We had scarcely entered the main street, when my companions suddenly stopped short, and taking off their hats, turned back again. Without comprehending fully the reason, I did the same. The next moment, however, I heard the tinkling of a bell, and looking around the corner, saw a procession of persons with uncovered heads, each bearing a light, preceded by a boy ringing a bell, who was followed by some men playing on violins, and a guard of soldiers surrounding four persons who supported, with silver rods, a crimson silken canopy, over a priest dressed in his robes, and carrying the host. The children fled to the sides of the street and fell on their knees, as did also all the inhabitants, upon the approach of the procession, which was proceeding to the house of some one dangerously ill, or dying. We stood in the cross street, with uncovered heads, as it passed by. It was only a few years before that a party of foreigners had been torn from their horses and otherwise maltreated, because they did not dismount and kneel on an occasion like this. The people, however, had now become comparatively enlightened and liberal, and exacted nothing beyond a decent respect for their religious notions and ceremonies. It looked rather strangely to see a file of soldiers, with glancing bayonets, surrounding a priest bent on such a mission; but either to insure proper respect, or to show it, the guard is never omitted, if men and muskets are, by any possibility, to be found. Sometimes the priest rides in a lumbering carriage, or is carried in a litter or chair, on men’s shoulders. That night, until eight o’clock there was a firing of “bombas” in the plaza, and general demonstrations of satisfaction everywhere, to say nothing of great preparations for the morrow, the day announced for the arrival of General Muñoz and his veteranos. Preceding that event, and the recital of what followed, it will not be uninteresting to turn for a moment to the early history of Granada, which was a city grown, long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and before Hudson entered the bay of New York. [Illustration: VIEWS ON THE ROAD TO THE MALACCAS.] CHAPTER VI.