Three days before Lent begins the people give themselves up to the wildest kind of frolic, with a looseness of manner that to a grave and thoughtful foreigner unused to such scenes at home is at first sight exceedingly foolish, and then very stupid. The Carnival is a carne-vale, a farewell to flesh; a grand celebration of the approach of Lent, or the season when _lentiles_, beans or vegetables only, are to be eaten for forty days. As the people see the time coming when for more than a month their religion requires them in a very special manner to abjure the world, the flesh, and the devil, it seems to be their idea to give the last three days of liberty to the enjoyment of these three forms of mammon-worship. If afterwards they served the Lord with half the zeal of these three days of devil-worship, they would be the most pious people on the earth. But to one whose religious prejudices are quite vivid against the nonsense of a Catholic carnival, it seems the queerest way in the world to get ready for serving God by plunging headlong into a scene of mad revelry that utterly abjures all sense and reason, and converts an entire city for three days into a pandemonium. Yet it is all in such perfectly good humor, so free from riot and violence and drunkenness, that the only fault to be found with it is simply this, that the whole community make fools of themselves. The Romans had a proverb, “It is well to play the fool sometimes,” and perhaps it is. But when the whole town takes leave of its senses, and goes frolicking day after day, if it is a good thing, it is too much of a good thing, and that spoils it all.