The period now arrived when I was to visit the tea plantations in the province of St. Paul; and hoping that the cultivators would give me some of the young shrubs, I took M. Houlet with me, leaving the charge of our collections and seedlings to M. Pissis, a French geologist and engineer, with whom I had formed an intimate acquaintance, and who most obligingly offered to attend to them during my absence. Many were the influential persons at Rio Janeiro, who gave me introductory letters to the proprietors and tea growers of St. Paul. We started on the 15th January, by steam-boat, and in two days reached Santos, the principal port in the province of St. Paul; thence crossing the great chain of mountains, named the Serra do Mar, in caravans drawn by mules, we reached the city of St. Paul on the 20th January, where I experienced the warmest reception from the governor, two ex-governors, and some other gentlemen. * * * * * Accompanied by M.J. Gomez and a M. Barandier, an historical painter, whom the desire to visit a new country, and to see its inhabitants, had induced to become _my compagnon de voyage_, we visited almost immediately a M. Feigo, ex-Regent of the Empire, and now President of the Provincial Senate. We found this venerable ecclesiastic at his country-house, two leagues distant from the city, and here we saw all the process pursued on the tea leaf, commencing by the bruising, drying, and scorching of a large quantity of foliage picked the preceding evening. The chief difference that struck me in the mode here adopted, was, that the tender, flexible, and not brittle leaves, were gathered with the petiole and tip extremity of every bud, and that some water was put with them into the iron pan, in which the negresses twisted, squeezed, broke and shook the masses of foliage. The operation was, on the whole, more neatly performed than at Rio. When the tea was perfectly dry and removed from the pan, it was placed aside in a box, shaded from the air and light, and was considered ready for present use, on the spot; but M. Feigo informed me, that when sent to a distance, the cases were hermetically closed, and the tea underwent an extra dessication over the fire. The plantations belonging to M. Feigo, and surrounding his chagara, are extensive, containing about 20,000 tea shrubs, of fine growth and high vigor, most of them six or eight years old, set in regular lines, a metre asunder from each other, and the lines with a metre and a half between them. The soil is excellent, argillaceo-ferruginous, as is generally the case near St. Paul. In the Botanic Garden at St. Paul, some squares are devoted to the growth of tea; but I am not aware that the leaves are ever subject to preparation.