For my passage and that of my black servant I paid twenty-six mil-reis, about three pounds five shillings sterling, which included provisions. These were regularly served out three times a day by the captain from the top of the companion, and on these occasions, I was always greatly amused at the scenes which took place; every one rushed forward for his portion, and sometimes groups of twos, threes, and fours were to be seen eating with their fingers out of the same dish. There were only a few knives and forks, not nearly sufficient for the number of passengers, and these fell always to the share of those first served. Our food consisted for the most part of minced dried beef boiled with rice, to which was added morning and evening a cup of tea, and at dinner a bottle or two of miserable red wine. One of my fellow-passengers was too remarkable a person not to be made mention of; he was an active, slender little fellow, about thirty years of age, rather well dressed, his physiognomy denoting a remarkable development of the organ of language, a qualification which I found fully confirmed in him; he seemed to be well known to the other passengers, beguiled much of the tedium of the voyage by his amusing and extravagant stories, for which he possessed great talent, and seldom have I listened to one whose powers were greater in this respect. He was often called upon for a song, on which occasion he was accompanied by a young man who played well on the guitar. He told me that he was a native of Pernambuco and had visited Lisbon, and all the sea-ports between Buenos Ayres and Parà, and he described many of the adventures that befell him on several of these occasions. In recounting these tales he generally seated himself cross-legged on the companion, and as he proceeded, his listeners were kept in one continued roar of laughter. The adventures of Gil Blas were nothing compared with his, and it is not improbable that many were manufactured for the occasion.