of the northern Indians, the women remained confined to their houses, with their faces covered, under the belief that if they witnessed the ceremony they would be forthwith transformed into beasts. Meanwhile, the men gathered on the terraced roofs, and looked forth in dread suspense into the darkness. The flames on the summits of the great teocallis, which lighted up the city at all other seasons, had been extinguished; and if the priests failed to rekindle them, it was believed that the night must be eternal, and the world would come to an end. But dimly, through the darkness, a spark was seen to glimmer on the distant summit of the mountain, and from thence it was swiftly borne to the temple, towards which the worshippers turned with renewed hope. As the sacred flame again blazed on the high altar, and was distributed to the other teocallis, shouts of triumph ascended with it to the sky. Feasts, joyous processions, and oblations at the temples followed, and were prolonged through a festival of thirteen days, devoted to a national jubilee for the recovered flame, the type of a regenerated world.[62] The long interval which transpired between this closing rite of the great cycle was of itself sufficient to give it an impressive sanctity in the eyes of the Aztec worshipper. He who witnessed it in youth saw it only once again as life drew towards a close; whilst few indeed of all who rejoiced at the renewed gift of fire could expect to look again on the strangely significant rite. Compared with the annual miracle of the Greek Church in the crypt of the Holy Sepulchre, to which it bears some resemblance, the great festival of the Aztecs was replete with significance and solemn grandeur, though stained with the blood of their hideous sacrifices.