Our windows look out upon the Puerta del Sol, the great square of the city. From it radiate the eight chief streets, and through it every moment the tide of life is flowing. Now it is the great centre of the carnival. Along the streets are seen parading small companies of men in masks and fantastic costumes, with all sorts of musical instruments, making harsh melodies as they march. Two or three of the set are constantly soliciting gifts from those they meet, or holding a cap to catch money thrown to them from the people in the windows and balconies, who are looking down to see the sport. Some of these rangers are women in men’s clothes; more are men in petticoats and crinoline, ill concealing their sex, which a close shaven chin and hard features too plainly reveal. In this disguise, great liberties are taken. A young woman stops a man on the sidewalk, claps him on the shoulder, asks him for money, perhaps chucks him under the chin, and sometimes more demonstrative still, she throws her arms around his neck and gives him an affectionate salute in the broad light of day on the most public and crowded thoroughfare. Even this boldness is taken in good part, and seldom or never leads to any quarrel. The men were polite to the women. In no case did I see any rudeness offered by a person in male attire to a female on the street. The maskers were only out in hundreds, while the others, looking on and enjoying, were thousands on thousands. These were in the usual dress of ladies and gentlemen. They expected to find walking somewhat rough, but they were prepared for it, and would have been disappointed had it been otherwise. The maskers wore costumes as various as the fancy of the wearers or the makers could invent them. Some were clothed in white from head to foot, with stripes of red or black; their faces painted white like ghosts, or with horns to look as much like devils as possible. Many were imitation negroes, and this seemed to be a fashionable attire, as if the African were popular among the Spaniards, who once had a great horror of the Moors. Some wore a fantastic head-gear that excited shouts of laughter as they passed. One man strode along with a false head five times the life size, so nicely fitted to his shoulders that it looked to be a sudden expansion of his head into that of a monster. Solemnly the bearer of this prodigious topknot walked the streets, apparently unconscious of the presence of the little-headed race of beings who were laughing at his swelled head.