Spanish Life in Town and Country

s, and to date only from the days when Spain was a Roman province is almost modernity. No one can travel through Spain, or spend any time there, without becoming aware t

uilt on purpose, and attracts many strangers. To view it, however, as a national sport, one should see it in some of the mountain villages, where it is still the great recreation for Sundays and religious fiestas. The working-classes also play at throwing the hammer or

d, in 1759, an inscription: Sodalicium vernarum colentes Isid. This, Ford tells us, was an ancient cofradiá to Isis, which paid for her culto. Cock-fighting is still practised in most of the Spanish towns, as well as in Valencia, the regular cock-pits being constantly frequented in Madrid; but i

completely Oriental, and analogous to the ghawarsee of the Egyptians and the Hindoo nautch." "The well-known statue at Naples of the Venere Callipige is the undoubted representation of a Cadiz dancing-girl, probably of Telethusa herself." These dances have nothing whatever in common with the national dances as now to be seen on the Spanish stage. They are never performed except by gypsies, in their own quarter of Seville, and are now generally gotten up as a show for money. Men pas

m is linked to a traditional air, with variations. The malaguena is Andalusian, and the jota is Aragonese; but both are popular in Castile. All are love-songs, most of them of great grace and beauty. Some writers complain that some of these dance-songs are coarse and more or less indecent; others aver that they never degenerate into coarseness. Quien sabe? Perhaps it is a case of Honi soit qui mal y pense. In any case

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rd to be understood: they punctuate not only the music, but also the movement, the sentiment, and the refrain. The Andaluces excel in playing on the castanets. These are, according to Ford, the "Baetican crusmata and crotola of the ancients": and crotola is still a Spanish term for the tambourine. Little children may be see

se of the other parts of Spain. The zortico zorisco, or "evolution of eight," is danced to sound of tambourines, fifes,

s, "carrying all their properties in a sack, the stage consisting of four wooden benches, covered with rough boards, a blanket suspended at the back, to afford a green-room, in which some

by the managers-a thing easily to be understood when one remembers that the same audience, at any rate in the boxes and stalls, frequent them week in, week out. In Madrid, with a population of five hundred thousand inhabitants, there are nineteen theatres. With the exception of the first-class theatres, the peo

Christi, which takes place on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday-at all these the people turn out in thousands, dressed in their smartest finery, and combine thorough enjoyment with the performance of what they believe t

ight, and wish to see it ended; it is doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an "outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and dexterity-all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is

by the example of their religious autos-da-fé, the bull-fight became the revolting spectacle which foreigners-especially the English-have been so ready to rail against as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, while they rarely let an opportunity escape them of assisting as interested spectators at what they condemned so loudly, and they quite forgot their own prize-ring, and other amusements equally brutal and disgraceful. If the corrida de toros was ever as bad as it has been described by some, it has improved very much of late years, and most of its revolting features are eliminated. The pack of dogs, which used to be brought in when a bull was dangerous to t

sement. My sympathies always went with the bull,-who, at least, was not consulted in the matter of the fight,-as I have seen the popular espada, with his own particular chulo, a mass of white satin and gold embroidery, driving out to the bull-ring on the afternoon of a fiesta, bowing with right royal grace and dignity to the plaudits of the people. I was even accused of having given the evil eye to one well-known favourite as he passed my balcony, when I wished, almost audibly, that the bull might have his turn for once in a way that afternoon. And he had; for the popular espada was carried out of the ring apparently dead, the spectators came back looking white and sick, and I felt like a very murderess until I learned l

. PICADOR CAUG

there a disaster by which many are injured-flood, tempest, or railway accident? Immediately a bull-fight is arranged for the sufferers, and the whole cuadrilla will give their earnings to the cause. Not only so, but the private charities of these popular favourites are immense, and quite unheard of by the public. They adopt orphans, pay regular incomes to widows, as mere parts of every-day work. They are, one and all, religious men; the last thing they do, before entering t

ortant place which these men occupy in Spanish society may be gathered from the numerous notices which appeared in the newspapers of all shades of political opinion after his death. I quote from the article which appeared in the charmi

o make translation possible, and adds: "He who has not seen the great torero of Córdoba in the plenitude of his power will assuredly not comprehend why the name of Lagartijo for more than twenty years filled plazas and playbills, nor why the aficionados of to-day recall, in speaking of his death, times which can never be surpassed.... The toreo (play) of Lagartijo was always distinguished by its classic grace, its dignity and consummate art, the absence of affectation, or struggle for

an Rafael, where he took his coffee in the evening, and others. The notice concludes by saying that his life was completely dedicated to his property, which he managed himself, and he was looked upon

OROS. THE

due much of the making and all the keeping up of the elaborate and costly dress of the torero. They are, as someone has said, "ferociously virtuous," and share in the open-handed generosity of their husbands. The earning

btful whether there is any more cruelty in one sport than in the other. The foxes are fostered and brought up for the sole purpose of being harried to death, without even a semblance of fair play being allow

of the play to affix, at great risk to the torero, in the shoulders of the bull; the paper envelope bursts, and the birds are set at liberty. Crossing the arena, one of the men carelessly hit at a bird turning wildly about in its efforts to escape, and killed

England's popular race-courses in its crowds, the brilliant dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will ever supersede the re

icycles are, of course, to be seen in the large and more modern towns, but they are ne

nemy galloped round the ring trying to take him in flank. At last the bull prepared to charge; Pizarro packed away his trunk between his tusks, and quietly waited the onslaught. The bull rushed at him furiously; but the huge animal, quite good-naturedly and a little with the air of pitying contempt, simply turned aside the attack with his one complete horn, and as soon as the bull withdrew, a little nonplussed, went on picking up and eating his oranges as before. Bull after bull gave up the contest as impossible, and contentedly went out between the cabestros sent in to fetch them. At last one more persistent or courageous than the others came bounding in. Pizarro realised at once that for the moment he must pause in eating his dessert; but he became aware at the same time that in turning round to face the successive bulls, he had gradually wound himself up close to the stump, and had no room to back so as to receive t

OUT THE

to walk home alone under my balcony, open his stable door with his own la

heir colours, the large rosette of ribbon which shows which of the toreros the bull is to meet in deadly conflict. The bulls are then placed in their iron cages in the order in whi