196 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Morro de S. Diogo, north of the city, has already been levelled, and several 

 heights have been swept away to improve the ventilation, and to fill up some of 

 the swamps and creeks along the shores of the bay. 



Amongst the improvements already begun, but interrupted by the civil war 

 (1894), is the levelling of the Morro do Senado near the centre of the citv, with 

 the refuse of which the Praia Formosa inlet is to be filled in, thus connecting with 

 the mainland the two islands dos Melôes and das Moças, and reclaiming the whole 

 space of about 820 acres with a mean depth of 10 feet, which stretches a distance 

 of nearly three miles from the beach, at Saude, to the headland of Caju. This 

 scheme, when carried out, will afford a vast space for the expansion of the com- 

 mercial quarter, while the new wharves and the dock, of over 30 acres, will have 

 a mean depth of no less than 30 feet. 



It is also proposed to enclose by a semicircular dyke the whole space com- 

 prised between Fiscal Island and the military arsenal in the east end, and to level 

 the two morros of Santa Antonio and Do Castello. Corcorado, another summit 

 2,330 feet high, is reached from the suburb of Larangeiras, by an extremely steep 

 and winding railway two and a half miles long. From this commanding peak 

 in the south-west, a superb panoramic view is afforded of the city with its domes 

 and belfries, the blue waters of the bay studded with shipping, the wooded and 

 rocky islands and the mountains bounding the horizon in the distance. On 

 Govenindor, largest of the islands, have been found numerous human remains, 

 and other objects dating from prehistoric times. Here Estacio de Sa, founder 

 of Rio, fell mortally wounded in a fray with the Indian allies of the French. 

 More to the north-east stretches the charming island of Paqueta, covered with 

 gardens and villas. Close to the beach between Nictheroy and *S'. Goin;nlo, lies the 

 islet of Flores, a sort of labour market, where immigrants are landed and hired 

 by the planters. Nearly 4,000 were recently crowded together in this narrow 

 space, which affords convenient room for little more than a thousand. 



Several of the surrounding urban groups must be regarded as mere dependen- 

 cies of the metropolis. Such are Santa Cruz, a station on the Central Railway 

 some 38 miles to the west of Rio, where the shambles have been established, 

 Jacarepagua and GuaratiJ>a, both in the neutral municipality, the former on a 

 tributary of the Camorim lagoon, the latter on the plains slojsing south-west to the 

 Marambaia estuar3^ 



TetropoVis, the " Versailles of Rio," lies beyond the neutral territory on the 

 northern slope of the Organ Range, within the Parahyba basin- Originally an 

 agricultural colony, where 2,000 Germans were settled near the imperial residence 

 in 1845, Petropolis has become a great agricultural centre, one of its numerous 

 colleges occupying the imperial chateau itself. Petropolis is also a health resort 

 much fiequented by the citizens of Rio, with which it is connected by a fine high- 

 way often spoken of as the " Simplon " of America, and by a railway of remark- 

 ably steep ascent, crossing the highest crest at an elevation of 2,740 feet. 



From the summit of the Corcovado (2,200 feet), in the Petropolis district, a 

 magnificent panoramic view is commanded of one of the most picturesque regions 



