Asylo dos Alienados. 143 



which purposes were applied to the erection and endowment of 

 the asylum ! And thus arose, at the south end of the cove of 

 Botafogo, a splendid palatial edifice — a monument less of 

 humanity and love of our afflicted neighbours, than of the 

 vanity and frailty of poor human nature, the tributes to which 

 erected it. Unfortunately, in this establishment, mere succour 

 is all in all, and the cure seems entirely lost sight of, the 

 sanative treatment of the patients lagging far behind their 

 careful supervision ; in short, it being rather a place for the 

 safe confinement than the recovery of those deprived of their 

 reason. 



One of the most instructive examples of how little the 

 inhabitants of Rio make use of the natural capabilities 

 of the site of their capital, is incontestably furnished by a 

 piece of ground immediately adjoining the Lunatic Asylum, 

 which has been dignified with the name of the Botanic Garden. 

 With the exception of a very fine alley of hundreds of 

 graceful king-palms ( Oreodoxa regia)^ which present a magni- 

 ficent spectacle, growing as they do with such admirable 

 regularity as to appear rather artificial columns than planted 

 trees, the eye encounters nothing but uncultivated land, 

 abounding with the commonest vegetation, alternating with 

 badly-selected nursery plantations, although both in the cli- 

 mate and the soil every facility is at hand for enabling this 

 garden to be made a means of representing the vegetation 

 of every zone of the globe. Even a large tea plantation, for 

 the cultivation of which 10,000 Chinese were imported at 



