Note 36 — Chapter VI

Between two and three years after this journey, I heard again of my friend the Major. I became acquainted with a man who resided at the foot of the Serra do Teixeira, which is beyond the estates of the major’s father. The old colonel was killed by a bull before his own door. The animal had been driven into a small inclosure, and became mad from feeling himself confined. It was necessary to bring him to the ground, which is done in a peculiar manner, by running a short iron prong into a certain part of the thigh. The herdsmen were afraid, and wished to let the beast have time to cool and become less violent; the old man, who was between seventy and eighty years of age, told them, that if they were afraid, he would attack him, and immediately entered the inclosure; but before he could prepare to receive the bull, and was still leaning against the palings, the animal ran at him, and fixed his horns through the old man’s body, with sufficient force to run them into the palings, and in such a manner that before he could extricate himself, one of the herdsmen ran a long knife into his head between the horns, and brought him to the ground; but the old man lost his life.