I walked one evening to see the fire-works, which had been preparing for some time for the celebration of a saint’s day, in front of the palace, ranged along, and a few yards distant from the gates and palisades. The veranda was filled with a great many priests and friars, and others about the person of the King. His Majesty and the rest of the family took their station at the fifth window, on the right of the handsome flight of stairs erected by Mr. Johnson. The fire-works were ill executed, and could not be put in comparison with such exhibitions in Europe, which is much to be wondered at, considering the immense revenue here annually expended in this way, and the great number of persons that live by it and follow no other pursuit. Every evening at eight o’clock, excepting holidays and Sundays, the King receives the public, in a room appropriated for the purpose, at St. Christovao, to the honour of _beija-māo_;[13] and the roads of Cidade Nova, Catimby, and Matta Porcas are covered, on those occasions, with officers, and numerous persons in cabriolets, on horseback, and on foot, pressing towards the palace, consisting of those who have some object to carry with his Majesty. When the door is opened there is a promiscuous rushing forward, and a mulatto will be seen treading upon the heels of a general. They advance in single rank up one side of the room to the upper part, where his Majesty is seated, attended by his fidalgos in waiting, and, passing him in review, they countermarch in the same order. It is said that the King has an extraordinary memory, and recollects each individual as he passes, and the object of his visit; those who please speak to him, but a great proportion do not. It would appear that his Majesty is partial to seeing people in this way for a considerable period before he concedes what they want. A gentleman from Lisbon informed me that he had come to Rio expressly to gain some object with the government, and he anticipated a residence of twelve months there before he accomplished it. He purposed omitting none of those numerous attendances of _beija-māo_, unless his neglecting to do so might be observed by his Majesty; who, he observed was particularly desirous of detaining all Europeans there as long as possible. Senhor Thomas Antonio de Portugal, the minister of state, who has a shacara upon the left side of the road, already described, leading to Andrahi, holds a sort of public levee two days in each week, where crowds of officers and others attend, to submit their applications or to solicit his patronage, afterwards proceeding to perform the accustomed ceremony of _beija-māo_ at the palace, during which period, from eight to nine o’clock, a band of music, in no very harmonious strains, is heard through a portion of the valley.