Except on certain holidays the ladies also dress like the French. The women of the middle classes still wear the mantilla, but the ancient satin shoes, the peineta, the bright colors—the national costume, in a word—have disappeared. They are, however, the same little women, so praised for their large eyes, their tiny hands, and small feet, with jet-black hair, a skin that is rather fair than dark, well formed, of good carriage, active, and vivacious.
In order to view the fair sex of Madrid one should go to the promenade of the Prado, which is to Madrid what the Cascine are to Florence.
The Prado, to be precise, is a very wide avenue, of no great length, flanked by smaller avenues which run toward the eastern part of the city. It lies beside the famous gardens of Buen Retiro, and is closed at both ends by two enormous stone vases, the one surmounted by a colossal Cybele sitting on a shell and drawn by sea-horses; the other, by a Neptune of equal size, both of them crowned with copious fountains, whose waters interlace and fall gracefully with a pleasant murmur.
This great avenue, lined along the sides with thousands of chairs and hundreds of benches, where men sell water and oranges, is the most frequented part of the Prado, and is called the Salon del Prado. But the walk extends beyond the fountain of Neptune: there are other avenues, other fountains, and other statues, and one may walk among the trees and fountains as far as Our Lady of Atocha, the famous church loaded with gifts by Isabella II. after the outrage of February 2, 1852, and where King Amadeus went to visit the body of General Prim. From that point there is an extended view of a vast tract of the desert plain around Madrid and of the snowy summits of the Guadarrama. But the Prado is the most
