as the sultan might throw the handkerchief,
and she comes to him at once.

Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar where
refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will take _vino_
or _dulces_--wine or candies? She will take _dulces_--"Gracias,
senor!" This is _de rigueur_. You pay for them of course, and
conduct her to her seat. She pours the _dulces_ into the awaiting
pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her _comadres_, and of her
younger brothers and sisters.

In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door invitingly open,
is the shrine of _monte_. The revelry of the ball-room is unheeded by
the preoccupied votaries of the changeful deity as they sit around the
green table watching the dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously
fingering their little piles of red or white "chips." We have no
business and no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on.

Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the _pieces de resistance_ of a
Mexican baile: quadrilles are not relished by the dusky danseuses.
There are some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of
these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a see-saw
movement suggestive of its name--cuna- or cradle-dance. For the rest,
the waltz enters much into its composition.

The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and a guitar
or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: the base-string
is where we put the treble, and _vice versa_. The strings are
generally struck with the thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood
like the ancient _plectrum_. This produces a harsh metallic sound,
without any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are
capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the character
of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. The only
distinction is the addition of a continuous _tremolo_ to the latter
two, which produces the same unpleasant effect on the nerves as a
comic song chanted by the shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice
of senility. As the fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as
well as on festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the
customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music
to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native
harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either,
though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of
his own manuf