We duly attended, not on this occasion only, but on all ecclesiastical festivals, grave or gay,—­the only difficulty being to discover any person in town who had even approximate information as to when or where they were to occur.  We saw many sights that are universal in Roman Catholic countries, and many that are peculiar to Fayal:  we saw the “Procession of the Empress,” when, for six successive Saturday evenings, young girls walk in order through the streets white-robed and crowned; saw the vessels in harbor decorated with dangling effigies of Judas, on the appointed day; saw the bands of men at Easter going about with flags and plates to beg money for the churches, and returning at night with feet suspiciously unsteady; saw the feet-washing, on Maundy-Thursday, of twelve old men, each having a square inch of the instep washed, wiped, and cautiously kissed by the Vicar-General, after which twelve lemons were solemnly distributed, each with a silver coin stuck into the peel; saw and felt the showers of water, beans, flour, oranges, eggs, from the balcony-windows during Carnival; saw weddings in churches, with groups of male companions holding tall candles round kneeling brides; saw the distribution to the poor of bread and meat and wine from long tables arranged down the principal street, on Whitsunday,—­a memorial vow, made long since, to deprecate the recurrence of an earthquake.  But it must be owned that these things, so unspeakably interesting at first, became a little threadbare before the end of the winter; we grew tired of the tawdriness and shabbiness which pervaded them all, of the coarse faces of the priests, and the rank odor of the incense.

We had left Protestantism in a state of vehement intolerance in America, but we soon found, that, to hear the hardest things said against the priesthood, one must visit a Roman Catholic country.  There was no end to the anecdotes of avarice and sensuality in this direction, and there seemed everywhere the strangest combination of official reverence with personal contempt.  The principal official, or Ouvidor, was known among his parishioners by the endearing appellation of “The Black Pig,” to which his appearance certainly did no discredit.  There was a great shipwreck at Pico during our stay, and two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of rich goods was stranded on the bare rocks; there were no adequate means for its defence, and the peasants could hardly be expected to keep their hands off.  But the foremost hands were those of the parish priest; for three weeks no mass was said in his church, and a funeral was left for days unperformed, that the representative of God might steal more silks and laces.  When the next service occurred, the people remained quiet until the priest rose for the sermon; then they rose also tumultuously, and ran out of the church, crying, “Ladrao!” “Thief!” “But why this indignation?” said an intelligent Roman Catholic to us; “there is not a priest on either island who would not have done the same.”  A few days after I saw this same cool critic, candle in hand, heading a solemn ecclesiastical procession in the cathedral.