']6 BAHIA. 



like countenance, Ijlack hair, moustache, and beard. He was 

 dressed in a stiff crimson velvet cape, worked with gold lace, 

 crimson trunk hose, and flesh tights over very thin and shaky 

 legs, and had a curious sort of plume or cockade of feathers 

 and tinsel sticking up at the back of his head. 



In front of the saint, skipped along two little girls, one of 

 them with a dark yellow complexion, the other jet black. 

 They were dressed as angels, with wings of feathers and tinsel. 

 Around the saint marched a guard of soldiers with fixed 

 bayonets, and immediately behind came a military brass band 

 in full bray, but playing well. Another body of soldiers fol- 

 lowed with fixed bayonets and led by their officers with drawn 

 swords. 



Behind the procession followed a crowd of negro women, 

 crushing through the street. The negro women of Bahia are 

 strapping females, and apt to become very stout. The balconies 

 in the narrow street were crowded with the wives and daughters 

 of the townspeople, who pelted the saint as he passed with 

 bouquets of flowers. 



Vespers were going on at the churches. I entered one, an 

 oblong building with a small apse for a chancel, and a row of 

 rectangular pillars on either side, shutting off the aisles. There 

 were three or four clerestory windows, but no others. The 

 interior was profusely ornamented with bright colour and gilt 

 tracery in relief The chancel and altar, which had an 

 elaborate gilt reredos, were brilliantly lighted up by candles, 

 whilst the body of the church was comparatively dark, having 

 no light but that which reached it from the chancel. The 

 air was full of incense, and the whole effect was fine and 

 impressive. 



The floor of the church was crowded with negro women, 

 kneeling and singing at intervals a simple chant in response to 

 a choir which could not be distinguished in the gloom. There 

 were a few white women in the church, but they appeared to 

 go into the aisles and not to mix with the blacks. 



After the procession was over, fireworks, rockets full of 

 crackers and blue lights, were let off, and the soldiers marched 

 to their barracks. They were small dark-skinned, dwarfed-look- 

 ing men. Fireworks are as invariable concomitants of religious 

 ceremonies in Bahia as in China, and as they are let off before 

 as well as after the ceremonies, occasionally wake one up at 



4 A.M. 



There are tramways in Bahia leading to the railway station, 

 the Campo Grande, and out into the country. The Campo 

 Grande is a large open space, turfed and surrounded by trees. 

 It is here that the best residences are, and there are several 



