We found, that owing to our neglect in not sending beforehand to announce our visit, neither the master of the house nor his housekeeper were at home: however, Mr. N. being an old friend, went into the poultry yard, and ordered thence an excellent supper; and while it was preparing, we went to look at the pottery, which is only for the coarsest red ware. The wheel used here is the clumsiest and rudest I ever saw, and the potter is obliged to sit sideways by it. The clay, both for the pottery and the bricks, is dug on the spot; it is coarse and red: it is tempered by the trampling of mules; but all that we use spades and shovels for is done by the bare hands of the negroes: the furnaces for baking the bricks and jars are partly scooped out of the hill, and faced with brick. Leaving the pottery, we climbed the hill that marks the first approach to N.S. da Luz; and on the way up its steep and rugged side, our dogs disturbed a flock of sheep, as picturesque and as ragged as Paul Potter himself could have desired: they had been lying round the root of a huge old acacia, decorated with innumerable parasite plants, some of which cling like ivy to the trunk, and others climbing to the topmost boughs, fall thence in grey silky garlands, or, like the tillandsia, adorn them with hundreds of pink and white flowers; among these, many an ant and bee had fixed his nest, and every thing was teeming with life and beauty. The moon was up long before we returned from our ramble, and long before our host arrived. Had the Neapolitan ambassador, who told George the Third that the moon of his country was worth the sun of England, ever been in Brazil, I could almost forgive the hyperbole. The clear mild light playing on such scenery, and the cool refreshing breeze of evening, after a day of all but intolerable heat, render the night indeed the season of pleasure in this climate: nor were the rude songs of the negroes, as they loaded the boats to be ready to sail down the harbour with the morning’s land-breeze, unpleasing. As we were looking over the bay, a larger boat appeared: it neared the shore; and our host, Mr. Lewis P., who superintends the fazenda, landed, and kindly received our apology for coming without previous notice. The visit had long been talked of; but now our time at Rio was likely to be so short, that had we not come to-day, we might not have come at all. He led the way to the garden, where we passed the time till supper was ready. The midshipmen found more oranges, and better than they had yet met with, and did full justice to them. The fruit and vegetables of Europe and America, of the temperate and torrid zones, meet here; nor are their flowers forgotten: over against the little parterre, an orange and a tamarind tree shade a pleasant bench; close to which, in something of oriental taste, the white stucco wall of the well is raised and crowned with flower-pots, filled with roses and sweet herbs.