Letter From Granada

GRANADA, 1828.

My Dear--: Religious festivals furnish, in all Catholic countries,
occasions of popular pageant and recreation; but in none more so than in
Spain, where the great end of religion seems to be to create holidays and
ceremonials. For two days past, Granada has been in a gay turmoil with the
great annual fete of Corpus Christi. This most eventful and romantic city,
as you well know, has ever been the rallying point of a mountainous region,
studded with small towns and villages. Hither, during the time that Granada
was the splendid capital of a Moorish kingdom, the Moslem youth repaired
from all points, to participate in chivalrous festivities; and hither the
Spanish populace at the present day throng from all parts of the
surrounding country to attend the festivals of the church.

As the populace like to enjoy things from the very commencement, the stir
of Corpus Christ! began in Granada on the preceding evening. Before dark
the gates of the city were thronged with the picturesque peasantry from the
mountain villages, and the brown laborers from the Vega, or vast fertile
plain. As the evening advanced, the Vivarambla thickened and swarmed with a
motley multitude. This is the great square in the center of the city,
famous for tilts and tourneys during the times of Moorish domination, and
incessantly mentioned in all the old Moorish ballads of love and chivalry.
For several days the hammer had resounded throughout this square. A gallery
of wood had been erected all round it, forming a covered way for the grand
procession of Corpus Christi. On this eve of the ceremonial this gallery
was a fashionable promenade. It was brilliantly illuminated, bands of music
were stationed in balconies on the four sides of the square, and all the
fashion and beauty of Granada, and all its population that could boast a
little finery of apparel, together with the majos and majas, the beaux and
belles of the villages, in their gay Andalusian costumes, thronged this
covered walk, anxious to see and to be seen. As to the sturdy peasantry of
the Vega, and such of the mountaineers as did not pretend to display, but
were content with hearty enjoyment, they swarmed in the center of the
square; some in groups listening to the guitar and the traditional ballad;
some dancing their favorite bolero; some seated on the ground making a
merry though frugal supper; and some stretched out for their night's
repose.

The gay crowd of the gallery dispersed gradually toward midnight; but the
center of the square resembled the bivouac of an army; for hundreds of the
peasantry, men, women, and children, passed the night there, sleeping
soundly on the bare earth, under the open canopy of heaven. A summer's
night requires no shelter in