The training-pit is a circular space inclosed with boards, perhaps some
twelve feet in diameter. Here we find the proprietor, Don Manuel
Rodriguez, with a negro assistant, up to the ears in business. Don
Manuel is young, handsome, and vivacious, and with an air of good
family that astonishes us. He receives us with courtesy, finds nothing
unusual in the visit of a lady, but is too much engrossed with his
occupation to accord us more than a passing notice. This is exactly as
we could wish,--it allows us to study the Don, so to speak, _au
naturel_. He is engaged at first in weighing two cocks, with a view to
their subsequent fighting. Having ascertained their precise weight,
which he registers in his pocket-memorandum, he proceeds to bind strips
of linen around their formidable spurs, that in their training they may
not injure each other with them. This being accomplished,--he all the
while delivering himself with great volubility to his black
second,--the two cocks are taken into the arena; one is let loose
there; the negro holds the other, and knocks the free fowl about the
head with it. Sufficient provocation having been given, they are
allowed to go at each other in their own fashion, and their attacks and
breathing-spells are not very unlike a bout of fencing.
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