AT Granada, whenever it is desired, the proprietor of the Washington Irving Hotel will engage the Gypsy King to come with his daughters and dance the national dance at the house of one of the guides. This dance is a most wild and weird performance. There is an incessant clapping of hands and clatter of castañets, a sharp stamping of heels, an agonized swaying of the body and the arms; and often the castañets and guitar are accompanied by a wild and mournful wail from the dancers. The king of the Granada gypsies is said to be the best guitar player in Spain.
The climb from the city up to the vast Gypsy Quarter, known as the suburb of the Albaycin, is an adventure of a nightmare sort. The squalor and horror of the life to be witnessed on the way up along narrow streets swarming with the weirdest and dirtiest of brown beggars, may not be painted, may not be written; yet now and then one goes under a superb Arab arch, passes a door rich with arabesques, or comes upon a group of elegant columns supporting a roof of mud and rock. The long hillside seems honeycombed with the denlike habitations of the gitanos, many of whom, among the men, are blacksmiths, while others work at pottery, turning out very handsome plates and water jars, while the women weave cloth, and do a rude kind of embroidery, all selling their wares in the streets—in fact the spinning and weaving and sewing is often carried on in the street itself.
But the little ones too (las niñas) add largely to the family income, as they dance for the visitor; the traveller and his guide being always invited to enter the caves. These gypsy children dance with much spirit, and they also sing many beautiful old ballads of Spanish prowess. The most beautiful ones among the girls are early trained to practice fortune-telling.
With their dances, their songs, their fortune-telling, their importunate, imperious begging, and their rude industries, these Granada gypsies live here from century to century, in swarms of thousands, never attempting to improve their condition, but boasting, instead, of the comfort of their dismal caves as being cool in summer and warm in winter. It is plain that they consider themselves and their Quarter “a part of the show,” and hardly second in interest to the Alhambra itself.
HARDLY is there a Spanish town of note, that does not possess its great Bull Ring; and there are scores of inferior Bull Circuses throughout Spain. There is but a slight public sentiment against the brutal sport which is the favorite Sunday recreation of the whole nation. Spanish kings and queens for many centuries have sat in the royal boxes to applaud, and many of the Spanish noblemen of the present time breed choice fighting bulls on their farms, and there is the same mad admiration of the agile, skilful espado or bull slayer, as a hundred years ago. To be a fine picador or banderillo, is to be sure of the praise and the presents of the entire populace. Men, women and children go; the amphitheatre is always crowded and always the crowd will sit breathless and happy to see six or eight bulls killed, and three times that count of horses—the rich and the nobles on the shady side under the awnings, the peasants sweltering and burning in the sun. It is the picador who rides on horseback to invite with his lance the attacks of the bull as he enters the arena; it is the capeador who springs into the arena with his cloak of maddening red or yellow, to distract the bull’s attention from the fallen horseman; it is the banderillo who taunts the wounded creature with metal-tipped arrows, the barbs of which cannot be extracted, or with his long pole leaps tauntingly over the back of the confused creature; but it is the gorgeous espado with his sword, entering the arena, at last, who draws all eyes. With his red flag he plays with the bull as a cat with the mouse, until the amphitheatre is mad for life blood; then with a swift, graceful stroke he ends all, his superb foe lies dead, and he turns from him to meet the wild shower of hats, cigars, flowers, fans, purses that beats upon him from all sides—it is a scene of unimaginable exultation, for there are glad cries and plaudits, and royalty itself throws the bull-slayer a golden purse and a pleased smile, and the beautiful Spanish señoritas lavish upon him the most bewildering attentions.
The Spanish boy is born with a thirst for this sport. Their favorite game is Toro. One lad mounts on his fellow’s back to take the part of the picador and his horse; another, with horns of sticks, represents the bull; and the rest are capeadors, banderillos, and escodas, while the audience of adult loungers look on with fierce excitement. It is in this fierce, popular street sport that the future champions of the Bull Ring are trained and developed—to be an escoda is usually the height of a Spanish boy’s ambition.
