But Portuguese society, as I happen to know very well, from long and varied experience, is extremely agreeable in many places; and certainly the natives of the old country are exceedingly hospitable to strangers. There are several clubs, at the balls of one of which, the Foreign Assembly-rooms, all the rank and fashion of the capital are to be seen, to the number of several hundreds. I had the gratification of being introduced at the Lisbon Club. The house had been formerly, like so many similar institutions in London, a nobleman’s palace. Although not on so grand a scale, it possesses superior accommodation to most places of the kind amongst us; and if the Portuguese keep no Soyer, Francatelli, or Ude, with a _batterie de cuisine_ corresponding in magnitude and diversity to the celebrity of these professors of the finest art—that of giving a good dinner—they have a social party of an evening,[27] when a piquant and substantial tea is provided for those who wish to sacrifice to the ‘Chinese nymph of tears, Bohea.’ The original taste of the Portuguese, who were the first to introduce the beverage to Europe, long before Mr. Pepys drank his ‘cup of China drink,’ [1661,] still survives, as well as the taste for coffee, the berry of Mocha being a favourite among the offspring of the victims of the Arabs. Chocolate, also, is a very popular beverage, and is consumed in considerable quantities at breakfast and supper, the two principal meals among the majority of Portuguese. The upper classes dress like those of other European capitals, but the lower order of females still retain the cloak and hood peculiar to this part of the Peninsula. There is not, however, so much difference now between the costume of the population and that of other cities, as the cowls, sandals, and rope belts of the friars, are no longer to be seen; for, as is well known, all the religious orders (not those of nuns) were suppressed in 1835. There is a strong partiality for gaudy colours and trinkets; but that is passing away.