to church, according to the fashion which enjoins them to visit as many as possible, within the prescribed time of humiliation.
This state of things lasted for forty-eight hours. In the principal churches, the high altars were despoiled of their rich load of ornaments, or completely veiled by dark-coloured drapery; and the organs were as mute as the bells: while in all others, constant illumination, and the display of gold, silver, and tawdry ornaments, was fatiguingly splendid.
But do not deceive yourself: though there was an absence of many of the ordinary sounds, the city was not silent. The trample of thousands of feet—the march of stately and interminable processions—and the hum and clamour of innumerable voices filled the ear; both in the ordinary tones of conversation, and exerted to their utmost pitch, as they energetically, yet lovingly called the attention of the passing to their commodities. "Aqui hay juiles!" "Here's your sorts! white fish!" bellowed one. "Pato grande, mi alma! pato grande, venga usted!" A great duck! oh my soul, a great duck—come and buy!" responded another.
You may further understand that the interiors of the churches were no more the theatre of silence than the streets without, when I tell you that in addition to the incessant stream of worshippers which poured along their pavement from one door to another the livelong day—in many of them, waltzes, boleros, and polonaises, from harpsichord or organ—were the accompaniment of the hasty devotion of the passing multitudes.
All these sounds you may conceive, for they were after all but ordinary; but it is a moral impossibility for you to imagine the extraordinary hubbub produced by the sound of thousands of rattles, which filled the air from morning to night. They were to be seen in the hands of every individual of the lower classes, and of many of the upper; of every form and material, bone, wood, and even silver; from the size of a child's plaything, to one which would outgrind half a dozen of our watchmen's
