34^ Voyage of the Novara. 



the former ceremonies tliey would facilitate the work of con- 

 version, and increase the nmnber of neophytes. They saw 

 no scandal in the native, attired sometimes as a giant twelve 

 feet high, sometimes as a Malay warrior, sometimes as an 

 aboriginal savage, fantastically painted, and accoutred with 

 bow and arrow, in a word, in all sorts of masquerading costume, 

 frolicking in the very midst of the sacred procession, and 

 performing all manner of buffoonery in front of the life-sized 

 and gaily-adorned images of saints ; but appeared rather to 

 contemplate with pleasure that these wild beings, who had 

 resisted the Spaniards on their first arrival on the island, 

 were now subjected to the Holy Church, and rejoiced in her 

 service ! There are also numbers of natives dressed up as 

 animals, and girls gaily decorated with flowers and in robes 

 of spotless white, as also a fantastically-attired jester, who 

 from time to time gives national dances and sings national 

 songs, to the best of his ability, all in one long procession, ac- 

 companied by monks singing chorals and carrying wax 

 tapers, while a promiscuous crowd of the faithful bring up 

 the rear. 



The sight of such processions have anything but an edify- 

 ing influence upon a European, but on the mind of the 

 masses they seem to make a deep impression, and for weeks 

 after, when smoking a cigarette in the privacy of the family 

 circle, they will talk of the splendour of such solemnities, and 

 the motley episodes that accompanied it. If it were admis- 

 sible to judge of the religious mind of a people by their out- 



