as coughing and gasping for breath, while the tears streamed down our faces, and Don Pepe and Don Pancho gravely continued their dinner, assuring us that we should get quite to like it in time. Pepe and Pancho, by the way, are short for Jose and Francisco.  Dinner over, it was time to visit the churches, to which people crowd by thousands, this evening and to-morrow, to see the monuments, as they are called.  Pancho departed, being on duty as escort to his sisters; and we having, by Pepe’s advice, left our watches and valuables in his room, and put our handkerchiefs in our breast-pockets, started with him.  Mr. Christy, always on the look-out for a new seed or plant, had taken possession of the seeds of two mameis, which are fleshy fruits—­as big as cocoa-nuts—­each containing a hard smooth seed as large as a hen’s egg.  These not being of great value, he put one in each tail-pocket of his coat.  When we got out, we found the streets full of people, hurrying from one church to another, anxious to get as many as possible visited in the evening.  We went first to the monastery of San Francisco, close to our hotel, the largest, and perhaps the richest convent in the country.  Entering through a great gate, we find ourselves in a large courtyard, full of people, who are visiting—­one after another—­the four churches which the establishment contains, going in at one door and out at the other.  At the door of the largest church, stands a tall monk, soliciting customers for the rosaries of olive-wood, crosses, and medals from Jerusalem, which are displayed on a stall close by—­shouting in a stentorian voice, every two or three minutes, “He who gives alms to Holy Church, shall receive plenary indulgence, and deliver one soul from purgatory.”  We bought some, but there did not seem to be many other purchasers.  Indeed, we found, when we had been longer in the country, that a few pence would buy all sorts of church indulgences, from the permission to eat meat on fast-days up to plenary absolution in the hour of death; and the trade, once so flourishing here, is almost used up.  The churches were hung with black, and lighted up; and in each was a “monument,” a kind of bower of green branches decorated with flowers, mirror’s, and gold and silver church-plate, and supposed to stand for the Garden of Gethsemane.  Inside was reclining a wax figure of our Saviour, gaudily dressed in silk and velvet; and there were also representations of the Last Supper, with wax-work figures as large as life.  To visit and criticise these “monuments” was the object of the sort of pilgrimage people were making from church to church, and they seemed thoroughly to enjoy it.  It was not a superfluous precaution that we had taken, in leaving our valuables in a place of safety, for, on our exit from the first church, we found that Pepe had lost his handkerchief and a cigar-case, which he had stowed away in an inner pocket, and Mr. Christy had been relieved of one of his mamei