intermingling pictures presented before us during these two days; and I am totally unable to disentangle from the mass any connected event or spectacle worth detailing. The whole city seemed to reel under the influence of phrensy, and we were obliged to reel with it. To see as much as we could, and to give no offence, were, I own, our principal objects. I remember an old woman who happened to be my neighbour during the passage of one of the processions, who perhaps observed that I was not as ready with a genuflection as the bystanders, shaking a Judas, the size of a child of two years old, at me, by the scuff of the neck, and muttering to me with a scowl of hatred, "See! here is a countryman of yours!"
It was a rebuke which I felt I merited—for what did I there?
During this season every church and monastery had its peculiar services from morning to night. In the cathedral I heard several; and the music, accompanied by a small orchestra, was good as to composition, though indifferently performed. Within that noble structure I remarked nothing in the general style of the rites and services of a particularly undignified or revolting character: but to describe the orgies enacted in the generality of the other churches could but be disgusting to you. The scenes of the Passion were played and turned into comedy; while waltzes and contradances were played over the bier, on which the effigy of our Saviour was laid out in state. On the evening of that day, after making the round of eighteen or twenty churches, we returned to our quarters, thoroughly fatigued and out of spirits.
At an early hour on the Saturday, preparations were made to terminate the season of humiliation. What humiliation! On going into the streets we saw the Judases—which I omitted to tell you, were, in fact, fireworks so disguised—hanging by thousands over the centre of the streets, and to the fronts of the houses. In the Plaza Mayor, the booths had entirely disappeared; troops
