52 SWABEY DIARY. 
it may be brought, since it even requires one to ascend a ladder and 
examine them to know that these pictures are not on canvas. The 
floor is in devices of mosaic.. All the parts are richly covered with 
gilding, and the whole chapel cost 300,000 crowns. 
I afterwards dined with Taylor at the English hotel, intending to go 
to Belem, but could not stir him after dinner. 
1st September.—Rode with Willis to Belem, where I saw the Prince’s 
riding-school, in which I was disappointed, the painted ceiling being 
very common, and the shape of the school defective, being too long and 
ill calculated for its intended use. We went then to the Museum of 
Natural Curiosities, which is small and very deficient in specimens of 
insects and animals, the minerals and fossils are good, and the collection 
of birds and reptiles well arranged. The Portuguese certainly under- 
stand stuffing animals better than we do in England, and with fish, 
which are here preserved in a manner I could hardly conceive possible, 
they are particularly successful. From the museum we went to the 
Queen’s garden. The plants, annuals, &c. that come under the de- 
scription of garden flowers have few variations from the English kinds. 
There were some shrubs, which I did not know, and in a conservatory, 
all the Brazilian exotics, forming a fine collection and needing no hot- 
house. 
In the evening we saw a grand procession of priests carrying about 
the Host, and attended by some soldiers; the canopy and the image of 
St. Vincent, which formed part of the cavalcade, were very rich, music 
playing all the while. Thermometer 87 degrees. 
2nd September.—Harly dinner with Captain Macdonald, who was 
endeavouring to procure quarters for Mrs. Tonyn,! who had come from 
England to find her husband. 
3rd September.—Rode all over Lisbon to purchase different articles 
that my foresight had not provided for when I left England, particu- 
larly portmanteaus, without which an officer’s baggage might as well be 
at home. 
4th September.—I went in company with George Willis to Sacavem, 
meaning to remain there. I found very comfortable quarters in the 
cleanest house I had yet seen in Portugal, with a large garden well 
supplied with vegetables of every description, and grapes of every sort 
in abundance. Strawberries, I remember having said, were not culti- 
vated in the country, but in this garden there were some beds; it was 
watered by means of a wheel turned by an ox, as are almost all gardens 
about Lisbon and elsewhere. . . . che. 
5th September.—Was up at 3 o’clock with the intention of shooting, 
but waited on the bridge in Sacavem a full hour for daylight, and after 
walking till the heat of the day stopped us, only found three birds, 
which got up out of shot. I could not help recollecting the many 
pleasant hours I had passed when I went to shoot last year in the 
month of September. et rah ea a Pala 
1 Wife of Captain Charles W. Tonyn, 48th Regiment, 
