NARRATIVE. 183 



almost angry because we declined all meals except breakfast and 

 dinner. He keeps a second table, at which his ^nfe, who is an 

 amiable, well-behaved woman, presides over her younger children, 

 the clerks, ^c. ; and it is calculated, that two hundred mouths are 

 daily supphed in tliis establishment. 



Among the dependants of the household is a music-master, 

 expressly imported from Lisbon to teach the children ; but as 

 neither masters nor misses have musical talents or inclination, he 

 fills up his abundant leisure by keeping a httle school, exercising 

 his profession only in the evening, when he thumps out a sonata 

 on the piano, amid a clamour of tongues which renders it impos- 

 sible to do more than guess at the sounds he produces. This 

 double function of his was no small inconvenience to Mr. Bowdich 

 and myself, for his school-room, which was at the same time his 

 bed-room, was only divided from our custom-house quarters by a 

 demi-partition, to the top of which the scholars chmbed, (their 

 master assisting them by holding their legs) to peep over at the 

 strangers, or through which they bored holes to shoot small seeds 

 at us. On our complaining of this annoyance, he assumed a hvige 

 straw hat, and a tremendous broad sword, and paced up and down 

 the room, to the amusement, not terror of his scholars, who enjoyed 

 the joke too much to run away. Tliis alone would have been a 

 droll incident, but, after three days, the nuisance was augmented 

 by the accession of a Serjeant and some recruits, who, being 

 followed by their male and female playmates, rendered our lodging 

 so insupportable, that we could not remain in it. I have no 

 doubt, that Senhor Martins thought us very affected, and conse- 

 quently procrastinated our removal to the new house ; but at last, 

 when I took refuge with the English lady above mentioned, who 

 kindly allowed me and my children to sleep on the floor of her 

 room, he gave us leave to take up our abode with the carpenters, 

 in the unfinished dweUing. Luckily, the wet plaster did us no 



