Acosta says, that the Mexicans observed their chief feast in the month of May, and that the nuns two days before mixed a sufficient quantity of beets with honey, and made an image of it. He trims up the idol very genteelly, and places it on an azure-coloured chair, every way becoming the scarlet-coloured pope. He soon after introduces flutes, drums, cornets, and trumpets, to celebrate the feast of _Eupania Vitzliputzli_, as he thinks proper to term it: on account of the nuns, he gives them _Pania_, “feminine bread,” instead of the masculine _Panis_; which he makes his nuns to distribute at this love-feast, to the young men, in large pieces resembling great bones. When they receive them, they religiously lay them down at the feast of the idol, and call them the flesh and bones of the God _Vitzliputzli_. Then he brings in the priests vailed, with garlands on their heads, and chains of flowers about their necks, each of them strictly observing their place: if the inquisitive reader should desire to know how he discovered those garlands and flowery chains; (especially as their heads were covered, and they are secret in their religious ceremonies) I must inform him, that Acosta wrought a kind of cotton, or woollen cloth for them, much finer than silk, through which he might have easily seen them—besides, such a religious dress gave him a better opportunity of hanging a cross, and a string of beads afterwards round their necks. {206} Next to those religious men, he ushers in a fine company of gods and goddesses, in imagery, dressed like the others, the people paying them divine worship; this without doubt, is intended to support the popish saint-worship. Then he makes them sing, and dance round the paste, and use several other ceremonies. And when the eyes are tired with viewing those wild circlings, he solemnly blesses, and consecrates those morsels of paste, and thus makes them the real flesh and bones of the idol, which the people honour as gods. When he has ended his feast of transubstantiation, he sets his sacrificers to work, and orders them to kill and sacrifice more men than at any other festival,—as he thinks proper to make this a greater carnival than any of the rest.