Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The N. O. Creasant of the 28th ult., has the following:

Yesterday pursuant to public notice, came off at Gretna, opposite the Fourth District, the long heralded fight between the famous grizzly bear General Jackson [victor in fifty battles] and the Attakapas bull Santa Anna.
The fame of the coming conflict had gone forth to the winds, and women and children, old men and boys, from all parts of the city, and from the breezy banks of Lake Pontchartrain, and Borgne brushed up their Sunday suits, and prepared to see the fun. Long before the published hour, the quiet streets of the rural Gretna were filled with crowds of anxious denizens flocking to the arena, and before the fight commenced such a crowd had collected as Gretna had not seen nor will be likely to see again.
The arena for the sports was a cage 20 feet square; built upon the ground and constructed of heavy timbers and iron bars. Around it were seats, circularly placed, and intended to accommodate many thousands. About four or five thousand persons assembled, covering the seats as a cloud and crowding down around the cage, were within reach of the bars.
The bull selected to sustain the honor and verify the pluck of Attakapas on this occasion was a black animal from the Opelousas, lithe and sinew, as a four year old courser, with his eyes like burn coals. His horns bore the appearance of having been filed at the top, and wanted that keen and slashing appearance so common with others of his kith and kin; otherwise it would have been “all day” with bruin at the first pass and no mistake.
The bear was an animal of note, and called Gen. Jackson, from the fact of his licking up everything that came in his way, and taking the responsibility on all occasions. He was a wicked looking beast, very lean and unamiable in aspect, his hair standing the wrong way. He had fought some fifty bulls, [so they said,] always coming off victorious-but that either of the fifty had been an Attakapas bull, the bills of the performance did not say. Had he attacked Attakapas first, it is likely his fifty battles would have remained unfought.
About half past four the performance commenced.
The bull was seen standing in the cage alone, with head erect, and looking a very monarch in his captivity. At an appointed signal, a cage containing the bear was placed alongside the arena, and an opening being made, bruin stalked into the battle ground-not, however without sundry stirring up with a ten foot pole, he being experienced in such matters and backward in raising a row.
Once on the battlefield, both animals stood like wary champions, eying each other, the bear cowing low, with head upturned and fangs exposed, while Attakapas, lashed his sides with his long bushy tail, and pawing up the earth in very wrath.
The bear seemed little inclined to begin the attack, and the bull, standing a moment, made steps first backward then forward as if measuring his antagonist, and meditating where to plant a blow. Bruin wouldn’t come to the scratch, no way it could be fixed, till one of his keepers with an iron rod, tickled his ribs and made him move. Seeing this, Attakapas took it as a hostile demonstration and gathering his strength, dashed savagely at the enemy, catching him on the points of his horns and doubling him up like a sack of bran against the bars. Bruin ‘sung out’ at this and made a dash at his opponent’s nose.
Missing this, the bull turned to the ‘about face,’ the bear caught him by the ham, inflicting a ghastly wound. Attakapas with a kick shook him off and renewing the attack, went at him again, head on and with a rush. This time he was not so fortunate for the bear caught him above the eye burying his fangs in the tough hide and holding him as in a vice. It is now the bull’s turn to ‘sing out,’ and he did it, bellowing forth with a voice more hideous than that of all the bulls of Bashan. Some minutes stood matters thus and the cries of the bull, mingled with the coarse growl of the bear, made hideous music, fit only for a dance of devils. Then came a pause [the bear having relinquished his hold, and for a few moments it was doubtful whether the fun was not up. But the magic wand of the keeper-the ten foot pole-again stirred up bruin, and at it they went, and with a rush.
Bruin now tried to fasten on the bull’s back, and drove his tusks in him in several places making the blood flow like wine from the vats of Luna. Attakapas was pluck to the back-bone, and catching bruin on the tips of his horns, shuffled up right merrily, making the fur fly like feathers in a gale of wind. Bruin cried Nuff,’ [in bear language,] but the bull followed up his advantage, and making one furious plunge full at the figurehead of the enemy, stuck a horn into his eye, burying it there, and dashing the tender orange into darkness and atoms. Blood followed the blow and poor bruin, blinded and bleeding and in mortal agony, turned with a howl to leave, but Attakapas caught him in the retreat, and rolled him over like a ball. Over and over again, this rolling over was enacted and finally, after more than an hour, bruin curled himself upon his back, bruised, bloody, and dead beat. The thing was up with California, and Attakapas was declared the victor amidst the applause of the multitude that made the heavens ring.
It was a most savage exhibition, and we chronicle it as we should a murder or other lamentable fact. May we never see such another.