his eyes, so it is but a quick decision of the instant to thrust the darts, step to one side, and the bull passes by, only to find another banderillero on the other side with another pair of banderillas for his further decoration. Another rule is that the banderillas must not be placed back of the shoulder. If they are properly placed and so firmly that they are not shaken out, loud and long is the applause, otherwise the hisses are shrill and sharp. The banderillero is a favorite with the lover of tauromachy as well as with the first-timers at the fight. It seems with his lack of defense, and depending entirely on his agility he is the hero in this contest between human skill and brute force, so that it is often the matador comes back from his advanced position as a star, much to the delight of the audience, to try his hand and thrust an extra pair of banderillas.

In all well-regulated companies there are two banderilleros, each with two pairs of banderillas, making eight in all, that, if their work is well done, are hanging from the bull's shoulders, and the president's bugler announces the end of second act and calls the matador to kill the bull.

THE STAR PERFORMER

As the star in some great drama is received with plaudits as he enters upon the stage, so is the matador with shouts and throwing of hats, that is, if he is indeed a star matador known to kill his bulls with a single stroke of the sword. The matador takes his sword and muleta, and while the capeadores are leading the bull to further weariness on the other side of the ring, advances to the front of the president's box, hat in hand, dedicates the bull to something or somebody, some state or county, some man, or girl, and tells the president that he will kill the bull in the most approved style, then, tossing his cap to an admirer in the shady seats, proceeds to do his part, or after saluting the president, he may cross to the

sunny side, as it is sometimes well to cater to the rabble, and tell the people there that he will kill the bull in their especial style and toss his cap there to be held in great honor while he does it.

DEATH OF THE BULL

Then advancing toward the bull, the matador holds in his right hand a long, perfectly straight, sharp-pointed, keen-edged sword; in his left he carries the muleta, the "red rag" of the Spanish bull fight, and used only in the last act, in the killing of the bull. The muleta is a piece of red flannel three or four feet square, held on a stick, near the ground and in front of the bull, kept in a fluttering motion before his eyes, which seems to infuriate further the already enraged animal. He lowers his head and makes a rush for the muleta, which is held, although in the left hand, across to the right of the matador; this gives him a fair play for the stroke of the sword, and as the bull lowers his head to attack the "red rag" the right hand of the matador drives the sword to the hilt into the bull's shoulders, or between them, cutting the spinal cord or piercing the heart, which if it has been well done brings the bull to his knees and he lies down to die, but it may not be death until the "stroke of mercy has been given by the cachetero, an attendant with a short dagger who comes from behind and gives the bull a quick, sure thrust between the horns to instantaneous death.

DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD

While this is being done the matador is bowing his acknowledgments to an enthusiastic audience, who have gone wild and thrown their hats, canes, coats, cigars and coin into the ring; the hats, canes and coats are thrown back to their owners, but the cigars and coin are kept for future reference. But if the killing has been bungled and the espada's work not well done, then instead of

canes, hats and cigars the disapproving enthusiast pulls up the boards, and with the chairs and anything that is loose or that he can loosen, throws them into the ring. Four mules gaily harnessed are then driven in, a chain fastened about the heels of the dead bull and he is dragged out.

Even before the dead first bull has disappeared and the dead horses dragged out, the two picadores appear on other horses worse than the first, if possible, the bugle sounds again, and another bull bounds into the ring to meet the fate of the first; after the second another and another till five or six are killed, and if you have been there you are to be the judge whether your Sunday afternoon has been well spent.

The upper classes, as a rule, do not frequent the bullring, though there are many and brilliant exceptions; you may see on the Paseo in the city of Mexico almost any day the most elegant equipages on that grand boulevard among whose occupant: are little children dressed in the full ring costume of the t reador. The Mexican small boy plays at bull-fighting as the American does at basebail, or as the more sporty one puts on the gloves with his fellows is it then any wonder that the custom prevails since the children are taught to admire it?

CHAPTER XVI

RANCHES AND RANCHING

In Mexico, every large plot of land used for agricultural purposes, or for cattle grazing, is known as a ranch or "hacienda." In the majority of instances the haciendas are devoted to the grazing of cattle and the raising of agricultural products in conjunction with one another. Farms which in the United States would be considered unusually large, placed beside these Mexican ranches would shrink into insignificance. In America a ranch of 60,000 acres is considered exceptional. In Mexico a ranch covering 100,000 acres is considered relatively small. They range from this figure up into the millions of acres under one man's ownership. There are farms in Mexico employing 10,000 laborers and covering territories as large as some of our New England states. Mexico is the country of vast landed proprietors, the whole of the country being controlled and practically owned through indeterminate grants from the government to a relatively small number of land barons.

THE MEXICAN TABLE-LANDS

The great mass of the farming and ranching territory consists of an elevated plateau formed by the expansion of the Cordilleras of Central America, from which terrace slopes descend with more or less rapid inclination towards the Atlantic on the east and the Pacific on the west. It is on these slopes, too, that great haciendas have been built up. The wealth of the higher land lies in its wonderful silver and gold mines and in the immense value

of its forests of precious woods. The table lands of Mexico lie at elevations of from 5,000 to more than 9,000 feet above the sea level and they exhibit great variations of land and soil. Rising out from these plateaus are some of the highest volcanoes in the world. The most famous of these is the volcano of Popocatapetl, or The Smoking Mountain, whose peak is 17,880 feet above the sea level.

The principal chain of mountains intersecting this table land is the Sierra Madre range, in which lie the chief gold and silver mines of the country. Lesser ranges break up the Pacific slope of the plateau and cut the land with deeply cleft ravines of astonishing magnificence. Up these ravines and all over the west coast during certain periods of the hot season there blow storms of exceeding violence, and it is during these months, also, that the climate of the coast is exceedingly prejudicial to persons of the white races, although during recent years knowledge of preventive medicine and preventive sanitation, and the exercise of greater care in the choice of drinking water, have done much to lower the death rate among the whites who remain in the lower lands during the hot season.

In the far southern part of the country, in the Peninsula of Yucatan, science has been unable to check the ravages of fevers which attack the natives almost as readily as the whites. Weakened by the brutal slavedriving which the laborers undergo, the terrible diseases attack the emaciated frames of the workers and they are killed off by fevers in appalling numbers annually.

But to return to ranching as it is carried out in the more favored parts of Mexico:

MANY VEGETABLE PRODUCTS

While the staple farm products raised on these great ranches are comparatively few in number, the differences