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"