Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/64

36 in a place where the feelings, or rather, the passions, are particularly turned to love.

Doña Bartola invited us to accompany her, and, setting out, we called upon a friend of hers; during the whole visit, a servant girl sat with her lap full of tobacco, making straw cigars for immediate use. Being the first time we had smoked with ladies, it was rather awkward to ask one for a light; but we were so thoroughly broken in that night, that we never had any delicacy afterwards, on that score. The conversation turned upon the saint and her miraculous powers; and when we avowed ourselves somewhat sceptical, the servant girl, with that familiarity, though not want of respect, which exists throughout Central America, said that it was wicked to doubt; that she had prayed to the saint herself, and two months afterwards she was married, and to the very man she prayed for, though at the time he had no idea of her, and, in fact, wanted another girl.

With this encouragement, locking the house, and accompanied by children and servants, we set out to pay our homage to the saint. The sound of the violin and the firing of rockets indicated the direction of her temporary domicile. She had taken up her residence in the hut of a poor Indian in the suburbs; and, for some time before reaching it, we encountered crowds of both sexes, and all ages and colours, and in every degree of dress and undress, smoking and talking, and sitting or lying on the ground in every variety of attitude. Room was made for our party, and we entered the hut.

It was about twenty feet square, thatched on the top and sides with leaves of Indian corn, and filled with a dense mass of kneeling men and women. On one side was an altar, about four feet high, covered with a clean white cotton cloth. On the top of the altar was a frame with three elevations, like a flower-stand, and on the top of that a case, containing a large wax doll, dressed in blue silk, and ornamented with gold-leaf, spangles, and artificial flowers. This was the Santa Lucia. Over her head was a canopy of red cotton cloth, on which was emblazoned a cross in gold. On the right was a sedan chair, trimmed with red cotton and gold leaf, being the travelling equipage of the saint; and near it were Indians in half-sacerdotal dress, on whose shoulders she travelled; festoons of oranges hung from the roof, and the rough posts were enwrapped with leaves of the sugar-cane. At the foot of the altar was a mat, on which girls and boys were playing; and a little fellow, about six years old, habited in the picturesque costume of a straw-hat, and that only, was coolly surveying the crowd.

The ceremony of praying had already begun, and the music of a drum, a violin, and a flageolet, under the direction of the Indian