3-077-742 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Festival of St. Antony at the Chapel of San Antonio, Tenerife, 1890. Sketch by Miss E. A. MacDonald Ritchie. 'The Feast of St. Antony is celebrated in the small village of San Antonio..Here is a little hillside chapel, containing what is supposed to be a peculiarly sacred image, with such miraculous powers that all animals brought before it, when blessed on this day, are preserved from evil during the coming year. For the good saint is regarded especially as the patron of cattle, and of all animals employed in agriculture...The peasants are all in gala costume...Mules, horses, oxen, and goats are collected in front of the little chapel, and are tethered or allowed to wander at leisure...Little white booths are dotted here and there for the sale of sweetmeats and roast pork...the chapel is crowded with worshippers...Before the blessing of the animals commences, the little image of the saint, under a flower-decked canopy, is carried round the chapel in procession...the blessing of St. Antony is read from a great book by the priest...At the conclusion of each blessing the men raise a curious wild cry, almost like that of seabirds, and said to be derived from the ancient inhabitants, the Guanchos; they wave their hats in salutation to the saint'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.