66 A SAINT'S DAY. Book I. 
duction of a character similar to the Tartuffe — a hypocrite 
who tries to seduce the virtuous wife of his friend. The 
female part, too, was represented by a priest. Coarse 
jests and morals were mixed up in the play, by which the 
crowd appeared to be mightily amused and edified. 
The immense congregation of people who had arrived on 
the eve of the celebration deprived me of the accommoda- 
tions I had enjoyed for the first night. I had to give up 
my " cama " or bedstead, in which I had rested, after the 
fashion of the country, on a skin or sheet of parchment 
stretched on a frame, and was reduced to sleep on a rough 
and stiff hide spread on the floor of a large room, in which 
the bed of the landlord and his pretty young wife, decently 
surrounded with curtains, held a conspicuous place. When 
I opened my eyes at dawn, I saw my landlord and his 
wife up. The young woman was singing, in a low voice, 
the " Versos de la Viuda," or Song of the Widow — a favou- 
rite air of the country — and she afterwards took a jar 
filled with water, which she poured over the head of her 
husband, then dried his back carefully with a towel, after 
which the happy couple dressed in joyful mood. 
During the morning I spent half an hour in the room, 
finishing a sketch I had made of the scenery near the hot 
springs. Several women stood around me, looking at my 
occupation, and making their remarks as if I did not under- 
stand their language. " Look !" said one of them, " he is 
only writing a little, and yet he is perspiring as if he was 
doing hard work." " Es cavallero tan delicato — he is such 
a delicate gentleman," replied the other. 
On the 14th I continued my journey, and in the even- 
ing reached Mateares, a little village situated on the shore 
of the Lake of Managua, and distant about forty miles 
from Tipitapa. From the latter place to Managua the 
