THE CHURCH.
interest of about fifty per cent. It was looked on as an honour to hold one of these loans, because the interest went towards defraying the expenses on the festal day of the saint; and as each Cofradia thought its own saint far superior to all others, it naturally regarded its feast day as the most important day in the whole year. The ceremonies began with early mass in the Great Church, where the worshippers had hung the walls with numerous cages containing pet mocking-birds and pito-reales, who joined their voices to the hymns of praise which rose through an atmosphere dim and heavy with the smoke of many candles and the mixed fragrance of liquidambar incense and pine-needles. When the service was over, a pompous and solemn procession was formed to conduct the saint from the church (which was his usual place of abode) to the gorgeously adorned cofradia-house, where the whole day was spent in rites that strongly smacked of ante-Christian times. The saint's house was transformed into a gay palace by the erection of "Sarabandas," high framework affairs, brilliant with decorations of leaves and fruits. There would be music, not only by the strolling marimba player, who inevitably turns up at all fairs and festivals, but by an orchestra of harp, violin, guitar, and guitarilla, for the Indians of the Vera Paz are a musical people, and they played original Indian
