Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/155

Rh reverent silence, such echo of sweetness from the low-chanting Indian choristers, flower-crowned, and bearing branches of new-budded orchard trees, in order that their fruits might find favor in the eyes of God, form an ideal picture of religious enthusiasm. It reads like a sketch of the Middle Ages. So does the description of the houses, decorated with every treasured atom of color and drapery; and the generalissimo marching at the head with his band of native troops. So, too, does the story of Holy Week, beginning before dawn on Palm Sunday with young men and maidens scouring fields and woods for the first wild-flowers, with which to decorate their palm-branches. The account of the lifting up of these palms, braided and knotted with flowers, during the canon of the mass, corresponds precisely with what we saw in the Cathedral of Mexico last year.

Juan Mateos is famous not only at home, but abroad. He has reached the point at which a man becomes a prophet in his own country. His brother authors quote him as they would Goethe or Lord Byron. His novels are mainly historical. The style irresistibly recalls the elder Dumas;