22 Unexplored Spain 
How well one knows those first 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 
malaguefias 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 malaguefias 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 fandango and minuet. 
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 much 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 
1 We have seen an exception to this in the mountain villages of the Castiles, where on 
Jiesta, nights a sort of rude valse is danced in the open street. 
