But although the sombre dress of the women, and the consequent absence of bright colours, seemed at first to give a gloomy cast to the exterior of the population of Madrid, a little closer observance of it disclosed a variety and picturesqueness not to be found in any other of the European countries. The dress of the women, although sombre, bears in the eye of a stranger a character of both novelty and grace. The round turned-up hat and crimson sash of the peasant; the short green jacket and bare legs and sandals of the innumerable water-carriers, who call _aqua fresca_; the sprinkling of the military costume; and above all, the grotesque dresses of the multitudes of friars of different orders, gave to the scene a character of originality exclusively its own. No feature in the scene before me appeared more novel than the universality of the fan; a Spanish woman would be quite as likely to go out of doors without her shoes, as without her fan. I saw not one female in the streets without this indispensible appendage. The portly dame, and her stately daughter; the latter six paces in advance, as is the universal custom throughout Spain, walked fanning themselves; the child of six years old, held mamma with one hand, and fanned herself with the other; the woman sitting at her stall selling figs, sat fanning herself; and the servant coming from market, carried her basket with one arm, and fanned herself with the other. To me, who had never before seen a fan but in the hands of a lady, this seemed ridiculous enough.