While I resided at Mr. March’s I frequently paid a visit to a Brazilian, Joaquim Paulo by name, who has a small estate about ten miles distant. My first visit was made along with Mr. Heath, and as we arrived shortly before dinner, we were invited to partake of that meal. This I was not displeased at, as it gave me an opportunity of witnessing the internal economy of a Brazilian country-house, never having been in one before. The dinner was substantial and clean, but every dish was, according to the custom of the country, highly seasoned with garlic. The table was covered with a clean cloth, on one end of which was laid a heap of ground cassava root (_Farinha de Mandiocca_), and on the other a heap of ground Indian corn (_Farinha de Milho_). On one of these heaps was placed a large dish of boiled black French beans (_Feijoens_), with a large piece of fat pork (_Toucinho_) in the midst of them; while on the other was laid a dish of stewed fowl. We had also roast pork and blood sausages. From these dishes and heaps every one helped himself. As a vegetable we had a dish of cabbage-palm (_Euterpe edulis_), which is very tender and delicious, tasting not unlike asparagus. During dinner we were each furnished with a cup of Lisbon wine; and after it we had various kinds of sweet-meats. Besides ourselves, there were only our host and two of his sons. Indeed, his wife and daughters I did not see till I had been several times at the house. The two girls were rather pretty, but they could neither read nor write. The father would not allow them to learn either, from fear that they would take to the reading of novels, and the writing of love-letters. He was himself a most inveterate huntsman, being almost always in the woods in pursuit of game. He was a capital shot, and had killed more tapirs with his own hand than any one in the vicinity. I also visited occasionally a coffee plantation called Constantia, about fifteen miles distant from Mr. March’s, belonging to M. De Luze, a Swiss, who had been many years in the country. It is situated in a flat valley surrounded by sloping hills, and is one of the most lovely spots I have ever seen. In the neighbourhood of it there are two other coffee plantations belonging to Germans, but they have all ascertained that the elevation is too great for the successful cultivation of coffee. Since then M. De Luze has sold his estate to Mr. March, and bought a larger one, in a fine coffee country on the banks of the Rio Parahiba. In the latitude of Rio, coffee does not succeed at a much greater elevation than 2,000 feet. At Mr. March’s the bush grows well, but it never ripens its fruit properly.