216 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



with lavish expenditure of money, but never anything 

 so simply beautiful. My stroll through the streets be- 

 fore the procession was the most interesting part of the 

 day. All the inhabitants, in their best dresses, w^ere 

 there : the men standing at the corners, and the women, 

 in black mantillas, seated in long rows on each side ; the 

 flags and curtains in the balconied windows, the green 

 of the streets, the profusion of flowers, the vistas through 

 the arches, and the simplicity of manners which per- 

 mitted ladies of the first class to mingle freely in the 

 crowd and sit along the street, formed a picture of 

 beauty that even now relieves the stamp of dulness 

 with which Guatimala is impressed upon my ^ind. 



The procession for which all these beautiful prepara- 

 tions were made opened with a single Indian, old, 

 wrinkled, dirty, and ragged, bareheaded, and stagger- 

 ing under the load of an enormous bass-drum, which he 

 carried on his back, seeming as old as the conquest, 

 with every cord and the head on one side broken ; an- 

 other Indian followed in the same ragged costume, with 

 one ponderous drumstick, from time to time striking the 

 old drum. Then came an Indian with a large whistle, 

 corresponding in venerableness of aspect with the 

 drum, on which, from time to time, he gave a fierce 

 blast, and looked around with a comical air of satisfac- 

 tion for applause. Next followed a little boy about ten 

 years old, wearing a cocked hat, boots above his knees, 

 a drawn sword, and the mask of a hideous African. 

 He was marshalling twenty or thirty persons, not inapt- 

 ly called the Devils, all wearing grotesque and hideous 

 masks, and ragged, fantastic dresses ; some with reed 

 whistles, some knocking sticks together ; and the prin- 

 cipal actors were two pseudo-women, with broad-brim- 

 med European hats, frocks high in the necks, waists 



