seeds by some “lepero” who probably took it for a snuff-box.  His feelings must have been like those of the English pickpocket in Paris, when he robbed the Frenchman of the article he had pocketed with so much care, and found it was a lump of sugar.  And so relieved of further care for our worldly goods, we went through with the work of seeing monuments, till we were tired and disgusted with the whole affair, and at last went home to bed.

Next day, appropriate sermons in the churches, processions in the afternoon, in which wax figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary were carried by men got up in fancy dresses as soldiers and centurions, and so called penitents, walking covered with black shrouds and veils, with small round holes to look through, or in the yellow dress and extinguisher cap, both with flames and devils painted on them.  These are exactly the costumes worn in old times, the first by the familiars of the Inquisition, and the second by the criminals it condemned; and the sight of them set us thinking of the processions they used to figure in, when the Holy Office was flourishing at Santo Domingo, a little way down the street where we are standing.

In the evening the Crucifixion is represented in wax in the churches, and the visiting goes on as the night before; and the next morning is the Sabado de Gloria, the Saturday which ends Lent.  We go to the Jesuits’ church in the morning to hear the last sermon.  Since Thursday at noon, as the organs have been silenced, harps and violins have taken their places.  The sermon is long and prosy, and we rejoice that it is the last.  Then the service of the day goes on until they come to the “Gloria in excelsis.”  The organ peals out again, the black curtain—­which has hidden the high altar—­parts in the middle, and displays a perfect blaze of gold and jewels:  all the bells in the city begin to ring:  the carriages, which have been waiting ready harnessed in court yards, pour out into the streets:  the lumbering hackney coaches go racing to the great square, striving to get the first fare for luck:  the Judases, which have been hanging all the morning out of windows and across streets, are set light to as the first bell begins to ring, and fizzing and popping burst all to pieces, and then are thrown into a heap in the street, where a bonfire is made of them, and the children join hands and dance round it.  So Holy Week ends.

[Illustration:  THE PORTER AND THE BAKER IN MEXICO. (From Models made by Native Artists)]

The arrangement of the day in Mexico is this.  Early in the morning your servant knocks at your door, and brings in a little cup of coffee or chocolate and a small roll, which desayuno—­literally breakfast—­you discuss while dressing.  Going down into the courtyard, you find your horse waiting for you, and off you go for an hour or two’s ride, and back to a dejeuner-a-la-fourchette somewhere between ten and one o’clock.  Then you have seven or eight hours before dinner, so that a good deal of work may be got into a day so divided.  Things are managed very differently in country places, but this is the fashion in the capital among the higher class, that is, of course, the class of people who put on dress-coats in the evening.