RIO DE JANEIRO. 8i 
Another object of utility, in which the health and the 
amusement of the pubhc have been consulted, is the Passeo 
Fublico, or garden for public promenade. This piece of 
ground is laid out in shrubberies, lawns, walks, and parterres. 
Bowers are erected here and there, round which the jasmine, 
the clematis, and the passion flower intertwine their creep- 
ing branches. We observed several native plants of great 
beauty ; but a vehement desire seemed to prevail of cultivat- 
ing, in preference, those of Europe, notwithstanding their 
sickly and diminutive appearance, contracted in a climate so 
unsuitable to their constitution. But the most contemptible 
object in the garden was a miserable representation of the 
papaya tree in copper, of its natural size and painted green, 
whilst the real plant, growing close beside it in all the ex- 
uberance of tropical vegetation, laughed to scorn its stiff and 
deformed mock brother. A broad terrace walk at the lower 
end of the garden, overlooking an arm of the harbour, com- 
mands a delightful view of its rising shores, which are every 
where fringed with coppice. At each end of the terrace is a 
neat square building, whose walls within are covered with 
paintings. As specimens of art, they are not entitled to much 
notice, but the subjects are far from being uninteresting. 
The views, in one of these buildings, are entirely confined to 
detached parts of the harbour ; the ceiling is covered with 
. devices in shell-work ; and round the cornices are representa- 
tions of fish, peculiar to the country, worked in small shells. 
The ceiling of the other building contains similar devices 
wrought in feathers ; and figures of many of the native birds 
are arranged round the cornice, each clothed in its proper 
plumage. On the walls of the latter are eight paintings, de- 
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