The Captain-General of the First Army Corps lives in Madrid, and directs two divisions of this body. Light infantry, cavalry, and artillery are quartered in or near the city. The chief barracks are the Montaña and the Queen Maria Cristina. The barracks of San Francisco are an old convent now utilised for military purposes.
The War Office is in Madrid at the Buena Vista Palace. The artillery and the engineers have their museums and laboratories, and there is a military casino, or club, in the city, containing a gymnasium, baths, fencing-room, and dining-hall.
The chief recreations of Madrid society are the bull-fight, the theatre, dancing, driving, and card-playing. The national pastime of bull-fighting demands a chapter to itself, and the theatre will be treated in another section of this volume. We may here devote a page or two to Spanish dancing, one of the favourite and most charming diversions of the country. Every province of Spain has its traditional dances, from the Jota Aragonesa of Aragon to the Seguidillas of Seville. Andalusia is the region of Moorish dances, survivals of the old days, descriptive of the passion of love. The Cachucha is said to be pre-Roman in its origin, and there is no doubt that most of the national dances are very ancient. Some of these dances are grave and slow, others gay and nimble, and all are marked by grace and charm. The Zarabanda, a Morisco dance of a voluptuous character, was at one period proscribed by the government, and was said to be the invention of the devil. The Fandango also came under reproof in former times.
Typical dances may be witnessed in two or three of the variety theatres of Madrid, but the best dancers are to be seen in the south, in Malaga and sunny Seville. Many ladies in society excel in the art of dancing, and at private gatherings they display their skill and lissom grace in beautiful movements to the accompaniment of the piano or guitar, and castanets. The hands and the trunk of the body play a no less important part than the feet in Spanish dancing.
Besides the characteristic national dances, there are the quadrilles and set dances of other countries which have been introduced into Spain. The minuet was at one time a part of the education of all upper class families in the Peninsula.