While this conversation was going forward, the ship was slowly running down the coast; and as we have ourselves sailed over the same ground, we are able accurately to describe it. On the low flat ground which stretches away to the north of the rock of Lisbon, they could clearly perceive with their glasses the domes and towers of the Escurial of Portugal, the immense palace and convent of Mafra, built by that pious debauchee, John the Fifth. This vast edifice is of a quadrangular form, showing a front towards the sea some seven hundred feet in length, with a lofty portico in the centre, which leads to the church. It seems, by its extent, rather calculated for a fortress, in which to quarter all the troops in the kingdom, than a refuge for humble monks, or a calm retirement for royalty. A suburb, as it were, of houses and cottages has sprung up around it. They next passed under the serrated ridges of the rock of Lisbon towering towards the heavens, embosomed among which lies the beautiful and romantic vale of Cintra, rising, like an oasis in the wilderness, from the arid and scorched plains surrounding Lisbon. From the sea few of its beauties can be perceived, the only conspicuous object being the cork convent of Nossa Senhora da Penha, perched like an eyrie amid the most lofty cliffs, the first name being given to it from its being lined with cork to shield the monks from damp, as great part of it is hewn out of the solid rock. One small gap in the mountain alone allows the voyager a glimpse of the paradise within, filled with cork, orange, citron, olive, and numerous other trees and sweet-scented shrubs. Having doubled the cape, from beneath whose caverned rock the deep murmur of the sea was heard, they passed across the bay of Cascaes, with its low sterile cliffs, and a fresh sea breeze setting in, they entered the majestic Tagus by the northern passage, with a small island to the right entirely covered by a circular castle of white stone, built to protect the mouth of the river, called the Bugio fort. The scene was highly animating to those who had spent day after day without meeting, on the dreary expanse of waters, a friendly bark to cheer their sight, as they beheld numberless vessels, of all classes, sailing up the river with the fresh sea breeze, and boats of every description darting here and there over the sparkling waves. There was the lofty Indiaman, or richly-laden Brazilian ship, (for at that time Portugal monopolised the entire carrying trade to her colonies,) surrounded by a hundred boats which had come out to welcome relations and friends from their long voyage, or to inquire for those who remained behind, or might perhaps never return. Then there was the heavy-sailing English merchant brig, characteristic of her nation, possessing more bottom than speed, and proving to the world that the first maritime people could build the ugliest vessels, not surpassed in that respect by the tub-like,