High mass begins this day behind the great veil, which for the two last weeks in Lent covers the altar. After some preparatory prayers, the priest strikes up the hymn _Gloria in excelsis Deo_. At this moment the veil flies off, the explosion of fireworks in the upper galleries reverberates in a thousand echoes from the vaults of the church, and the four-and-twenty large bells of its tower, awake, with their discordant though gladdening sounds, those of the one hundred and forty-six steeples which this religious town boasts of. A brisk firing of musketry, accompanied by the howling of the innumerable dogs, which, unclaimed by any master, live and multiply in our streets, adds strength and variety to this universal din. The firing is directed against several stuffed figures, not unlike the Guy Fawkes of the fifth of November; which are seen hanging by the neck on a rope, extended across the least frequented streets. It is then that the pious rage of the people of Seville is vented against the archtraitor Judas, whom they annually hang, shoot, draw and quarter in effigy. The church service ends in a procession about the aisles. The priest bears the host in his hands, visible through glass, as a picture within a medallion. The sudden change from the gloomy appearance of the church and its ministers, to the simple and joyous character of this procession, the very name of _Pasqua Florída_, the flowery Passover, and, more than the name, the flowers themselves, which well-dressed children, mixed with the censer-bearers, scatter on the ground, crowd the mind and heart with the ideas, hopes, and feelings of renovated life, and give to this ceremony, even for those who disbelieve the personal presence in the host, of a Deity triumphant over death; a character of inexpressible tenderness. MAY CROSS. The rural custom of electing a May Queen among the country belles is, I understand, still practised in some parts of Spain. The name of _Maia_, given to the handsomest lass of the village, who, decorated with garlands of flowers, leads the dances in which the young people spend the day, shews how little that ceremony has varied since the time of the Romans. The villagers, in other provinces, declare their love by planting, during the preceding night, a large bough or a sapling, decked with flowers, before the doors of their sweethearts. As most of our ancient church festivals were contrived as substitutes for the Pagan rites, which the Christian priesthood could not otherwise eradicate, we still have some remnants of the sanctified _May-pole_ in the little crosses, which the children ornament with flowers, and place upon tables, holding as many lighted tapers as, from the contributions of their friends, they can afford to buy.