Suburban Residences — Gas Introduced. 125 



and Andarahy. Elegant little villas, frequently built in the 

 strangest and most bizarre style of architecture, alternate 

 in these suburbs with ordinary dwelling-houses, all having 

 most beautifully laid-out gardens. The merchant, the manu- 

 facturer, in fact every individual in easy circumstances, 

 remain in the city only long enough to transact daily busi- 

 ness. Each has his residence in the suburbs, where his 

 family lives, to whose quiet circle he returns every evening. 

 Among these suburbs, those of Caminho Novo and Catete, 

 along the road leading to the charming cove of Botafogo, 

 are more specially the diplomatic quarter, and the residence 

 of the moneyed aristocracy of the capital. 



Amid so much that calls for censure in Rio Janeiro, and of 

 which the aesthetic perceptions of the visitor will apprize him 

 in the course of a stroll in any part of the city, there are two 

 improvements which deserve grateful acknowledgment. The 

 first of these consists in the lighting of the city by gas (pre- 

 pared from English coal), which had been introduced shortly 

 before our arrival, and is now extended to the extreme out- 

 skirts of the suburbs ; the second is the magnificent aqueduct, 

 which provides every quarter of Rio with a lavish supply of 

 excellent drinking-water. However ugly Rio may look in the 

 daytime, the gas at night gives it a magnificent and splendid 

 appearance, particularly from the harbour. When, the evening 

 after our arrival, we gazed out upon the brilliantly-illuminated 

 city that lay before us, we could not help thinking there must 

 be some festive occasion for such a flood of light, ignorant as 



