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SAN ANTONIO Zs
were convinced of it by the evidences of our own eyes.
The streets were full of drunken men who drifted
about in groups until late next morning, screaming and
howling, beating their tambourines and singing hymns,
all of which seemed to end with the refrain “brandy.”
In Granada there was even a worse racket on Christ-
mas eve in the year 1895. On the Alameda there was
a fair-ground with jugglers’ tents, carrousels and
booths where gay objects of all kinds and noise-making
instruments were on sale. In the evening, the whole
population was up and doing, moving through the
streets, a noisy crew of men, each one with his zam-
bomba (a kind of rustic drum) or his chicharra (a sort
of clapper). About midnight they gathered in the
Cathedral to attend midnight mass, planning to con-
tinue a custom of former years, by banging all their
zambombas on the floor at the stroke of twelve and
cutting off each other’s coat tails in the resulting con-
fusion. But nothing came of this latter folly, since the
new prefect of police had stationed about one hundred
gendarmes in the church.
The Andalusian attaches great importance to noise.
Noise will drown out his grief. He uses noise in the
chamber of confinement to reduce the pains of travail
and accelerate birth. There being no great distinction
between a birth and the celebration of a birth, he has
no difficulty in applying this custom on Christmas eve
also.
Of course, noise is an outright necessity in any cele-
bration of the Resurrection. During Easter Week all
loud noises had been banished from Granada, but on
Easter morning the inhabitants hastened to make up
for lost time. They caught all the unclaimed dogs
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