And there goes the Pope himself; a man has actually mounted a hat like the Pope’s, and with white robes and gold lace has made a disguise that tells its story instantly. And the people laugh to see it. Nothing is too sacred nor too dignified to be travestied here. A company of mock soldiers pretend to keep order by making confusion more confounded. By some strange metamorphosis a man has turned himself into a very creditable goose, and waddles along most naturally, having some wires at his command with which he works his bill, his wings, and tail. A bear on horseback rides up, and Bruin is received with bravos. An ox is mounted also on a horse, and then a wolf; and even the devil is represented on horseback, and a woman rides astride behind him and her arms around him, a hideous, incongruous, but exceedingly ludicrous spectacle. Her hoops spread far behind, covering the horse’s hips and tail, so that the figure is half horse, half devil, and the other half woman. One man, as an orang-outang, leads and exhibits another dressed in the same way. Parties of dancers, all in these ridiculous costumes, form a ring and dance the fandango, with castanets and cymbals and guitars, executing the freest flings and giving themselves to the wildest _abandon_ in the public streets. Others, men and women, disguised as if in their night-clothes and ready to go to bed, are wandering about, pretending to be lost, and their appearance is so comical that one almost forgets it is play, and pities the poor wanderers. But the description is growing more wearisome than the scene itself. Nonsense all, but such nonsense as makes one laugh at first and then feel sad that grown-up men and women can find amusement, day after day, in such infinite folly. And where the religion comes in, it is hard to see. Yet we observe that our American and English friends who have leanings through their own church towards the Church of Rome, take a wonderful interest in the carnival. They have some associations with it, and the fast that follows, that give to all this sport some significance quite incomprehensible to the uncovenanted unbelievers in the outer courts. CHAPTER V. MADRID—PALACE—BANK—PICTURE-GALLERY. WHEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the royal palace of Madrid (it was in 1808, his brother Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being at his side), the great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase; and, as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he turned to his brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of putting his thoughts, “My brother, you will be better lodged than I.”