Besides these, there were files of arrieros; crowds of Indians, with charcoal in huge panniers on their backs; others with turkies; asses laden with hay—the hay covering the whole of the little animal so completely, that at a short distance he looked like a self-moving stack. Then, again, there was a better class of the natives, who had contrived to hire a couple of planks covered with a mat-awning, swung upon wheels, in the shafts of which they drove a lean and half-starved mule,—while among the crowd dashed our postillion, with his antediluvian vehicle. We were; in fact, the only foreigners on the road, except a band of valiant French hair-dressers, who, taking advantage of the holiday, had sallied forth with brightly shining guns and bloodless bags, to do execution on an army of snipes that lay behind its intrenchments of marsh and grass.
The feast, I have said, is purely Indian in its celebration at this shrine. You will remember when the Spaniards were expelled from the city—on that dreadful evening, which has since passed into history by the name of the "noche triste," or "sad night—that they retreated through the village of Tacuba, then an Indian town of some importance, and encamped on the adjacent heights. Some of the forces strayed still farther westward, and, quitting the shores of the lake, slept on the first rise of the mountains. There they passed a panic-struck night, and in the morning, a small doll, which had dropped from the knapsack of a Spanish soldier, (the bruised relic, doubtless, of some pet baby he had left at home,) was found on a maguey, or aloe. Lo! it was proclaimed, by the finder, to be a miraculous image of the Holy Virgin—a token of approaching success and safety—and the doll was thenceforward sanctified! When the Spanish power became firmly fixed in Mexico, a church was built on the spot of the miraculous visit, and the shrine was endowed with the votive offerings of the wealthy and superstitious.
Having appeared to the soldiers just at the critical moment, she was called the Virgin of "Remedios," or Remedies—and from that day to this, she has been regarded as the special patroness of the ill, the unhappy, the sorrowful, and unlucky. If the "rainy season" does not come soon enough for the hopes of the Indian farmer, so that he can raise his corn, and frijoles, she is prayed to. If it lasts too long, she is besought. If the small-pox, cholera, or fevers rage, she is the pious medicine; and ever with success, because her image is generally brought to the infected district, from her healthy mountain country-seat, when the malady is abating. It is said, however, that there was a mistake about her in the case of the last small-pox that prevailed in the Capital. She was produced too soon! The convalescent came to return thanks; those who had it in its incipient state, to be relieved; and the healthful, to be spared entirely—the result was, a frightful spreading of the infection among the multitudes who prostrated themselves before the image.
The church has, of course, made a fine revenue out of this miraculous power of the Virgin; and I have been told that she was frequently rented out to the different parishes, at the rate of five or seven thousand dollars per
