We had an agreeable drive back in the cool evening to dinner at the Hotel de l’Europe.  The food was excellent, and included some delicious tiny queer-shaped oysters, which are found on the mangrove-trees, overhanging the water higher up the bay.  We afterwards went to a pleasant little reception, where we enjoyed the splendid singing of some young Brazilian ladies, and the subsequent row off to the yacht, in the moonlight, was not the least delightful part of the programme.

Sunday, August 20th.—­At last a really fine day.  We could now, for the first time, thoroughly appreciate the beauties of the noble bay of Nictheroy, though the distant Organ mountains were still hidden from our view.  In the morning, we went to church on board H.M.S.  ‘Volage,’ afterwards rowing across the bay to Icaraky, where we took the tramway to Santa Rosa.  On our way we again passed many charming villas and gardens, similar to those we had admired yesterday, while the glorious and ever-attractive tropical vegetation abounded everywhere.  In spite of the great heat, the children seemed untiring in the pursuit of butterflies, of which they succeeded in catching many beautiful specimens.

Monday, August 21st.—­After an early breakfast, we started off to have a look at the market.  The greatest bustle and animation prevailed, and there were people and things to see and observe in endless variety.  The fish-market was full of finny monsters of the deep, all new and strange to us, whose odd Brazilian names would convey to a stranger but little idea of the fish themselves.  There was an enormous rockfish, weighing about 300 pounds, with hideous face and shiny back and fins; there were large ray, and skate, and cuttle-fish—­the pieuvre of Victor Hugo’s ’Travailleurs de la Mer’—­besides baskets full of the large prawns for which the coast is famous, eight or ten inches long, and with antennae of twelve or fourteen inches in length.  They make up in size for want of quality, for they are insipid and tasteless, though, being tender, they make excellent curry.  The oysters, on the other hand, are particularly small, but of the most delicious flavour.  They are brought from a park, higher up the bay, where, as I have said, they grow on posts and the branches of the mangrove-tree, which hang down into the water.  We also saw a large quantity of fine mackerel, a good many turtle and porpoises, and a few hammer-headed sharks.  The latter are very curious creatures, not unlike an ordinary shark, but with a remarkable hammer-shaped projection on either side of their noses for which it is difficult to imagine a use.

In the fruit-market were many familiar bright-coloured fruits; for it is now the depth of winter at Rio, and the various kinds that we saw were all such as would bear transport to England.  Fat, jet-black negresses, wearing turbans on their heads, strings of coloured beads on their necks and arms, and single long white garments, which appeared to be continually slipping off their shoulders, here presided over brilliant-looking heaps of oranges, bananas, pineapples, passion-fruit, tomatoes, apples, pears, capsicums and peppers, sugar-cane, cabbage-palms, cherimoyas, and bread-fruit.