been done
as to give reasonable hopes of farther improvement, when the political
state of the country shall be quiet enough to permit attention to these
things.

The stream that waters the garden flows through a lovely valley, where
the royal powder-mills are situated; but being fearful of too much
exertion for Langford we put off visiting them to another day, and
returned to the garden gate to breakfast. His Majesty John VI. built a
small house there, with three or four rooms, to accommodate the royal
party, when they visited the gardens. Our breakfast was prepared in the
veranda of that house, from whence we had a charming view of the lake,
with the mountains and woods,--the ocean, with three little islands that
lie off the lake; and in the fore-ground a small chapel[79] and village,
at the extremity of a little smooth green plain.

[Note 79: Dedicated to St. John Baptist. I am not sure whether this
or N.S. da Cabeca is the mother church; the same clergyman officiates in
both.]

After waiting with our agreeable and well-informed friends till the
sea-breeze set in, we returned part of the way along the lake, and then
ascended to the parsonage of Nossa Senhora da Cabeca, where we were
joined by several other persons who had come to dine there with us. The
Padre Manoel Gomez received us very kindly, and our pic-nic was spread
in the ample veranda of his parsonage. Behind the veranda three small
rooms served for sleeping-room, kitchen, and pantry. Half a dozen small
cottages in the field behind contain the healthy-looking negroes who are
employed in his coffee-grounds, and a swarm of children of every shade,
between black and white. On a little eminence in the midst of these
stands the chapel of Our Lady, which is the parish church of a large
district. It is exceedingly small; but serves as the place where the
sacraments are administered, and the licences granted for marriages,
burials, and christenings. The owners of estates have generally private
chapels, where daily mass is performed for the benefit of their own
people; so that the parish church is only applied to on the
above-mentioned occasions. About a stone's throw behind the chapel, a
clear rivulet runs rapidly down the mountain, leaping from rock to rock,
in a thousand little cascades, and forming, here and there, delightful
baths. Nor is it without its inhabitants, which increase the simple
luxuries of the Padre's table. He tells me the crawfish in his strea