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 (5 d.) 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 Romeria 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.