Early Western Travels, 1748-1846; A Series of Annotated Reprints of Some of the Best and Rarest Contemporary Volumes of Travel, Descriptive of the Aborigines and Social and Economic Conditions in the Middle and Far West, During Volume 20 (Paperback, Annotated edition)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: nished with tenazitas de oro (little golden tongs), to hold the cigar with, so as to prevent their delicate fingers from being polluted either with the stain or scent of tobacco; forgetting at the same time its disagreeable effects upon the lips and breath. Notwithstanding their numerous vices, however, I should do the New Mexicans the justice to say that they are but little addicted to inebriety and its attendant dissipations. Yet this doubtlessly results to a considerable degree from the dearness of spirituous liquors, which virtually places them beyond the reach of the lower classes. CHAPTER XIII Military Hierarchy of Mexico ? Religious Superstitions ? Legend of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe ? A profane version of the Story ? A curious Plan for manufacturing Water ? Saints and Images ? Processions ? How to make it Rain ? The Sacred Host ? Fanaticism and Murder ? Honors paid to a Bishop ? Servility to Priests ? Attendance at Public Worship ? New Mexicans in Church ? The Vesper Bells ? Passion Week and the Ceremonies pertaining thereto ? Ridiculous Penitencia ? Whitewashing of Criminals ? Matrimonial Connexions and Mode of Contracting them ?Restrictions upon Lovers ? Onerous Fees paid for Marriages and Burials ? Anecdote of a Ranchero ? Ditto of a Servant and a Widow, illustrative of Priestly Extortion ? Modes of Burial, and Burial Ground of the Heretics. The Mexicans seem the legitimate descendants of the subjects of 'His Most Catholic Majesty;' for the Romish faith is not only the religion established by law, but the only one tolerated by the constitution: a system of republican liberty wholly incomprehensible to the independent and tolerant spirits of the United States. Foreigners only of other creeds, in accordance with treaty stipulations, can worship private...