below the works are the coal-sheds. Here the first turf was
lately turned by an English commodore--this tramway was intended
to connect with the water edge, and eventually to reach the
Cuanza at Calumbo. So Portugal began the rail system in West
Africa.

The city was preparing for her ecclesiastical festival, and I
went ashore at once to see her at her best. The landing-place is
poor and mean, and the dusty and sandy walk is garnished with a
single row of that funereal shrub, the milky euphorbia. The first
sensation came from the pillars of an unfinished house--

"Care colonne, che fate qua?
--Non sappiamo in verita!"

The Ponta de Isabel showed the passeio, or promenade, with two
brick ruins: its "five hundred fruit-trees of various
descriptions" have gone the way of the camphor, the tea-shrub,
and the incense-tree, said to have been introduced by the
Jesuits. "The five pleasant walks, of which the central one has
nine terraces, with a pyramid at each extremity, and leads to the
Casa de Recreio, or pleasure-house of the governor-general,
erected in 1817 by Governor Vice-Admiral Luiz da Motta Feio,"
have insensibly faded away; the land is a waste, poor grazing
ground for cattle landed from the south coast, whilst negrokins
scream and splash in the adjoining sea.

Beyond the Government gardens appears the old Ermida (chapel), Na
Sa. da Nazareth, which English writers have dubbed, after
Madeiran fashion, the Convent. The frontage is mean as that of