at was thick
enough, he would go on till midnight telling the world in general all
the people he had killed with it, and the other wonders of Hercules it
had performed.

The ditty always begins on a high note, and goes quavering irregularly
downwards, with infinite twirls, shakes, and prolonged notes, these
being sung to the exclamation "Ay!" Minor keys enter a good deal into
this kind of performance, and the most remarkable part of it is that the
singer, once having reached the bottom of the scale--for there is no
end--is able to begin again on the same high note, and hit upon, more or
less, the same variations a second time. If you have nothing better to
do than to listen to some of these improvisatores, you will get a long,
and more or less connected, history of some event; but it takes a long
time--and, perhaps, is not often worth the expenditure. The songs which
you hear to the accompaniment of the guitar are different from these,
though the introduction of the "Ay!" and the frequent shakes and twirls
are always there.

The working Madrileno's ideal of happiness is to go a little way along
one of the dusty _caminos reales_ (highways) to some little _venta_, or
tavern, or to take refreshments out in baskets. They will sit quite
contentedly in the dust by the side of the road, or in a field of
stubble or burnt-up grass, to eat and drink, and then the guitar comes
into play, and the dancing begins. It is always the _jota aragonesa_,
which is not so much dancing as twirling about slowly, and, it would
almost seem, sadly; but there is always a circle of admiring lookers-on,
who beat time with stamping of feet and clapping of hands, and watch the
performance as eagerly as if there were something quite fresh and new
about it. Occasionally, these parties go out by omnibus or tram, as far
as they can, and then start their picnic repast, to be followed by the
inevitable dance and song, just wherever they happen to be.

One of the most curious sights of Madrid is the great wash-tub of the
Manzanares. As you descend the steep bluff on which the city stands,
towards the river, you find the banks covered with laundresses, kneeling
at short distances from one another, each scrubbing the clothes on one
board, which slopes down into the water, while another board, fixed so
as to stand out into the stream, or a little embankment made of sand,
dams up the scanty supply of water she can obtain. As the Manzanares in
summer is divide