who dare not openly protect their property, yet are unable to witness its loss with indifference. Merchants yesterday they are robbers now, and may as well rob themselves as be robbed by their comrades. So they join in the attack on their own stalls, being sometimes the first to enter, and if possible to seize and carry to a place of safety some of their own effects. Others, affecting an air of resignation, encourage the pillage of their stalls, and then stealthily follow the plunderer and relieve him of his load by a sudden blow or deadly thrust. Many of the rioters are run through at the entrance to the streets by the groups of exasperated Spaniards, as they are tauntingly defied by the passing rabble, and not a few perish in the flames.
While the many are thus engaged, a few hasten to the palace of the marqués del Valle, to fire it. The flames have reached the balconies, when the treasurer of the cathedral, Manuel de Escalante y Mendoza, arrives accompanied by a few ecclesiastics, and bearing the uncovered host. All other means proving unavailing, this pious proceeding is adopted, in the hope of saving the city. Exhortations accompany the act of elevating; and finally a number of the more religious rascals temporarily extinguish the flames in the palace of the marqués. Here, however, their forbearance ceases, for they at once hurry away to join their companions in the work of plunder elsewhere. To add to the solemn terror of the occasion all the bells begin to ring, but it is the call to prayers, and not to arms. Following the example of the cathedral treasurer, the religious orders next appear marching in procession, with uplifted crosses and solemn chants. Their efforts, however, avail but little; they are greeted with a shower of stones, and dispersed; and although singly or in groups they continue their exhortations in different parts of the plaza, the rioters disregard them, or reply with jeers.
These exciting events have occupied but a short
