I had sketched in this street. It was on the steepest part of the hill and ran almost horizontally across, so that the front door of the upper houses were on a level with the roofs of the lower ones. The roadway was divided along the centre, one-half being some twenty feet above the other; a low parapet protected the drop. It was lucky that the dwellers in the upper part of the street were sober Spaniards.
We found, as usual, the party seated on chairs in the middle of the street, near a small electric light; some of the men were sitting along the parapet. We were greeted by an old, but very large woman who groaned all the evening with rheumatism. The girls were in their best dresses of pale coloured skirt and embroidered paisley patterned shawls. A long silence followed our arrival. We were waiting for a player who was the best in the village. He could not come, but sent his brother instead, who played well, but was left-handed. Three guitars and a guitarron formed the orchestra.
Thrum, thrum, thrum, went the guitars, while across the deeper chords the little guitarron, with its strange tuning, threaded a shrill pattern of monotonous arpeggios. The music of Spain has something fundamental about it. It has a hint of the heart-beat of the universe. The rich, pulsating rhythm of it seems to set the air flowing in waves like those in a disturbed pool. It seems to speak of something ideally simple, to create an harmonious forgetfulness. A girl sitting amongst us threw back her head and sang. Her voice carried the sad minor cadences of the eternal East; it was pitched queerly in the throat and wailed across the still night like the voice of a passionate soul.
"When I am dead a hundred years,
And when the worms have eaten me,
The signs you find in my dead bones,
Will show that I have worshipped thee.
When I am dead a hundred years."
The song began with a long-drawn-out aie-e-e, which ran a gamut of strange, almost creepy modulations, the guitars slowed down their tempo, but when the last echo of the song had died amongst the hills, the instruments took up once more the remorseless beat of the malagueña.
Again she sang: