad. zone bull has
gone into the Cafe du Forum 1t
jumped through the glass of the front
door. The walters and the patron ran.
1t knocked down the tables; it went out
through the back door" "Two are in
the place de la Republique. They have
got into the Hotel de Vile, and are
mounting towards the man of bronze.
The clerks have flown" ''Thev are
coming here now. Les taureaux! les
taureauX!' Then came precipitate
fight.
But the bulls were seen no more that
night. They had gone back to the
Camargue. Eight others, fresh and fit
for combat, were brought in the COW
cred van to take their places.
Preposterous as it may seem to let a
regiment of cowboys and bulls loose in
this town-a fiourishing city long before
the Christian era-there was barbaric
picturesqueness about the grand arrival
of the bulls not to be found in the bet
ter regulated spectacles of more serious
people,. Pennell, in Century