gling with the drowning wail of the wild musician who played as though in a frenzy, were in keeping with the whole scene. The circles, with all their varied colors, danced in opposite directions with a slow, bouncing step that was half a waltz, half minuet, and as they proceeded they grew more excited—more frenzied—the musician seemingly more infused with his awful duty, and the dancers stepping higher and higher, the circles wheeling more rapidly, until the ear was overpowered and the eye confused with the endless changes of faces, colors, and sounds. It was the wildest, most mournful dance that mortal could invent; and it seemed as if the souls of the devotees were in the movement. It was a sort of paroxysm of physical devotion, and seemed to exhaust its votaries.
Having concluded the dance to the honor and glory of Guadalupe, they filed into the church chanting a low, monotonous hymn. I was the first to enter after them, followed closely by my friends. When they reached the altar, where a large picture of the Virgin was suspended, all dropped down on their knees in regular lines of fours, and began crossing themselves and murmuring their pater-nosters. Catching the spirit of the occasion, and unwilling to wound their acute religious sensibilities by the close proximity of idle sight-seers, we followed their example and knelt for a few moments. But so absorbed were the devotees, or so natural our movements, that we remained unnoticed among the worshipers.
The man who played on the jarana (harana) recited prayers, the others responding. After this they sang a litany, accompanied by low moaning sounds, as if in anguish of spirit, while every eye was fixed steadily upon the patron saint in mute appeal, and tears streamed spontaneously down these bronzed and hard-used faces.
After half an hour thus spent upon their knees, they arose, and still accompanied by the strange music from the ghastly instrument, that seemed to have taken on a more unearthly character, moved backward, making a low courtesy at each step, and, as they filed out noiselessly in their strange tongue, sang in chorus:
