SWABEY DIARY. 51 
29th August.—Set out early for Sacavem to sit at a court-martial on 
Gunners Highton and Taylor for selling necessaries; Driver Joseph 
Dean, for insulting a Portuguese family; Chapple, for being absent 
from stable duty; and Macmullen, for being drunk on parade and 
speaking improperly to Corporal Hedge. ‘This is my first excursion 
into the country, the roads are paved nearly all the way to Sacavem in 
a very rough and disagreeable manner, and it becomes necessary when 
one asks the distance one has to travel to know likewise how long it 
will take one to go. 
The houses and gardens in the suburbs have a very different appear- 
ance from those in Lisbon, béing clean, the latter neatly walled and 
laid out in grape walks, which form generally a continued arbour all 
round them; they are stocked with peaches, strawberries, and good 
vegetables, which, however, require constant care and watering. In 
each garden there is a well with a wheel, round which turn pitchers, 
that lift the water as they rise, and when they turn at the top, dis- 
charge their contents into a trough or stone reservoir. The grain is 
now cut; there is some Indian corn standing and orchards of olives, 
which trees, except in leaf, exactly resemble pear orchards in Here- 
fordshire, and are generally fenced with loose stone walls or rows of 
aloes which grow very large here, and form an impenetrable barrier. 
In the gardens there are arbours formed of a species of tree similar to 
box or myrtle, containing seats, with fish-ponds and regular parterres 
edged with box. The flowers now in bloom, which are planted al- 
ternately, are the convolvulus and balsam. I have as yet seen no 
hot-houses, though I suppose it is possible to have grapes all the year 
OUNCE Memes inher ite aoe e eget csr Fer ee ace en ee eee 
30th August.—Returned to Lisbon with Taylor, who dined with me: 
I renewed my acquaintance with Captain Webb of the 4th Dragoon 
Guards (my step-mother’s nephew), whom I found at Sacavem. 
31st August.— Wrote to Kate and Mr. Walcott, and afterwards went 
to the church of St. Roque to see the mosaic picture. ‘The church is 
most splendid, containing, besides the High Altar, 10 chapels. To 
give an idea of the richness of Catholic churches, I minutely took down 
notes of one of the richest chapels, which were as follows: the footsteps 
to the altar, porphyry ; the base or part on which it stands, granite; the 
slab itself studded with amethysts, its edges granite. The pillars to sup- 
port the canopy are lapis lazuli, their bases alabaster. A slab on which 
stand the candles above the altar is cornelian, the door-posts to the 
entrance of the chapel entirely of verd-antique.! For the furniture on 
the altar, besides the candlesticks of silver, there are two beautiful 
candelabra or claws with various devices in silver gilt, and two pieces 
of alabaster in the form of butterflies with expanded wings. The front 
of the altar, a representation of the offering of the Lamb, is in silver 
on lapis lazul, and it alone cost 80,000 dollars. Above the altar-piece 
is the mosaic picture of the Pentecost, on one side the Annunciation, and 
on the other the Baptism of our Saviour. Hveryone knows what mosaic 
work is, but few have an opportunity of conceiving to what perfection 
1 A green porphyry used as marble and called oriental yerd-antique—F.4.W. 
