When the first period of nine days had been spent in this mockery of common sense and religion, the fertile minds of our missionaries were not at a loss to find a second course of the same pious mummery, and so on till the infection had ceased at Seville. The preservation of the village from the fever which, more or less, had existed for three or four months in the neighbouring towns, you will easily believe, was attributed by the preachers to their own exertions. The only good effect, however, which I observed, in consequence of their sermons, was the increased attendance of the male part of the population at the _Rosario de Madrugada_--the Dawn Rosary--one of the few useful and pleasing customs which religion has introduced in Spain.
It is an established practice in our country towns to awake the labouring population before the break of day, that they may be early in readiness to begin their work, especially in the corn-fields, which are often at the distance of six or eight miles from the labourers’ dwellings. Nothing but religion, however, could give a permanency to this practice. Consequently a _rosary_, or procession, to sing praises to the Virgin Mary before the dawn, has been established among us from time immemorial. A man with a good voice, active, sober, and fond of early rising, is either paid, or volunteers his services, to perambulate the streets an hour before daybreak, knocking at the doors of such as wish to attend the procession, and inviting all to quit their beds and join in the worship of the Mother of God. This invitation is made in short couplets, set to a very simple melody, and accompanied by the pretty and varied tinkling of a hand-bell, beating time to the tune. The effect of the bell and voice, especially after a long winter-night, has always been very pleasing to me. Nor is the fuller chorus of the subsequent procession less so. The chant, by being somewhat monotonous, harmonizes with the stillness of the hour; and without chasing away the soft slumbers of the morning, relieves the mind from the ideas of solitude and silence, and whispers life and activity returning with the approaching day.
The fever having stopped its ravages about the end of autumn, and nearly disappeared a few weeks before Christmas, my friend and myself prepared to return home. I shall never forget our melancholy arrival in this town on the last evening of December. Besides the still existing danger of infection to those who had been absent, there was a visible change in the aspect of the town, no less than in the looks and manner of the inhabitants, which could not but strike the most thoughtless on the first approach to that scene of recent misery and woe. An unusual stillness reigned in every street; and the few pale faces which moved in them, worked in the mind a vivid representation of the late distress. The heart seemed to recoil from the meeting of old acquaintances; and the signs of mourning were every where ready to check the first risings of joy at the approach of friends that had been spared.