you will presently hear, has a
magical effect upon the backs. For a short while you may have observed
them in an odd attitude--not erect as backs ought to be, but slouching
and one-sided. During this interval, too, you may catch a glance of a
face--merely the profile--and if it be pretty, you will forget the back;
but then the party is no longer a back in the proper sense. You won't
be struck with the devotion of the profile, if you are with its
prettiness. You may observe it wink or look cunningly, and, if your
observation be good, you may note another profile, of coarser mould,
corresponding to that wink or cunning glance. This goes on while the
backs are in their "slouch" or attitude of repose. How that attitude is
produced will be to you a mystery, an anatomical puzzle; but it may be
explained. It is simple enough to those who know it. It is brought
about by the back changing its base from the marrow-bones to the hips;
and this is done so adroitly, that, under cover of shawls, mantas,
rebosos, and skirts, it is no wonder you are puzzled by it.

The little bell, however, brings the backs all right again. It is to
these devotees what the "Attention!" is to the rank and file of an army;
and the moment the first tinkle is heard, backs up is the movement, and
all become suddenly elevated several inches above their former standard.
Thus they remain, stiff and erect, while the priest mumbles a fresh
"Ave Maria," or "Pater noster," and goes through a fresh exhibition of
pantomime. Then the backs are suddenly shortened again, the profiles
appear as before--nods, and winks, and cunning glances, are exchanged--
and that till the little bell sounds a second time. And then there will
be a third course of this performance, and a fourth, and so on, till the
worship (!) is ended.

This ridiculous genuflexion and mummery you may see repeated every
morning in a Mexican "iglesia," long before the hour of breakfast. Both
men and women engage in it, but by far the greater number of the
devotees are of the gentler sex, and many of them the fashionable
senoras of the place.

One is inclined to inquire into the motives that draw so many people out
of their beds, to shiver through the streets and in the cold church at
such an early hour. Is it religion? Is it superstition? Is it
penance? Is it devotion? No doubt many of these silly creatures really
believe that the act is pleasing to God; that these genuflexions and
oris