For an hour the cathedral door was kept closed, the soldiers remaining all that time with bowed heads, motionless as statues. At length the door was slowly opened, and one of the men wearing violet, having in his hand a long wand, at the end of which appeared a small bright flame, passed out, and proceeded to light up numerous tapers which had been placed on the front of different houses in the Praca. As soon as this was done, a command from an officer caused the men to resume their caps and their upright attitude. Presently the rich, expressive music of a full band was again heard playing the Miserere, and the procession passed out between the glittering and bristling lines, its numbers and its images increased.
Following close after the garden of Gethsemane, there was now an image of the Virgin, attired in an ample purple robe and a long blue veil, worked in silver. The exquisite taste and skill of the Madeiran ladies, exerted upon the richest materials, had given to this figure a lifelike appearance far surpassing that which usually distinguishes other draped statues. Over the clasped hands the velvet seemed rather to droop than lie in folds, while the expression of the attitude, which was that of earnest supplication, as if craving sympathy for some crushing woe, was heightened by the artistic arrangement of the heavy plaits of the robe.
The men who carried this image, and those immediately preceding and following it, wore blue instead of violet cassocks, while the little angels who had brought up the van of the first procession were now clustered about the bearers of the image of the Virgin.
From the cathedral the pageant passed on through the principal streets into the country, the faint peal of the trumpets occasionally coming back to the ear, mingled with the silvery sound of the bells, and the deep boom of the minute-guns. At the foot of the Mount church, however, various changes were effected. The little girls quietly separated themselves from the crowd, and, being watched for by anxious mothers and elder sisters, [{271}] were carried home. A deputy bishop took the place of his superior beneath the canopy, other men relieved the bearers of the banners and images, and other musicians released those whose attendance had commenced with the dawn. All through the day you could trace their course, only occasionally losing sight of them, and all through the night too, by the light of the cedar-wood torches borne by little boys, in snowy tunics, who had joined the procession at the foot of the mount.
To understand how beautiful was the effect of this, you must look with me on the unique and picturesque town of Funchal, running round the blue waters of the bay, and rising up into the vineyards and groves and gardens clothing the encircling hills. A golden light slumbers over the whole scene, so pure and luminous that we can trace distinctly every feature in the luxuriant landscape. The white houses of the town crowned with terrinhas, or turrets, and having hanging balconies glowing with flowers of rare beauty; the majestic palms expanding their broad and beautiful heads over high garden walls; the feathery banana waving gracefully on sunny slopes, where clumps of the bright pomegranates display their crimson pomp; the shady plane-trees running in rows along the streets; the snowy quintas or villas on the hills, becoming fewer and more scattered toward the summit; the churches and nunneries on higher elevations; and still further up the white cottages of the peasantry, with their vine-trellised porches and their gardens of pears, peaches, and apricots; while above and around all these, forming a sublime amphitheatre as they tower to nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea, are the Pico Ruivo and Pico Grande. A wreath of purple mist lay that day, as it almost always does, on their topmost peaks, giving now and again glimpses of their picturesque outline, as, like a soft transparent veil, it was folded and unfolded by the breeze roaming over the solitudes of scented broom and heather. Through such scenes, in view of all, moved the long, glittering pageant just described.
CHAPTER III.
Everywhere the grave declares its victory--in beautiful Madeira as elsewhere. An old servant, whose business it was to cut up fire-wood and carry it into the house, has performed his last earthly duty and finished life's journey. He dwelt with his mother and sister in a cottage at the extremity of the garden; and I was only apprised of the circumstances of his death by hearing loud cries coming up from the shady walks, and the exclamations: "Alas, my son, my son!" and "Oh, my brother!" repeated over and over in accents of uncontrollable grief.
It is customary, as soon as a death occurs in the family of one of the peasant class, for all the survivors to rush forth into the open air, and, with cries and lamentations, to call on the dead by every endearing epithet and implore of them to return once more. The neighbors being thus made acquainted with what has occurred, gather round the mourners, and try to steal away the bitterness of their grief by reminding them that all living shall share the same fate, and that one by one each shall depart in his turn to make his bed in the silent chamber of the grave. By such simple consolations--untaught nature's promptings--they induce the bereaved ones to re-enter the house and prepare the body for interment.
The heat of the climate renders hasty burial necessary in Madeira, and the authorities are strict in enforcing it. From ten to twelve hours is the longest period allowed by law between death and the grave, and the very poor seldom permit even so much time to elapse; they merely wait to ascertain to a certainty that the hand of death has released the imprisoned [{272}] soul before they wrap up the body and carry it with hurrying feet to "breathless darkness and the narrow house."
In such instances coffins are rarely used, and when they are, they are hired by the hour. The usual way is to roll the body up tightly in a sere cloth, then place it in a "death hammock" (which resembles an unbleached linen sheet, tied at the ends to an iron pole); and hurry with it to an unhonored grave.