54 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
mediately under the mountains to the foot of the Cor- 
covado, where it becomes too steep for carriages, the farther 
ascent being made on mules or horses. But it was too late 
for us, the peak of the Corcovado was already bathed in 
the setting sun. We wandered a little way up the ro- 
mantic path, gathered a few flowers, and then drove back 
to the city, stopping on our return to ramble for half an hour 
in the " Passeio Publico." This is a pretty public garden 
on the bay, not large but tastefully laid out, its great 
charm being a broad promenade built up from the water's 
edge with very solid masonry, against which the waves 
break with a refreshing coolness. To-morrow we are in- 
vited by Major Ellison, chief engineer of the Dom Pedro 
Railroad, to go out to the terminus of the road, some hun- 
dred miles through the heart of the Serra do Mar. 
April 21th. Perhaps in all our journeyings through 
Brazil we shall not have a day more impressive to us all 
than this one ; we shall, no doubt, see wilder scenery, 
but the first time that one looks upon nature, under an 
entirely new aspect, has a charm that can hardly be re- 
peated. The first view of high mountains, the first glimpse 
of the broad ocean, the first sight of a tropical vegetation 
in all its fulness, are epochs in one's life. This wonderful 
South American forest is so matted together and inter- 
twined with gigantic parasites that it seems more like a 
solid, compact mass of green than like the leafy screen, 
vibrating with every breeze and transparent to the sun, 
which represents the forest in the temperate zone. Many 
of the trees in the region we passed through to-day seemed 
in the embrace of immense serpents, so large were the 
stems of the parasites winding about them ; orchids of 
various kinds and large size grew upon their trunks; and 
