SINCE June 2d, 1878, when I took the leading part in Bizet's "Carmen," on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre in London, I have sung it about five hundred times in the great majority of the principal cities of Europe and America; five hundred times have I thrown cassia blossoms in the faces of many Don Josés of all nations; danced the seguidilla in Seville at Lillas-Pastia's, and as often have I been killed at the Plaza de Toros. And still, up to this year, I had seen neither Seville nor Andalusia.

People would not believe this when I told them, and some Spaniards, who saw me in the opera of "Carmen," wagered that I was a Spaniard. This was, of course, a great satisfaction to me, for I had made my preparatory studies solely from Prosper Mérimée's charming novel; my costumes

were made in Paris after Andalusian patterns which I collected from all sorts of books. Nothing came from Spain itself excepting the large comb I wore in my hair, and my castanets. I learned the seguidilla dance from a Spanish master of the ballet.

Naturally it was one of my greatest desires to see the real Seville, and the Andalusian mountains whose fantastic forms I had so often seen in the stage scenery, and to become acquainted with the life of the girls working in the tobacco factory at Seville. But one engagement following upon the other made it impossible for me to find the time to carry out my pet scheme.

Last winter my American tour was completed at Christmas time, and the part in which I bade farewell to the Bostonians was again Carmen. As