At the request of the governor, Capt. G. and myself paid him a visit. We were received with courtesy and affability. He is of noble family, not quite thirty years of age; and on this occasion was bedecked with six orders of merit, which he frequently gazed on with apparent satisfaction and delight. The houses here are generally built of stone: those facing the public square are two stories in height, and well stuccoed; on the western side, many of them commodious, well finished and furnished, and fastidiously neat in their appearance. A gallery, resting on a precipice seventy or eighty feet high, extends along their rear, and commands a prospect of neat gardens, securely walled in, and laden with tropical fruits, vegetables, and flowers. We observed several negro girls, in the valley beneath, drawing water for the inhabitants of the town, and, with well filled jars, winding their way up the side of a zig-zag and dangerous path on the hillside. As the eye followed their ascent up the fearful height, from which a false step would have dashed them in pieces, we could not but admire the seeming ease with which they balanced their vessels, and the apparent disregard of danger displayed by them as they frequently bent, in wanton sportiveness, over the projecting crags of the precipice. The population of Porto Praya is said to amount to fifteen hundred or two thousand, nineteen twentieths of which are black or of doubtful origin. As a suitable return for the hospitality we had received from the inhabitants, a supper and dance were given to them on the quarter-deck of the Peacock, which was fancifully decorated with evergreens and flags; that of Portugal holding a conspicuous station. We found fish in abundance in the waters around Porto Praya, and by the help of a seine obtained a good supply, among which we found the mullet and red grouper. Two lancet-fish were also taken: these singular fishes are furnished on each side of the tail with a weapon resembling the spring lancet, which they use both in defence and attack. The date-palm flourishes in the valleys, and all the intertropical fruits may be obtained in abundance in their proper season, and vegetables at all seasons.