After waiting with our agreeable and well-informed friends till the sea-breeze set in, we returned part of the way along the lake, and then ascended to the parsonage of Nossa Senhora da Cabeça, where we were joined by several other persons who had come to dine there with us. The Padre Manoel Gomez received us very kindly, and our pic-nic was spread in the ample veranda of his parsonage. Behind the veranda three small rooms served for sleeping-room, kitchen, and pantry. Half a dozen small cottages in the field behind contain the healthy-looking negroes who are employed in his coffee-grounds, and a swarm of children of every shade, between black and white. On a little eminence in the midst of these stands the chapel of Our Lady, which is the parish church of a large district. It is exceedingly small; but serves as the place where the sacraments are administered, and the licences granted for marriages, burials, and christenings. The owners of estates have generally private chapels, where daily mass is performed for the benefit of their own people; so that the parish church is only applied to on the above-mentioned occasions. About a stone's throw behind the chapel, a clear rivulet runs rapidly down the mountain, leaping from rock to rock, in a thousand little cascades, and forming, here and there, delightful baths. Nor is it without its inhabitants, which increase the simple luxuries of the Padre's table. He tells me the crawfish in his stream are better than any in the neighbourhood; the water itself is pure, light, and delicate. At length all our friends had assembled, and we returned to the veranda to dine. To judge by the materials of the feast, so blended were the productions of every climate that we could scarcely have pronounced in what part of the world we were, had not the profusion of ananas and plantains, compared with the small quantity of apples and peaches, reminded us of it. As is usual on such occasions, the oldest inhabitants of Brazil praised most what came from afar; while _we_ all gave the preference to the productions of the country. I was soon drawn away from the table by the beauty of the prospect, which I endeavoured to sketch. The coffee plantations are the only cultivated grounds hereabouts; and they are so thickly set with orange trees, lemons, and other tall shrubs, that they form in appearance rather a variety in the woods, than that mixture of cultivated with wild ground, which might be looked for so near a large city, where we expect to see the labour of man encroaching in some degree on the wild beauties of nature. But here vegetation is so luxuriant, that even the pruned and grafted tree springs up like the native of the forest. As every body was determined to be pleased, we all felt sorry when it was time to separate; but Burns has made all the reflections one can make on breaking up a pleasant party--