10 MADEIRA. 
are not calculated to give very exalted ideas of the standing of the 
present Portuguese school of portrait painting. 
His Excellency the Baron Lordello received us very courteously. 
Our audience, however, was extremely formal. The whole furniture 
and appearance of the room served to make it so. We all found 
it difficult to school ourselves to ceremonies, having been ushered as 
we were through dilapidated and impoverished courts and vestibules. 
His Excellency the Baron speaks English remarkably w^ell, which I 
understood he had acquired while acting as an interpreter to the 
British staff in Portugal, during the Peninsular War. He had been 
no more than a week in charge of the government, having just 
arrived from Portugal. After a few monosyllabic questions and 
answers we took our leave, and he did us the honour to see us 
through the anteroom to the hall of entrance, where we parted with 
many bows. 
Our next visit was to the military governor, Senor Rebello, who 
occupied a small apartment at the opposite end of the building. 
This was not large enough to accommodate us all, and chairs were 
wanting for many. The manner and ease of the occupant made 
full amends. Ceremony and form were laid aside; he seemed to 
enter warmly into our plans and pleasures, and evinced a great 
desire to do us service. 
Colonel Rebello was one of the proscribed during the reio-n of 
terror of Don Miguel, and was concealed for four years, all of which 
time our consular flag afforded him protection. During the whole 
time he did not leave the apartment he occupied, or even approach 
the window. 
The streets of the town are very narrow, without sidewalks, 
and to our view like alleys, but their narrowness produces no 
inconvenience. They are well paved, and wheel-carriages are 
unknown. The only vehicle, if so it may be called, is a sledge 
of some six feet in length, about twenty inches wide, and only six 
or eight inches high, on w^hich are transported the pipes of wine. 
Two strips of hard wood are fastened together for runners. 
