October 29, 1841:
We had arrived at Merida at an opportune moment. As on the occasion of our first visit, it was again a season of fiesta. The fete of San Cristoval, an observance of nine days, was then drawing to its close, and that evening a grand function was to be performed in the church dedicated to that saint. We had no time to lose, and, after a hasty supper, under the guidance of an Indian lad belonging to the house, we set out for the church. Very soon we were in the main street leading to it, along which, as it seemed, the whole population of Merida was moving to fete. In every house a lantern hung from the balconied windows, or a long candle stood under a glass shade, to light them on their way. At the head of the street was a large plaza, on one side of which stood the church, with its great front brilliantly illuminated, and on the platform and steps, and all the open square before it, was a great moving mass of men, women, and children, mostly Indians, dressed in white.
We worked our way up to the door, and found the church within a blaze of light Two rows of high candlesticks, with wax candles eight or ten feet high, extended the whole length from the door to the altar, On each side hung innumerable lamps, dotting the whole space from the floor to the ceiling; and back at the extreme end, standing on an elevated platform, was an altar thirty feet high, rich with silver ornaments and vases of flowers, and hung with innumerable lamps brilliantly burning. Preists in glittering vestments were officiating before it, music was swelling through the corridor and arches, and the floor of the immense church was covered with women on their knees, dressed in white, with white shawls over their heads. Through the entire body of the church not a man was to be seen. Near us was a bevy of young girls, beautifully dressed, with dark eyes, and their hair adorned with flowers, sustaining, though I was now a year older and colder, my previous impressions of the beauty of the ladies of Merida.
The chant died away, and as the women rose from their knees, their appearance was like the lifting of a white cloud, or spirits of air rising to a purer world; but, as they turned toward the door, the horizon became dusky with Indian faces, and half way up a spot rose above the rest, black as a thunder-cloud. The whole front ranks were Indians, except a towering African, whose face, in the cloud of white around, shone like the last touch of Day and Martin's best.
We waited till the last passed out, and leaving the empty church blazing with light, with rockets, fireworks, drums and violins all working away together on the steps, we followed the crowd.
Turning along the left side of the plaza, we entered an illuminated street, at the foot of which, and across it, hung a gigantic cross, also brilliantly illuminated, and apparently stopping the way. coming as we did directly from the church, it seemed to have some immediate connexion with the ceremonies we had just beheld; but the crowd stopped short of the cross, opposite a large house, also brilliantly illuminated. The door of this house, like that of the church, was open to all who chose to enter, or rather, at the moment, to all who could force their way through. Waiting the motion of the mass before us, and pressed by those behind, slowly, and with great labour, we worked our way into the sala. This was a large room extending along the whole front of the house, hot to suffocation, and crowded, or rather jammed, with men and women, or gentlemen and ladies, or by whatever other names they may be pleased to be called, clamorous and noisy as Bedlam let loose. For some time it was impossible for us to form any idea of what was going on. By degrees we were carried lengthwise through the sala, at every step getting elbowed, stamped upon, and occasionally the rim of a straw hat across the nose, or the puff of a paper cigar in the eyes. Very soon our faces were trickling with tears, which there was no friendly hand to wipe away, our own being pinned down to our sides.
On each side of the sala was a rude table, occupying its whole length, made of two rough boards, and supporting candles stuck in little tin receivers, about two feet apart. Along the tables were benches of the same rough materials, with men and women, whites, Mestizoes, and Indians, all sitting together, as close as the solidity and resistance of human flesh would permit, and seeming closer than was sufferable. Every person at the table had before him or her a paper about a foot square, covered with figures in rows, and a small pile of grains of corn, and by its side a thumping stick some eighteen inches long, and one inch in diameter; while, amid all the noise, hubbub, and confusion, the eyes of all at the tables were bent constantly upon the papers before them. In that hot place, they seemed like a host of necromancers and witches, some of the latter young and extremely pretty, practising the black art.
By degrees we were passed out into the corridor, and here we were brought to a dead stand. Within arm's length was an imp of a boy, apparently the ringleader in this nocturnal orgy, who stood on a platform, rattling a bag of balls, and whose intermitted screeching, singsong cries had throughout risen shrill and distinct above every other sound. At that moment the noise and uproar were carried to the highest. The whole house seemed rising against the boy, and he, single-handed, or rather single-tongued, was doing battle with the whole, sending forth a clear stream of vocal power, which for a while bore its way triumphantly through the whole troubled waters, till, finding himself overpowered by the immense majority, with a tone that set the whole mass in a roar, and showed his democratic priciples, he cried out, "Vox populi est vox Dei!" and submitted.
Along the corridor, and in the whole area of the patio, or courtyard, were tables, and benches, and papers, and grains of corn, and ponderous sticks, the same as in the sala, and men and women sitting as close together. The passages were choked up, and over the heads of those sitting at the tables, all within reach were bending their eyes earnestly upon the mysterious papers. They were grayheads, boys and girls, and little children; fathers and mothers; husbands and wives; masters and servants; men high in office, muleteers, and bull-fighters; senoras and senoritas, with jewels around their necks and roses in their hair, and Indian women, worth only the slight covering they had on; beauty and deformity; the best and the vilets in Merida; perhaps, in all, two thousand persons; and this great multitude, many of whom we had seen but a few minutes before on their knees in the church, and among them the fair bevy of girls who had stood by us on the steps, were now assembled in a public gambling-house! A beautiful spectacle for a stranger the first night of his arrival in the capital!
