Order _Apocyneæ_, the small leaves and drooping branches of which give it somewhat the resemblance of the weeping birch. The fruit is about the size of a large plum, of a yellow colour, but streaked a little with red on one side, and the flavour is most delicious. In the afternoon we returned to Olinda, to dine with another gentleman to whom I also carried letters, Senhor da Cunha. He had been educated in England, and was an intelligent man. After dinner we walked out to see the town, which is very pleasantly situated on an eminence not far from the sea. It is a place of considerable size, and in the olden time must have been a stirring one, particularly as regards the clergy, judging from the number of churches, convents, monasteries, &c. It has now, however, a deserted and desolate appearance, many fine houses being untenanted and falling to decay, and the streets are grown over with grass and weeds. On the outskirts of the seaward side of the town, there are the ruins of a large monastery, which we went to see on account of a hermit who had lived there upwards of seventeen years. We found it to be a very large building, consisting of a church in the centre, still in use, and two wings, containing the apartments formerly inhabited by the friars, which are fast running into decay, particularly those in the south wing. The north wing is in much better repair, having a few good rooms, which are inhabited by some of the students attending a theological and medical school, established in Olinda. Along the corridors, and in some of the larger rooms, are still a few paintings, but in a state of much decay. While surveying this great fabric, we could not help thinking of the contrast it now offers to the times, not long gone by, when its walls re-echoed to the footsteps and prayers of the devotees of a religion, which was then in a much more flourishing state than it now is, over nearly the whole of the empire of Brazil.