Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/228

200 The common people are interred in the most primitive manner, without coffins, and almost without covering; and death itself appears, to an unaccustomed spectator, invested with additional dread, from the squalor and heartless neglect surrounding it. The corpse, exposed to the public gaze, is hurried off, almost if not wholly unattended, to some ruined burial place, perhaps at the end of a public walk,—provided there are relatives who are able to afford this—where, in a little chapel—if they are able to pay for the use of that too—a few prayers are muttered in a very unimpressive manner, and the body is huddled into the ground. No solemnity attends the burial-service; no consolation is offered to the bereaved; very little spiritual comfort is afforded to the poor; and that little is carefully meted out according to the grade and connections even of poverty itself.

The funeral I witnessed was that of one among the humblest of the humble—the poorest of the poor. Tupa—this was the name of the Indian—and his two sons were the only mourners; their hands had prepared the grave; and there was neither priest, assistant, service, nor mass; scarcely a word being spoken. The