RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS. 



61 



that calls itself a garden can hardly fail to be beautiful 

 in a climate where growth is so luxuriant. But it is 

 not kept with great care. Indeed, the very readiness with 

 which plants respond to the least culture bestowed upon 

 them here makes it very difficult to keep grounds in that 

 trim order which we think so essential. This garden boasts, 

 however, one feature as unique as it is beautiful, in its long 

 avenue of palms, some eighty feet in height. I wish it were 

 possible to give in words the faintest idea of the archi- 

 tectural beauty of this colonnade of palms, with their 

 green crowns meeting to form the roof. Straight, firm, 

 and smooth as stone columns, a dim vision of colonnades 

 in some ancient Egyptian temple rises to the imagination 

 as one looks down the long vista.* 



May 6th. — Yesterday, at the invitation of our friend 

 Mr. B , we ascended the famous Corcovado peak. Leav- 

 ing the carriages at the terminus of the Larangeiras road, 

 we made the farther ascent on horseback by a winding 

 narrow path, which, though a very fair road for mountain 

 travelling in ordinary weather, had been made exceedingly 

 slippery by the late rains. The ride was lovely through 

 the fragrant forest, with enchanting glimpses of view here 

 and there, giving promise of what was before us. Occa- 

 sionally a brook or a little cascade made pleasant music by 

 the roadside, and when we stopped to rest our horses we 

 heard the wind rustle softly in the stiff palms overhead. 

 The beauty of vegetation is enhanced here by the singular 

 character of the eoil. The color of the earth is peculiar 

 all about Rio ; of a rich warm red, it seems to glow 

 beneath the mass of vines and large-leaved plants above 

 it, and every now and then crops out in vivid, striking 



* The palm is the beautiful Oreodoxa oleracea. 



