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Collection: Books and Periodicals

Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)

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. 298 THE FATE OF THE GENERAL. character of an exhibition such as I have endeavoured to describe. For my own part, I did not at first find the actual spectacle so disgusting as I had expected I should ; for as long as the animals fought with spirit, they might have been supposed to be following their natural instincts ; but when the bull had to be urged and goaded on to return to the charge, the cruelty of the whole proceeding was too apparent; and when the two bulls at once were let in upon the bear, all idea of sport or fair play was at an end, and it became a scene which one would rather have prevented than witnessed. In these bull-and-bear fights the bull sometimes kills the bear at the first charge, by plunging his horns between the ribs, and striking a vital part. Such was the fate of General Scott in the next battle he fought, a few wecks afterwards; but it is seldom that the bear kills the bull outright, his misery being in most cases ended by a rifle-ball when he can no longer maintain the combat. I took a sketch of the General the day after the battle. He was in the middle of the now deserted arena, and was in a particularly savage humour. He seemed to consider my intrusion on his solitude as a personal insult, for he growled most savagely, and stormed about in his cage, even pulling at the iron bars in his efforts to get out. I could not help thinking what a pretty mess he would have made of me if he had succeeded in doing so; but I regarded with peculiar satisfaction the massive architecture of