_September 9th._--I took two very fine Brazilian boys, who are about to enter the Imperial naval service, to spend the day at the botanical garden, which appears in much better order than when I saw it two years ago. The hedge-rows of the Bencoolen nut (_Vernilzia Montana_) are prodigiously grown: the Norfolk Island pine has shot up like a young giant, and I was glad to find many of the indigenous trees had been placed here; such as the _Andraguoa_, the nut of which is the strongest known purge; the _Cambucá_, whose fruit, as large as a russet apple, has the sub-acid taste of the gooseberry, to which its pulp bears a strong resemblance; the _Japatec-caba_, whose fruit is scarcely inferior to the damascene; and the _Grumachama_, whence a liquor, as good as that from cherries, is made: these three last are like laurels, and as beautiful as they are useful. I took my young friends to see the powder-mills, which are not now at work, being under repair; but they learned the manner of making powder, from the first weighing of the ingredients to the filling cartridges: and then we had our table spread in a pleasant part of the garden, under the shade of a jumbu tree, and made the head gardener, a very ingenious Dutchman, partake of our luncheon; which being over, he showed us the cinnamon they have barked here, and the other specimens of spice: the cloves are very fine, and the cinnamon might be so; but the wood they have barked is generally too old, and they have not yet the method of stripping the twigs: this I endeavoured to explain, as I had seen it practised in Ceylon. The camphor tree grows very well here, but I do not know if the gum has ever been collected. The two boys were highly delighted with their jaunt, and I not less so. Poor things! they are entering on a hard service; and God knows whether the two cousins da Costa may not hereafter look back to this day passed with a stranger, as a bright "spot of azure in a stormy sky."