ltar. In the doorway was a large table
covered with candles and small figures of arms and legs in wax, which
the Indians purchased as they entered at a medio apiece, for offerings
to the saint. Near the altar, on the left, sat an unshaved ministro,
with a table before him, on which was a silver waiter, covered with
medios, reales, and two shilling pieces, showing to the backward what
others had done, and inviting them to do the same. The candles
purchased at the door had been duly blessed, and as the Indians went up
with them, a strapping negro, with linen particularly dirty, received
and lighted them at one burning on the altar, whence with his black
hands he passed them on to a rusty white assistant, who arranged them
upon a table, and, even before the backs of the offerers were turned,
puffed out the light, and took the candles to be smoothed over, and
resold at the door for another medio each.

High above the heads of the crowd, catching the eye on first entering
the church, was the figure of Santiago, or Saint James, on horseback,
holy in the eyes of all who saw it, and famed for its power of working
miracles, healing the sick, curing the fever and ague, insuring to
prospective parents a boy or girl as desired, bringing back a lost cow
or goat, healing a cut of the machete, or relieving from any other
calamity incident to an Indian's lot. The fore feet of the horse were
raised in the air, and the saint wore a black cocked hat, with a broad
gold band, a short mantle of scarlet velvet, having a broad gold edging
round the cape and skirts, green velvet trousers, with a wide gold
stripe down the sides, and boots and spurs. All the time I stood there,
and every time I went into the church, men, women, and children were
pressing forward, struggling with each other to kiss the foot of the
saint. The simple Indian, as the first act of devotion, led up his
whole family to do this act of obeisance. The mother lifted her sucking
child, and pressed its lips, warm from her breast, against the foot of
the bedizened statue.

In the afternoon commenced the first bull-fight. The _toreadores_, or
bull-fighters, all lived at the house opposite ours, and from it
the procession started. It was headed by a wrinkled, squint-eyed,
bandy-legged Indian, carrying under his arm the old Indian drum, and
dancing grotesquely to his own music; then followed the band, and then
the gallant picadores, a cut-throat looking set of scoundrels, who,
i