But the girls must dance, and find no difficulty in getting partners to join them. The malagueñas 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 commences: 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.[6] 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 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 of the music and freedom of the dance; is it 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-lamp suspended from the rafters? Perhaps it is only the remembrance of many happy evenings spent among these same 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 both friendship and protection if required. Nor is there a pleasanter means of forming some acquaintance with Spanish country life and customs than a few evenings spent thus at farm-house or village-inn in any retired district of laughter-loving Andalucia.
CHAPTER II.
A BOAR-HUNT IN THE SIERRA.
Late one March evening we encamped on the spurs of a great Andalucian sierra. Away in the west, beyond the rolling prairie across which we had been riding all day, the sun was slowly sinking from view, and to the eastward the massive pile of San Christoval reflected his gorgeous hues in a soft rosy blush, which mantled its snow-streaked summit. Below in the valley we could discern the little white hermitage of La Aina, once the prison of a British subject, a Mr. Bonnell, who, captured in 1870[7] near Gibraltar, was carried thither by sequestradores, and concealed in this remote spot till the stipulated ransom had been lodged by the Governor of Gibraltar in the consulate at Cadiz: an incident which led to unpleasant correspondence between the British and Spanish Governments, and which was luckily closed by the tragic deaths of all the offenders.