CHAPTER Xlll. 



Military Hierarchy of Mexico— Religious Superstitions— Le- 

 gend of Nueslra ScKora de Guadalupe — A profane ve 

 ofthe Story — A curious Plan for manufacturing Water 

 Saints and Images — Processions — How to make it Rain 

 The Sacred Host — Fanaticism and Murder— Honors paid to 

 a Bishop — Servility to Priests — Attendance at Public Wor- 

 ship—New Mexicans in Church— The Vesper Bells— Passion 

 Week and the Cereracmies pertaining thereto — Ridiculous 

 i»e7ii/r?/icza— Whitewashing of Criminals — Matrimonial Con- 

 nexions and Mode of Contracting them— Restrictions upon 

 Lovers — Onerous Fees paid for Marriages and Burials — An- 

 ecdote of a Ranchero—Dino of a Servant and a Wido^v, illus- 

 trative of Priestly Extortion— Modes of Burial, and Burial 

 Ground of the Heretics, 



The Mexicans seem the legitimate de- 

 scendants of the subjects of ^His Most Catho- 

 lic Majesty ;' for the Romish faith is not only 

 tlie reUgion established by law, but the only 

 one tolerated by the constitution: a system of 

 repubUcan Uberty wholly incomprehensible to 

 the independent and tolerant spirits of the 

 United States, Foreigners only of other 

 creeds, in accordance with treaty stipulations, 

 can worsliip privately within their own houses. 

 The Mexicans, indeed, talk of a ' union of 

 Church and State :' they should rather say 

 a * union of Church and Army ;* for, as has 



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