silver plate and put it to other purposes; in any case it is estimated that their annual offerings amount to ten thousand crowns of coined money. No other place I have ever visited makes so great a show of religion. All property which is lost there--and I speak of articles of silver or others not only worth picking up, but worth appropriating by people thus inclined--is deposited by the finders in a certain public receptacle provided for the purpose. Any one who may be so minded may abstract whatsoever he may desire from this receptacle without any cognisance being taken thereof. When I was there I saw many articles thus displayed, paternosters, handkerchiefs, and purses, such as none would own, all at the disposal of the first claimant. With regard to such things as you may buy and leave behind you for the sake of the church, none of the artificers thereof will accept any payment for his labour, for these craftsmen reckon that, by charging only for the silver or the wood, they themselves share the benefit of the act; anything like almsgiving or treating they steadily refuse. Likewise the church officials, who are most attentive to those who wish to confess or to partake of the communion, and in every other respect, will accept nothing for their services. The custom is to give to some one or other of them a sum of money to be distributed amongst the poor in your name after your departure. Whilst I was in the _sacrarium_ there came a man who offered to the first priest he met a silver cup because of a vow he had made; and because he had vowed an offering of the value of twelve crowns, and had laid out less than this on the cup, he paid the balance on the spot to the aforesaid priest, who had put in a plea for the payment of this sum of money as the strict due of the church, and necessary for the perfect and conscientious fulfilment of the vow. When this was done the priest led the man into the _sacrarium_ so that he might himself offer the cup to Our Lady and say a short prayer, the money being dropped into the common alms-box. Instances like this occur daily. Gifts are received in a very off-hand fashion, indeed the acceptance of them is reckoned a favour conferred.