ch where the representation of
the crucifixion had been exhibited, the funeral party (for it was
neither more nor less) proceeded through the principal streets in
the town with a slow and measured pace. As all except the
soldiers walked two and two, it covered, I should conceive,
little less than a mile in extent, and after winding from lane to
lane and from square to square, directed its steps towards a
particular convent, where the waxen image was solemnly deposited
in a vault. It is said, but with what truth I cannot pretend to
determine, that a different image is made use of every year, and
that the vault is now so full of waxen corpses, that it will be
necessary before long to have some of them destroyed.

Having now got rid of the most sacred part of their burthen, the
monks, bearing only the two couches, returned in procession by
the same route and in the same order as they had proceeded, only
the bands struck up lively airs and the singers chanted hymns of
rejoicing and hallelujahs. Instead of walking at a slow pace
likewise, they stepped out almost in a sort of dance, and
reaching the door of the great church they there separated, each
party hastening to its own house to celebrate mass.

Into one or two of the convent chapels I likewise entered, and
was present during the performance of their very striking
service. I found them ornamented in the most magnificent manner,
the rafters of many being gilded over and all the windows crowded
with stained glass. Of pictures, and what struck me as something
better than mere daubs, there were also great numbers. In a
word, it seemed as if I had reached the heart and capital of
Roman Catholic splendour. Nothing that I had beheld in the
mother-country could at all compare with what was now before me,
and I returned in the evening to my ship, not indeed a convert to
the principles of that religion, but decidedly astonished and
confounded at the solemn magnificence of its ceremonies.

CHAPTER XXV.

AT an early hour next morning I returned to the city, and found
that the face of affairs had undergone a complete revolution. No
more melancholy countenances, no closed shops and vacant streets
were now to be seen; all was bustle and rejoicing, bells ringing,
carriages rattling along, flags flying, and guns firing. The
solemnity of Good-Friday ends, it appeared, at ten o'clock on
Saturday morning, and from that time the merriments of Easter
have their commencem