306 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
On festa days she and her mother draw their 
hoods so low and their muffling handkerchiefs 
so high that the costume is as good as a yash- 
mak, and in passing through the streets these 
one-eyed women seem like an importation from 
the “ Arabian Nights.” Ladies of higher rank, 
also, wear the hooded cloak for disguise and 
greater freedom, and at a fashionable wedding 
in the cathedral I have seen the jewelled fin- 
gers of the uninvited acquaintances gleam from 
the blue folds of humble broadcloth. But very 
rarely does one see the aristocratic lady in the 
street in her own French apparel, and never 
alone. There must be a male relative, or a ser- 
vant, or at the very least a female companion. 
Even the ladies of the American Consul’s fam- 
ily very rarely go out singly, — not from any 
fear, for the people are as harmless as birds, 
but from etiquette. The first foreign lady who 
walked habitually alone in the streets was at 
once christened “The Crazy American.” A 
lady must not be escorted home from an even- 
ing party by a gentleman, but by a servant with 
a lantern ; and as the streets have no lamps, I 
never could see the breaking up of any such en- 
tertainment without recalling Retzsch’s quaint 
pictures of the little German towns, and the 
burghers plodding home with their lanterns, — 
unless, perchance, what a German friend of 
