Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/681

Rh Zacatecas, we saw, on Christmas eve, a figure of our Saviour paraded through the streets, dressed in a green silk robe, with a pañuelo del sol, fastened across the shoulders; while the Virgin Mary followed, adorned with a fashionable French hat, put on a little on one side.

These images the poor are taught to worship: the rich, or rather the well-informed, may bow the knee indeed, but they deride in private the superstition with which they are compelled outwardly to conform; and religion itself shares in the feelings, which such disgusting exhibitions are but too well calculated to excite.

On the 7th of January we quitted Guadalajara, and slept at Ătĕqūīză, a Hacienda eleven leagues from the town, very prettily situated, near a vast plain of sembrados de trigo, (young wheat,) which had been just laid under water, and was of the most delicate green that it is possible to imagine. The Hacienda contains thirteen "sitios," and the lands are mostly "de riego," (irrigated,) but the increase of wheat seldom exceeds thirty to one, and does not average more than twenty-five. We were received with much hospitality by the proprietor, an acquaintance of Mr. Ritchie's; and remained till late in