The import and export duties are paid at the custom-house, between which and the treasury a monthly settlement takes place. The port dues for foreign ships are 2000 reals per day, a trifle for the light house, and rather heavy charges for entering, clearing, &c. Portuguese and Brazilian ships pay no anchorage, but are subject to a tonnage. We ended our perambulation of the town, by going to the opera at night. The theatre[69] is placed on the highest part of the city, and the platform before it commands the finest view imaginable. It is a handsome building, and very commodious, both to spectators and actors. Within it is very large and well laid out, but dirty and in great want of fresh painting. The actors are very bad as such, and little better as singers; but the orchestra is very tolerable. The piece was a very ill-acted tragedy, founded on Voltaire's Mahomed. During the representation, the Portuguese ladies and gentlemen seemed determined to forget the stage altogether, and to laugh, eat sweetmeats, and drink coffee, as if at home. When the musicians, however, began to play the overture to the ballet, every eye and voice was directed to the stage, and a loud call for the national hymn followed, and not till it had been played again and again, was the ballet suffered to proceed. During the bustle occasioned by this, a captain in the army was arrested and hurried out of the pit; some say for picking pockets, others for using intemperate language on politics, when the national hymn was called for. Meantime one of the midshipmen of our party had his sword stolen, adroitly enough, from the corner of the box, yet we perceived nobody enter; so that we conclude a gentleman in regimentals in the next box thought it would suit him, and so buckled it on to go home with. [Note 69: It was begun by the Conde da Ponte, and finished by the Conde dos Arcos after the arrival of the king in Brazil. It was opened May 13th, 1812.]