[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]

The last day of our stay at Tilantongo, the padre stated that it must be interesting to see the way in which a parish priest, returning from a visit to a neighboring town, is received by his parish.  Accordingly, he planned that a picture should be taken of himself on horseback, with all the people gathered around welcoming him.  Telling us that he would be ready when we should have made our own preparations for this photographic effort, he waited for our summons.  We quickly found, however, that the proposition, although hailed at first with joy, did not create great enthusiasm.  We recommended to the people that they should get ready; told the musicians that the band should be prepared, and that soon we should send for the padre to be welcomed.  When we finally succeeded in getting the matter under way, and were seriously thinking of summoning the reverend gentleman, it was reported that an old woman had been found dead in her lonely hut that morning, and arrangements were at once started for her funeral.  In vain we suggested that they should wait until the picture had been made.  Musicians and parishioners alike disappeared, going down to the house where the dead body lay.  The afternoon was passing.  It would soon be quite too dark for a picture.  Meantime, the cura, having become anxious in the matter, hastened from his house on foot, to ask why he had not been sent for.  On our explaining that a funeral was in progress, he was greatly outraged.  We pointed out the house in front of which the funeral procession was now forming.  He stood watching, as the line of mourners approached.  The person who had died was an aged woman named Hilaria.  The body was borne upon a stretcher, as coffins are not much used among these people.  The procession came winding up the high-road, where we stood.  The band in front was playing mournfully; next came the bearers, two of whom, at least, were sadly drunk.  The corpse was clad in the daily garments of the woman, and the body sagged down through gaps in the stretcher; a motley crowd of mourners, chiefly women, some with babies in their arms, followed.  One man, walking with the band in front, carried a book in his hand and seemed to read the service, as they slowly passed along.  When the procession had come near us and was about to pass, the padre stopped it; expressing his dissatisfaction at the failure to arrange for the photograph which he had ordered, he told the bearers to take the corpse out behind the house and leave it there.  They did so, returned, and were arranged in a group with the padre in their midst, and photographed, after which the body was picked up again, the procession was reformed, and proceeded as if nothing had happened.