. The
boys, mounted as before, together with several gentlemen who had joined
us at Mr. W.'s, enjoyed the novelty of riding home by torch-light; and
as we wound down the hill, the voices of the muleteers answering each
other, or encouraging their beasts with a kind of rude song, completed
the scene. The evening was fine, and the star-light lovely: we embarked
in two shore boats at the custom-house gate, and, after being duly
hailed by the guard-boat, a strange machine mounting one old rusty 6
lb. carronade, we reached the ship in very good time.

20th. We walked a good deal about the town, and entered the cathedral
with some feelings of reverence, for a part of it at least was built by
Don Henry of Portugal, who founded and endowed the college adjoining.
The interior of the church is in some parts gaudy, and there is a silver
rail of some value. The ceiling is of cedar, richly carved, and reminds
me of some of the old churches at Venice, which present a style half
Gothic half Saracenic. Near the church a public garden has lately been
formed, and some curious exotic trees placed there with great success.

In rambling about the town, we naturally enquired for the chapel of
skulls, the ugliness of which had shocked us when here formerly, and
were not sorry to find that that hideous monument of bad taste is
falling fast to ruin. I cannot imagine how such fantastic horrors can
ever have been sanctified, but so it is; and the Indian fakir who
fastens a real skull round his neck, the Roman pilgrim who hangs a model
of one to his rosary, and the friar who decks his oratory with a
thousand of them, are one and all acted upon either by the same real
superstition, or spiritual vanity, craving to distinguish itself even by
disgusting peculiarities.

Of late years superstition has been used as an instrument of no small
power in revolutions of every kind. Even here it has played its part. A
small chapel, dedicated to St. Sebastian, had been removed by the
Portuguese government in order to erect a market-place, where all
articles of daily consumption were to be sold, a small tax being levied
on the holders of stands. This innovation was of course disagreeable to
the people, and on the night of the revolution, in November last, some
of their leading orators accused the market-place of having, by rudely
thrusting out St. Sebastian, occasioned the failure of the vineyards,
and threatened the ruin of the island. The market-place was ins