Moorish palenque made with donkeys to defend themselves from the bull on a stake

See How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside

The scene is, as in the case of the previous print, very dark, with the bull in the centre of the picture, who carries a donkey between his horns and is surrounded by a group of bullfighters and donkeys. The light and shade emphasises the drama of the struggle between man and beast and adds nuance to the dramatic tension of the scene. The three figures on the left, no doubt Moors, are dressed as Mamluks and hold pikes with which they intend to wound the bull. On the other side of the composition, on the right, another Moor points his spear at the bull. But there are also three donkeys, one of which is almost at the back of the scene, as it has probably moved away from the bull or has been charged by the bull and is lying there. The scene can be set in a bullring, given that in the background of the scene we can see a hint of the barrier that surrounds the ring.

In this picture Goya depicts a rather cruel variety of the fiesta, consisting of placing a series of donkeys in front of the bullfighters so that they are protected from the bull's charge, which they attack with pointed spikes. This type of action, known as mojigangas, was a bullfighting custom in Goya's Madrid. However, José de Vargas Ponce, who was a contemporary of Goya's, notes that in Aragon there was the palenque, a type of bull running with a bull, to which ten or twelve young bullfighters are presented with sticks topped with iron spikes, who charge the animal as it comes out of the bullring and then kill it. Goya depicts something like this in this engraving, which because of its harshness can be related to others of bullfighting in which the bull is harassed with pikes or lances, such as How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside, Another way of hunting on foot or The Moors settled in Spain, disregarding the superstitions of their Alcoran, adopted this hunting and art, and they throw a bull in the field.

Martínez-Novillo believes that Goya depicted this print at the same time as Disembowelment of the rogue with spears, crescent moons,banderillas and other weapons, and as a transitional theme between the historical and contemporary scenes of Bullfighting. In fact, in both engravings, we find characters of the same type, those destined to disjarretar the bull cited by Nicolás F. de Moratín: Moorish slaves, then [...] blacks and mulattos. 

The print is part of the subgroup, within the group of "historical" scenes of Bullfighting (Nos. 1-11), dedicated to the bullfighting of the Moors (Nos. 3-8 and 17) , although Goya may have been inspired by bullfights held in Madrid during the time of Joseph Bonaparte in which Mamluk soldiers (Egyptian Muslims who formed part of the Napoleonic armies) took part.

There is a preparatory drawing for this print, also entitled Moorish palenque made with donkeys to defend themselves from the bull on a stake