We saw many sights that are universal in Roman
Catholic countries, and many that are peculiar to Fayal: we saw the
"Procession of the Empress," when, for six successive Saturday evenings,
young girls walk in order through the streets white-robed and crowned;
saw the vessels in harbor decorated with dangling effigies of Judas, on
the appointed day; saw the bands of men at Easter going about with flags
and plates to beg money for the churches, and returning at night with
feet suspiciously unsteady; saw the feet-washing, on Maundy-Thursday, of
twelve old men, each having a square inch of the instep washed, wiped,
and cautiously kissed by the Vicar-General, after which twelve lemons
were solemnly distributed, each with a silver coin stuck into the peel;
saw and felt the showers of water, beans, flour, oranges, eggs, from the
balcony-windows during Carnival; saw weddings in churches, with groups
of male companions holding tall candles round kneeling brides; saw the
distribution to the poor of bread and meat and wine from long tables
arranged down the principal street, on Whitsunday,--a memorial vow, made
long since, to deprecate the recurrence of an earthquake. But it must be
owned that these things, so unspeakably interesting at first, became a
little threadbare before the end of the winter; we grew tired of the
tawdriness and shabbiness which pervaded them all, of the coarse faces
of the priests, and the rank odor of the incense.
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