One of the most typical of the Spanish folk-dances is the celebrated _Fandango_, that surpasses in its wild passions and vulcanic vigor everything of its kind. If you see it performed in the shadows of the ruined Moorish castles and mosques to a measure in rapid triple time, and hear the sharp clank of ebony or ivory castañets beating strange, throbbing rhythms, you stand spellbound and electrified, a mute witness of striking ethnographic magic. You seem to feel the pulse of the semi-tropical, semi-African race. The flutter and glitter, passion and quivering seductiveness, are a glimpse into the æsthetic depths of a national soul. The dance seems to inflame the dancers as well as the spectators. A Spanish poet speaks of the _Fandango_ as of an electric shock that animates all hearts. ‘Men and women,’ he writes, ‘young and old, acknowledge the power of the Fandango air over the ears and soul of every Spaniard. The young men spring to their places, rattling castañets, or imitating their sound by snapping their fingers. The girls are remarkable for the willowy languor and lightness of their movements, the voluptuousness of their attitudes--beating the exactest time with tapping heels. Partners tease and entreat and pursue each other by turns. Suddenly the music stops, and each dancer shows his skill by remaining absolutely motionless, bounding again into the full life of the _Fandango_ as the orchestra strikes up. The sound of the guitar, the violin, the rapid tic-tac of the heels (_taconeos_), the crack of fingers and castañets, the supple swaying of the dancers, fill the spectators with ecstasy.’ An equally well known of the Spanish folk-dances is the _Jota_, which is said to have originated in the province of Aragon, though the inhabitants of Valencia and Andalusia claim that the _Jota_ is the invention of their ancestors centuries before the Aragonians knew of it. It is a more ceremonial and less passionate dance than the _Fandango_, as it is performed on Christmas Eve and at other festivals with the purpose of invoking the favor of the Virgin. The Kinneys write of it: ‘It is a good, sound fruit of the soil, full of substance, and inviting to the eye as good sound fruit may be. No academy’s hothouse care has been needed to develop or protect it; the hand of the peasant has cultivated without dirtying it. And that, when you look over the history of dancing in some more progressive nations, is a pretty significant thing. The people of Aragon are not novelty-hunters. Perhaps that is why they have been satisfied while perfecting the dance of their province not to pervert it from its proper motive--which is to express in terms of poetry both the vigor and the innocence of rustic, romping, boy-and-girl courtship.’