WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 433 



of Corpus Christ! ; almost all the churches and sanctuaries stage most 

 formal processions in competition through the streets, embellished 

 with tapestries and curious wealth of ornament, in rivalry with the 

 Cathedral, where the City Council displays its piety and religious 

 sentiment on the same day and during the octave, with sacred plays 

 most sumptuously presented outside the church on the whole stretch 

 of the perron along the church ; it is a great spectacle to see the 

 arrangement of the seats provided for the Viceroy, Circuit Court, 

 Councils, University, religious orders, and noblemen, to see the sacred 

 play. 



1241. Beyond all else, the magnificence displayed during those 

 8 days by every sanctuary rouses admiration, from the first of all, 

 the Cathedral, to the least in the farthest outer ward, where all day 

 long the Most Holy Sacrament is exposed under the magnificence 

 of much white wax in 24 4- wick tapers with over 80 i -pound candles 

 burning above them ; the devout parishioners of every sanctuary, each 

 one commissioned for one day of the festival, vie one with another 

 in the lavish use of amber and other perfumes, silver trays, flower 

 boys, and a thousand other gewgaws with which they dress all the 

 altars and chief chapels, which become a starry heaven of light, or a 

 flowery spring. 



1242. Besides the four curates who serve in the Cathedral, they 

 have others, substitutes, in the new Triana (suburb) which is the 

 ward of San Lazaro, a crowded village, quite like the Triana of 

 Seville, but which, being new, is not so well enriched with sanctu- 

 aries ; and there is another for the Orphan Asylum ; these remote 

 points could not otherwise be easily reached for the administration 

 of the Holy Sacraments. 



1243. The parish has grown very rapidly in the number of the 

 faithful, and consequently has other curates in San Marcelo and San 

 Sebastian ; between them the whole locality is parceled out and they 

 all have their Angelus Chapels with their congregations ; and so one 

 must give thanks to God for the pious sacrifices offered for the souls 

 in Purgatory. In fact, with its celebration of the Most Holy Sacra- 

 ment and of the Immaculate Conception, this devoted city seems to 

 have outdone its possibilities. Besides these parishes it has other 

 sanctuaries with miraculous images, like that of Nuestra Senora de 

 Copacabana in the Alameda quarter, Nuestra Sefiora del Prado over 

 by El Cercado, Nuestra Senora de la Cabeza in Malambo, and Nuestra 

 Senora de Monserrate, where two Benedictine friars are always in 

 attendance. 



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