Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/199

 neatly-turned ankles in richly-worked stockings, and somewhat more of the leg than befits other persons than opera dancers,) put themselves in such an attitude, that you might naturally imagine they were in the act of pirouetting off to the music of a piano in the opposite corner, that gave forth the most fashionable waltzes and airs from the operas. Two dogs, (emblems, I suppose of "watchfulness,".) but who did not seem to understand their duty very well, amused themselves, meanwhile, by wandering about among the pots and smelling at the flowers!

Returning from Nuestra Señora de Loreto, I found the streets crammed with people, among whom were crowds of ladies dressed quite as splendidly as in the morning; many of them still wore their diamonds, notwithstanding the imminent danger of robbery in such a concourse. The stores were all closed, the bells were silenced, and all was quiet but the hum of the crowd and the crack of the thousand rattles that filled the air like a meadow of grasshoppers.

I went to the Profesa and found a similar display. I continued on to San Francisco, and there beheld the most tasteful and least childish of all these exhibitions. The walls of the church were hung with large pictures, portraying parts of the life of Christ; and over the altar was a large architectural design, the outlines of which were marked with lights fastened on the canvas, so that the whole picture seemed drawn with fire. The effect was novel and beautiful, and the better for a misty atmosphere in the church arising from the multitude of candles.

In another of the seven chapels of San Francisco, a figure of our Lord, as large as life, was seated at the foot of the altar, crowned with thorns and bleeding at every pore; while, at a side altar, was the Virgin, (again in becoming black velvet,) with a large straight sword thrust through her heart, and her eyes upturned like a dying Cleopatra. The crowd here was immense, and it was necessary to preserve order by stationing guards at all the doors.

As I passed down the street, I observed that numbers of booths had been erected at the principal corners and in the plaza. They are neatly made of reeds and matting, and their counters are woven over in front with sweet clover interlaced with flowers. Orgeat and other refreshing drinks only are sold in them, and in the whole throng of this day of idleness I have not met a drunken Indian or lépero.

The Cathedral was also lighted up like the rest of the churches, and there was a similar display of ornaments. In the middle of the left aisle a silver altar had been erected, since yesterday, which reached nearly to the ceiling; but it was tastelessly crowded with figures of saints and wooden pillars, painted to imitate marble. On this altar was displayed the Holy Sacrament during the period in which no consecration of the elements is permitted by the Church.