242 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



attempt to capture a dark-green lizard, with a very bright 

 orange throat, and a long slender tail, which was running up 

 the stem of a tree. That evening the sunset was even finer 

 than usual, the whole sky around Eio being one scarlet glare, 

 against which the church spires of the town, and the various 

 fantastic forms of the mountain-peaks, stood out in dark 

 relief. On the 16th I walked up to the summit of the Cor- 

 covado, an elevation of nearly 2300 feet, which commands a 

 wonderful view of the harbour of Eio, Botafogo, and the 

 Botanical Garden with its avenue of cabbage-palms, which, 

 viewed from above, presents a very curious formal appearance ; 

 and three days later I had a pleasant excursion with four 

 companions to Tijuca, a valley about 700 feet above the level 

 of the sea, about eight or ten miles distant from Eio, and a 

 great resort for English residents there as furnishing a salu- 

 tary change of air. Taking our places on the top of a 'bus 

 drawn by mules, which started about noon from a square in 

 the city which forms the general rendezvous for public con- 

 veyances, we had a prolonged and rather weary, though some- 

 what amusing) journey, owing to the excessive stubbornness of 

 the quadrupeds, which meandered from side to side along the 

 road, and could with extreme difficulty be urged beyond a 

 walk as far as Anderahy, a village at the foot of a steep hill, 

 which requires to be surmounted before descending into 

 the Tijuca valley. The summit of this hill, up which we 

 walked, is well named Boa Vista, as it commands a fine view 

 of the flat tract of country extending between Eio and An- 

 derahy ; and in its neighbourhood, on the way to Tijuca Peak, 

 is a beautiful cascade, well known as " the little cascade " 

 ("Cascada pequena") of Tijuca, to all who are acquainted 

 with the neighbourhood. Following a gradual descent from 

 Boa Vista, we arrived in course of time at the well-known 



