Many years after, Mr. Beckford published his Travels, one volume of which was _An Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha_. Of the kitchen of the magnificent Alcobaça, he gives the following glowing picture:--"Through the centre of the immense and groined hall, not less than sixty feet in diameter, ran a brisk rivulet of the clearest water, flowing through pierced wooden reservoirs, containing every sort and size of the finest river-fish. On one side, loads of game and venison were heaped up; on the other, vegetables and fruit in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stoves extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks of wheaten flour whiter than snow, rocks of sugar, jars of the purest oil, and pastry in vast abundance, which a numerous tribe of lay-brothers and their attendants were rolling out and puffing up into a hundred different shapes, singing all the while as blithely as larks in a cornfield!" The banquet is described as including "exquisite sausages, potted lampreys, strange messes from the Brazils, and others still more strange from China (_viz._ birds'-nests and sharks'-fins) dressed after the latest mode of Macao, by a Chinese lay-brother. Confectionery and fruits were out of the question here; they awaited the party in an adjoining still more sumptuous and spacious saloon, to which they retired from the effluvia of viands and sauces." On another occasion, by aid of Mr. Beckford's cook, the party sat down to "one of the most delicious banquets ever vouchased a mortal on this side of Mahomet's paradise. The _macédoine_ was perfection, the ortolans and quails lumps of celestial fatness, the _sautés_ and _bechamels_ beyond praise; and a certain truffle-cream was so exquisite, that the Lord Abbot piously gave thanks for it." Mr. Beckford returned to England in 1795, and occupied himself with the embellishment of his house at Fonthill. Meanwhile, he had studied Ecclesiastical Architecture, which induced him to commence building the third house at Fonthill, considering the second too near a piece of water. In 1801, the superb furniture was sold by auction; when the furniture of the Turkish room, which had cost 4,000_l._, realized only 740 guineas. Next year there was a sale in London of the proprietor's pictures. In 1807 the mansion was mostly taken down, when the materials were sold for 10,000_l._; one wing was left standing, which was subsequently sold to Mr. Morrison, M.P., who added to it, and adapted it for a country seat.