22 Unexplored Spain 



lluw well one knows those tirst few opening notes : no occasion to 

 ask that it may go on : it will all come in time, and one knows there is 

 a merry evening in prospect. One by one the villagers drop in, and an 

 ever-widening circle is formed around the open hearth, rows of children 

 collect, even the dogs draw around to look on. The player and the 

 company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet of pathetic 

 nialaijucnas follow in quick succession. These songs are generally 

 topical, and almost always extempore ; and as most Spaniards can — or 

 rather are anxious to — sing, one enjoys many verses that are very 

 prettily as well as wittily conceived. 



But girls must dance, and find no difficulty in getting partners to 

 join them. The mala (/ac has cease, and one or perhaps two couples 

 stand up, and a pretty sight they afford ! Seldom does one see girl-faces 

 so full of fun and so supremely happy as they adjust the castanets, and 

 one damsel steps aside to whisper something sly to a sister or friend. 

 And now the dance begins ; observe there is no slurring or attempt to 

 save themselves in any movement. Each step and figure is carefully 

 executed, but with easy, spontaneous grace and precision both by the girl 

 and her partner. 



Though two or more pairs may be dancing at once, each is quite 

 independent of the others, and only dance to themselves ; nor do the 

 partners ever touch each other.^ The steps are difficult and somewhat 

 intricate, and there is plenty of scope for individual skill, though grace of 

 movement and supple pliancy of limb and body are almost universal, 

 and are strong points in dancing both the fandaiujo and minuef. 

 Presently the climax of the dance approaches. The notes of the guitar 

 grow faster and faster ; the man — a stalwart shepherd-lad — leaps and 

 bounds around his pirouetting partner, and the steps, though still well 

 ordered and in time, grow so fast that one can hardly follow their 

 movements. 



Now others rise and take the places of the first dancers, and so the 

 evening passes ; perhaps a few glasses of aguardiente are handed 

 round — certainly nmch tobacco is smoked — the older folks keep time to 

 the music with hand-clapping, and all is good nature and merriment. 



What is it that makes the recollection of such evenings so pleasant ? 

 Is it merely the fascinating simplicity and freedom of the dance, or the 

 spectacle of those weird, picturesque groups, bronze-visaged men and 

 dark-eyed maidens, all lit up by the blaze of the great wood-fire on the 

 hearth, and low-burning oil-lamps suspended from the rafters ? Perhaps 

 it is only the remembrance of many happy evenings spent among these 

 people since our boyhood. This we can truly say, that when at last you 

 turn in to sleep you feel happy and secure among a peasantry»with whom 

 politeness and sympathy are the only passports required to secure to you 



' We have seen an excejition to this in tlie mountain villages of the Castiles, where on 

 fiesta nights a sort of rude valse is danced in the open street. 



