Spanish Life in Town and Country

by L. Higgin; Eugène E. Street

The malaguena and the seguidilla, which is more complicated, are generally seen on the stage only in Madrid, where they must charm all who can appreciate the poetry of motion. The dance of the peasant in Castile is always the jota Aragonesa. The part the tambourine and the castanets play in these dances must be seen and heard 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 seen snapping their fingers or clicking two bits of slate together, in imitation of the castanet player; but the continuous roll, or succession of quick taps, is an art to be learned only by practice. The castanets are made of ebony, and are generally decorated with bunches of smart ribbons, which play a great part in the dance.

The popular instrument in the Basque and Northern provinces is the bagpipe, and the dances are quite different from those of the other parts of Spain. The zortico zorisco, or "evolution of eight," is danced to sound of tambourines, fifes, and a kind of flageolet—el silbato, resembling the rude instruments of the Roman Pifferari—probably of the same origin.

Theatrical representations have always been a very popular form of recreation among the inhabitants of the Iberian continent, from the days when the plays were acted by itinerant performers, "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 musician sang, without accompaniment, old ballads to enliven the proceedings." This is Cervantes's description of the national stage in the time of his immediate predecessor, Lope de Rueda.

The Spanish zarzuela appears to have been the forerunner and origin of all musical farce and "opera comique," only naturalised in our country during the present generation. The theatres in all the provinces are always full, always popular; the pieces only run for short periods, a perpetual variety being aimed at 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 people pay two reales (5d.) for each small act or piece, and the audience changes many times during the evening, a constant stream coming and going. Long habit and familiarity with good models have made the lower class of playgoers critical; their judgment of a piece, or of an actor, is always good and worth having.

The religious fiestas must also count among the amusements of the people in Spain. Whether it be the Holy Week in Seville or Toledo, the Romería of Santiago, the Veladas, or vigils, of the great festivals, or the day of Corpus 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 to be a religious duty. There is little or no drunkenness at these open-air festivities, but much gaiety, laughter, fluttering of fans, "throwing of sparks" from mischievous or languishing eyes—and at the end always a bull-fight.

Here we touch the very soul of Spain. Take away the bull-rings, make an end of the toreros, and Spain is no longer Spain—perhaps a country counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not now seem to be the remotest possibility. All that can be said is that to-day there is a party, or there are individuals, in the country who profess to abhor the bull-fight, 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 undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to English aficionados, of whom there are many, and have caused the fiestas de toros to live on in the affections of the whole Spanish people. In its earliest days, gentlemen, armed only with the rejon, the short spear of the original Iberian, about four feet long, fought in the arena with the bulls, and it was always a fair trial of skill and a display of good horsemanship.

When the fatal race of the French Bourbons came to the throne, and the country was inundated with foreign favourites, the Court and the French hangers-on of the kings turned the fashion away from the national sport, and it gradually fell into the hands of the lower classes, professional bull-fighters taking the place of the courtly players of old, and these were drawn from the lowest and worst ranks of the masses; the sporting element, to a great extent, died out, and the whole spectacle became brutalised. Pan y toros (bread and bulls) were all the people wanted, and, crushed out of all manliness by their rulers, and taught a thirst for cruelty and bloodshed 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 the human fighters, has long been done away with. The media luna, which we are told was identical with the instrument mentioned in Joshua, is no longer tolerated to hamstring the unfortunate bull; and if a horse is gored in the fair fight, there are men especially in attendance to put him out of his misery at once. It is doubtful whether the animal suffers more than, or as much as, the unhappy favourites, that are sent alive, and in extremest torture, to Amsterdam and other foreign cities, to be manufactured into essence of meat and such-like dainties, after a life of cruelly hard work in our omnibuses and cabs has made them no longer of use as draught animals.

The bull-fighter of to-day is by no means drawn from the dregs of the people; there is, at any rate, one instance of a man of good birth and education attaining celebrity as a professional torero. He risks his life at every point of the conflict, and it is his coolness, his courage, his dexterity in giving the coup de grâce so as to cause no suffering, that raise the audience to such a pitch of frenzied excitement. I speak wholly from hearsay, for I have myself only witnessed a corrida de novillos—in which the bulls are never killed, and have cushions fixed on their horns—and a curious fight between a bull and an elephant, who might have been described as an "old campaigner," in which there was no bloodshed, and much amusement. 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 later that he was not dead. All Madrid, almost literally, called to inquire for him daily, filling books of signatures, as if he had been an emperor at least. Personally, I was more interested in his courage after the event and the devotion of his chulo, who never left his side, but held his hands while the injured leg was cut off, in three separate operations, without any anæsthetic. Eventually, he completely recovered, and was fitted with an admirable mechanical cork limb in place of the one removed in three detachments; and my sense of evil responsibility was quite removed when I heard that his young wife was delighted to think that he could never enter the bull-ring as a fighter again, and her anxieties were at an end.

PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL