After this vow they go to the forest, taking a paper on which the priest has written their name. This they pin with a thorn on the máté plant, and leave it for her to read. Thus she secures her devotees. Roman Catholicism is not "_Semper Idem_," but adapts itself to its surroundings. Máté is drunk by all, from the babe to the centenarian; by the rich cattle-owner, who drinks it from a chased silver cup through a golden _bombilla_, to his servant, who is content with a small gourd, which everywhere grows wild, and a tin tube. Tea, as we know it, is only to be bought at the chemist's as a remedy for _nerves_. In other countries it is said to be bad for nerves. Each house possesses its private altar, where the saints are kept. That sacred spot is veiled off when possible--if only by hanging in front of it a cow's hide--from the rest of the dwelling. It consists, according to the wealth or piety of the housewife, in expensive crosses, beads, and pictures of saints decked out with costly care; or, it may be, but one soiled lithograph surrounded by paper flowers or cheap baubles of the poorer classes; but all are alike sacred. Everything of value or beauty is collected and put as an offering to these deities--pieces of colored paper, birds' eggs, a rosy tomato or pomegranate, or any colored picture or bright tin. Descending from the ridiculous to the gruesome, I have known a mother scrape and clean the bones of her dead daughter in order that _they_ might be given a place on the altar. Round this venerated spot the goodwife, with her palm-leaf broom, sweeps with assiduous care, and afterwards carefully dusts her crucifix and other devotional objects with her brush of ostrich feathers. Here she kneels in prayer to the different saints. God Himself is never invoked. Saint Anthony interests himself in finding her lost ring, and Saint Roque is a wonderful physician in case of sickness. If she be a maiden Saint Carmen will find her a suitable husband; if a widow, Saint John will be a husband to her; and if an orphan, the sacred heart of the Virgin of Carmen gives balsam to the forlorn one. Saint Joseph protects the artisan, and if a candle is burnt in front of Saint Ramon, he will most obligingly turn away the tempest or the lightning stroke. In all cases one candle at least must be promised these mysterious benefactors, and rash indeed would be the man or woman who failed to burn the candle; some most terrible vengeance would surely overtake him or his family. God, as I have said, is never invoked. Perhaps He is supposed to sit in solitary grandeur while the saints administer His affairs? These latter are innumerable, and whatever may be their position in the minds of Romanists in other lands, in South America they are distinct and separate gods, and their graven image, picture or carving is worshipped as such.