First come the confraternities of the Precious Blood and of Our Lady of the Cobre, all very decently dressed, the blacks and the whites mixed up, on a footing of perfect equality, holding candles in their hands, without any distinction of caste or colour. Then the Children of Mary, not a few of them dressed up as Saints,--St Agnes with her lamb, St John with sheep-skin wound round his chubby limbs, St Francis as a little monk, and so forth. And lastly, the priests in their showiest vestments, and the choir boys with their incense, and the climax of the function, the Angel,--that is to say, a chariot drawn by two white oxen, whose sweeping horns are tipped with gold foil, in which, on a throne made of leaves and artificial roses, sits a little girl attired as an angel with a flaxen wig, for in tropical countries, where mortals are generally black-haired, all Celestial beings are supposed to be blondes. The angel's wings are made of coloured bits of paper, cut in the shape of feathers, arranged with a distinct eye to artistic effect. When the angel and her chariot arrive in front of the Church the priests bring forth the statue of Our Lady of the Cobre, and place it under a gorgeous canopy, where it remains, whilst the terrestrial angel recites a _loja_ or sonnet, in honour of the Blessed Lady. Then the Benediction is given, all the motley crowd drops on its knees, and afterwards everybody hurries into the Church to hear Mass, and so the religious part of the fiesta ends. Later in the day after the mid-day siesta, we shall find the Guajiro at the cockpit, which women are prohibited by law from attending, so that the Guajira will be discovered sitting outside the village fonda, gossiping with her cousins and friends, and sipping tamarind water, whilst her numerous progeny disport themselves in the middle of the square, where there is a sort of fair in progress. If the favourite cock wins,--and it must surely win on this special occasion,--the Guajiro will be in the best of humours, and he and his wife will dance the Creola until the small hours, for a Cuban dances even when he is half-dead. Long before the sun rises our friends will have wended their way home, and there will be but little joy in their lives until the next fiesta comes round. But as there happen to be seventy-two of them besides fifty-two Sundays, the chintz dress with the big roses will stir up the dust between the farm and Santa-Fé on many an occasion yet, before Christmas comes round again, and everybody goes to pray before the Infante de Dios[16] in the Parish Church.