in the centre betwixt pillars of granite, peculiar to the country, and two lodges, the remainder on each side along the whole front of the palace being completed with palisades of Portuguese workmanship. It will excite some surprise in the reader to be informed, that the outer part, which should form a road to this entrance, is allowed to remain in its natural state of hollow and uneven ground, when no very great labour would be required to render it complete. At present, the gates are in disuse, the lodges closed, and, with the aid of the dirt and gunpowder arising from the fire-works ranged along their front, on occasions of religious festivals, the whole already appears in a course of dilapidation. The palace is one story high, perfectly plain, without any pretensions to elegance, or the semblance of any order of architecture, and can boast of nothing but the beauty of its situation. It might, indeed, be mistaken, at a distance, for a manufactory, in consequence of the windows being so crowded together, and particularly at night, when it is lighted up. The road, from the point which leads to the palace, continues by either turning a little further on to the left, and ascending a hill, or by the Campo St. Christovao, which sweeps round the hill and meets the other road on the opposite side, and afterwards leads on to the province of St. Paulo and Minas Geraes. It is the grand track of the miners and others coming from distant districts, and presents successive troops of mules, laden with different produce, attached to their curious and rudely constructed pack-saddles, by straps of raw hides.