in itself and garden, made up for whatever we
might have thought romantic in the tents, had they been erected. It is
the fashion to pave the courts of the country-houses here with dark
pebbles, and to form in the pavement a sort of mosaic with milk-white
shells. The gardens are laid out in alleys, something in the oriental
taste. The millions of ants, which often in the course of a single night
leave the best-clothed orange-tree bare both of leaves and flowers,
render it necessary to surround each tree with a little stucco wall, or
rather canal, in which there is water, till they are strong enough to
recover if attacked by the ants. In the garden at Roca, every shrub of
value, either for fruit or beauty, was so fenced, and there were seats,
and water channels, and porcelain flower-pots, that made me almost think
myself in the East. But there is a newness in every thing here, a want
of interest on account of what has been, that is most sensibly felt. At
most, we can only go back to the naked savage who devoured his prisoner,
and adorned himself with bones and feathers here. In the East,
imagination is at liberty to expatiate on past grandeur, wisdom, and
politeness. Monuments of art and of science meet us at every step:
_here_, every thing, nature herself, wears an air of newness, and the
Europeans, so evidently foreign to the climate, and their African
slaves, repugnant to every wholesome feeling, show too plainly that they
are intruders, ever to be in harmony with the scene. However, Roca is
beautiful, and all those grave thoughts did not prevent us from
delighting in the fair prospect of

"Hill and valley, fountain and fresh shade;"

nor enjoying the scent of oleander, jasmine, tuberose, and rose,
although they are adopted, not native children of the soil.

Of the Portuguese society here I know so very little, that it would be
presumptuous to give an opinion of it. I have met with two or three
well-informed men of the world, and some lively conversable women; but
none of either sex that at all reminded me of the well-educated men and
women of Europe. Here the state of general education is so low, that
more than common talent and desire of knowledge is requisite to attain
any; therefore the clever men are acute, and sometimes a little vain,
feeling themselves so much above their fellow-citizens, and the portion
of book-learning is small. Of those who read on political subjects, most
are disciples of Voltaire, and