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.
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