Although the Catholics have a saint for each day in the year, the number of canonized _fiestas_ in which labor is prohibited has been somewhat reduced in Mexico. _La Semana Santa_, or Passion Week, is perhaps the period when the religious feeling, such as it is, is most fully excited: [Pg048] _Viernes Santo_ (Good Friday), especially, is observed with great pomp and splendor. An image of Christ large as life, nailed to a huge wooden cross, is paraded through the streets, in the midst of an immense procession, accompanied by a glittering array of carved images, representing the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and several others; while the most notorious personages of antiquity, who figured at that great era of the World's history,--the centurion with a band of guards, armed with lances, and apparelled in the costume supposed to have been worn in those days,--may be seen bestriding splendidly caparisoned horses, in the breathing reality of flesh and blood. Taking it all in all, this spectacle,--the ceremonies and manœuvres which attend its career through the densely crowded and ornamented {259} streets,--are calculated to produce impressions of a most confused description, in which regret and melancholy may be said to form no inconsiderable share. It has been customary for great malefactors to propitiate Divine forgiveness by a cruel sort of _penitencia_, which generally takes place during the _Semana Santa_. I once chanced to be in the town of Tomé[17] on Good Friday, when my attention was arrested by a man almost naked, bearing, in imitation of Simon, a huge cross upon his shoulders, which, though constructed of the lightest wood, must have weighed over a hundred pounds. The long end dragged upon the ground, as we have seen it represented in sacred pictures, and about the middle swung a stone of immense dimensions, appended there for the purpose of making the task more laborious. Not far behind followed another equally destitute of clothing, with his whole body wrapped in chains and cords, which seemed buried in the [Pg049] muscles, and which so cramped and confined him that he was scarcely able to keep pace with the procession. The person who brought up the rear presented a still more disgusting aspect. He walked along with a patient and composed step, while another followed close behind belaboring him lustily with a whip, which he flourished with all the satisfaction of an amateur; but as the lash was pointed only with a tuft of untwisted sea-grass, its application merely served to keep open the wounds upon the penitent's {260} back, which had been scarified, as I was informed, with the keen edge of a flint, and was bleeding most profusely. The blood was kept in perpetual flow by the stimulating juice of certain herbs, carried by a third person, into which the scourger frequently dipped his lash. Although the actors in this tragical farce were completely muffled, yet they were well known to