60 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



a portion. The road of the Cidade Nova, being the daily route of the royal 

 family, is kept in pretty good order, as well as the whole road as far as the 

 palace of Christovao, which at Matta Porcas turns to the right, and continues 

 for about two miles along a level, with amphitheatres of various and picturesque 

 mountains in every direction. After crossing the third brook, by a small bridge, 

 the way to the palace turns to the left, when a handsome entrance is discovered, 

 not in unison with the palace, but consisting of a wall and iron palisades, ex- 

 tending about thirty yards on each side of it, without any contiguous lodge or 

 building. From hence the road sweeps to the left, up a gentle acclivity, to the 

 eminence upon which the palace stands, fronted by a square, not embellished 

 with shrubs and grass-plots, but of deep sand, which is entered by the left 

 corner, and not by the grand entrance, composed of the elegant gates, a counter- 

 part of those at Sion House, and sent as a present to his Majesty by the Duke 

 of Northumberland. They are placed in the centre betwixt pillars of granite, pe- 

 culiar to the country, and two lodges, the remainder on each side along the whole 

 front of the palace being completed with palisades of Portuguese workmanship. 

 It will excite some surprise in the reader to be informed, that the outer part, 

 which should form a road to this entrance, is allowed to remain in its natural 

 state of hollow and uneven ground, when no very great labour would be re- 

 quired to render it complete. At present, the gates are in disuse, the lodges 

 closed, and, with the aid of the dirt and gunpowder arising from the fire- works 

 ranged along their front, on occasions of religious festivals, the whole already 

 appears in a course of dilapidation. The palace is one story high, perfectly 

 plain, without any pretensions to elegance, or the semblance of any order of 

 architecture, and can boast of nothing but the beauty of its situation. It might, 

 indeed, be mistaken, at a distance, for a manufactory, in consequence of the 

 windows being so crowded together, and particularly at night, when it is lighted 

 up. 



The road, from the point which leads to the palace, continues by either turn- 

 ing a little further on to the left, and ascending a hill, or by the Campo St. 

 Christovao, which sweeps round the hill and meets the other road on the oppo- 

 site side, and afterwards leads on to the province of St. Paulo and Minas 

 Geraes. It is the grand track of the miners and others coming from distant 

 districts, and presents successive troops of mules, laden with different produce, 

 attached to their curious and rudely constructed pack-saddles, by straps of 

 raw hides. 



The road of St. Christovao and the Cidade Nova, are generally crowded 



