Picture a large barn-like hall without doors or windows, hard dirt floor, rough-plastered walls on which some oil lamps and tallow candles in wooden brackets smoke and cast a dim spectral light. A platform raised about two feet above the floor and extending across the entire back of the hall serves as a stage, and some large, striped Mexican blankets do duty as a drop curtain. The actors remain all the time on the stage, those taking part in the scenes advance to the center, play their rôles, then retire to the sides where those not acting gather behind the curtain and are supposed to be invisible. There was no attempt at scenic effect, no applause, but absorbed, unflagging attention. In front of the stage were some large chairs, in which Don Pedro, Donna Inez and other distinguished personages were seated; back of the chairs were rows of benches occupied by well-dressed men and women, and in open spaces behind and on the sides of the benches a motley crowd of women wearing _rebosas_ and sewing, knitting, or plaiting and combing their hair, and men wearing _sombreros_ and drinking _pulque_, smoking, or playing cards, sat flat on the floor. After rather a long wait, some musicians sitting near the stage sang to a guitar accompaniment some disconnected strains from church chants or masses. The curtain, parting and being drawn aside, discloses two men, the one fair, handsome and well-dressed, representing the Angel of God, the other dark, ugly, with a club foot and horns projecting above a lowering brow, representing the devil, who have an excited dispute about the advent of the expected Redeemer. These two men appear in every scene. Then follow in regular succession the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, Christ in the Temple, the Temptation, the Crucifixion, the Empty Sepulchre, all being taken literally from the Bible. In the last scene the Devil kneels before the Angel of God, acknowledges the Divinity of Christ, and begs to be admitted to the community of the Redeemed. [Illustration: The Alcalde’s Daughter] The Virgin was personated by a young, beautiful, pure-looking woman; Christ by a handsome, refined youth; Pontius Pilate by a large, vulgar-looking man; Herodias by a saucy, bold girl; Mary Magdalene by a pale, forlorn looking woman. There were occasional intermissions during which the singers treated the audience to some rather sweet music. A cynic, marveling that the managers of the Pastores should select scenes from a Bible they never read, might describe the performance as a travesty of a faith they would die to defend, yet he would have to acknowledge the earnest interest taken by the audience to be significant of the human sympathy always aroused by the story of Bethlehem. * * * * *